GEORGETOWN, formerly a city of the District of Colum bia, U.S.A., and now part of the city of Washington, at the confluence of the Potomac river and Rock Creek, about 2im. W.N.W. of the National Capitol. The streets are old-fashioned, narrow and well shaded. On the "Heights" are many fine resi dences with beautiful gardens; the Monastery and Academy of Visitation for Girls, founded in by Leonard Neale, second archbishop of Baltimore; and the college and the astronomical observatory (1842) of Georgetown university, founded in 1789. Rising in terraces from Rock Creek is Oak Hill cemetery, a beau tiful burying-ground containing the graves of John Howard Payne, the author of "Home, Sweet Home," Edwin McMasters Stanton and Joseph Henry. On the bank of the Potomac is a brick house which was for several years the home of Francis Scott Key, author of "The Star-Spangled Banner"; on Analostan island in the river was a home of James Murray Mason ; Georgetown Heights was the home of the popular novelist, Mrs. Emma Dor othy Eliza Nevitte Southworth . Georgetown was settled late in the 17th century, was laid out as a town in 1751, chartered as a city in 1789, merged in the District of Columbia in 1871, and annexed to the city of Washington in 1878. In the early days of Washington it was a social centre of some impor tance, where many members of Congress as well as some cabinet officers and representatives of foreign countries lived and the President gave State dinners ; and here were the studio, for two years, of Gilbert Stuart, and "Kalorama," the residence of Joel Barlow.
See R. P. Jackson, The Chronicles of Georgetown, D.C. from 1751 to 5878 (1878) ; H. T. Taggard, Old Georgetown (Lancaster, Pa., 1908) ; W. A. Gordon, "Old Homes on Georgetown Heights," Columbia Hist. Soc. Rec., vol. xviii., pp. 70-91 (1915) ; and W. Tindall, "The Execu tives and Voters of Georgetown," ib., vol. xxiv., pp. 89-117 (1922).