(The imposter SW2 District Boundary Stone, a blatant fraud in location and material. The cage is authentic enough, though.)
The best thing I can say about SW2 is that there is a decent bar right near it. Joe Theismann’s Restaurant (1800 Diagonal Rd) is a fun sports bar, and recalls a time when there was a football team in Washington. Don’t get me started about this year.
Apparently the family used to pronounce their name “Theese-man,” but when Joe was being considered for the Heisman Trophy while at Notre Dame, they changed it to match the coveted award for the best player in the NCAA Division One football. There is a lot of sports memorabilia and it is only moderately expensive. There are plenty of hotels around there, too, if you wanted to spend the weekend with the Stone, but I don’t see why you would want to.
The Stone is a fake in almost every particular. It doesn’t look anything like what the real things do, which is like this diagram from Fred Woodward’s pioneering work in 1906:
(This is what a real, complete boundary stone looked like before centuries of abuse. Or at least it would if you unfolded the Aquia Creek sandstone pillar. They consisted of a base, roughly hewn, and then a smooth rectangular shaft about three feet long gently beveled at the tip. On the sides were inscriptions of date, magnetic compass variation and the side of the stone announcing the state and Federal Enclave jurisdictions. This one is from the North Stone, one of the four cardinal monuments which were slightly larger than the milestones. Diagram Fred Woodward).
You will note that the alleged Stone at Russell Street bears no relationship whatsoever to a real stone. The material is wrong, being granite, akin to a tombstone, and the inscription is entirely missing. Back in 1906, Fred said he could find neither hide nor hair of an original stone where he searched, and earlier Marcus Baker could not find one either. They theorized the Stone must have been removed prior to the Baker expedition in 1894.
DAR records report that the substitute was placed there in 1920, so the cage around the Stone is authentic and almost a century old, though the marker is only a poor stand-in. The original stone was located about 0.35 northwest of this replacement. According to Woodward, the original “stone was evidently placed on the east side, and very close to King Street, on the eastern side of Shuter’s Hill, in a subdivision now called Rosemont.”
To get to SW2 from SW1 (1220 Wilkes Street): Head east on Wilkes St toward S Fayette St- about two tenths of a mile. Turn left onto S Patrick St, another two tenths, and turn left onto Duke St for a little less than half a mile. Turn right onto Daingerfield Rd for two tenths of a mile, then left onto King Street. You will see the massive bulk of the Alexandria Masonic Temple looming above. A tenth of a mile on King and you will come to Russell Rd. Turn right, and SW2 Stone will be in the DAR cage on the right, about two hundred feet down. Take the obligatory picture, knowing it is fraudulent, then cross the railroad tracks and enter Joe Theismann’s for a refreshing cocktail.
The variety of that is entirely your choice.
Copyright 2015 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303