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Peirce-Klingle Mansion

Washington, D.C., listed on the NRHP in Washington, D.C

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 1, 2026
Entity authorityQ7191772 ↗
Source-derived summary

Peirce-Klingle Mansion, also known as Linnaean Hill, is a historic house in Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C. It has been listed on the District of Columbia Inventory of Historic Sites since 1964 and it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. It is a contributing property in the Rock Creek Park Historic District.

History

Joshua Peirce built the house in 1823 and named it Linnaean Hill after Carl Linnaeus, the Swedish botanist. Peirce, himself a horticulturist, introduced the box garden to Washington and supplied the first ornamental plantings to the White House, United States Capitol, and other government buildings. Notable members of Washington society, such as Senators Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, and Henry Clay were regular visitors to the house.

Because Joshua Peirce died without any children, his estate passed to his nephew, Joshua Peirce Klingle, who lived in the house with his wife until 1890. That year, the house was bought by the United States government as a part of Rock Creek Park. Public Works Administration funds were used to restore the house and grounds in 1937. It was leased by the government as a private residence until 1952. The Junior Nature Center then leased the building until 1959, when it was leased to the Junior League of Washington for its administrative offices.

Editorial summary

“Peirce-Klingle Mansion” enters the record as washington, D.C., listed on the NRHP in Washington, D.C. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Peirce-Klingle, Mansion and Washington can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1964, 1973, 1823, 1890—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Peirce-Klingle, Mansion and Washington.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Peirce-Klingle Mansion” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Peirce-Klingle, Mansion and Washington provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7191772. VIAF identifies the subject as 316746721. Authority coordinates are 38.938, -77.050. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1964, 1973, 1823 and 1890.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Peirce-Klingle Mansion” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.