Copyright, 1907, by The Taylor-Trotwood Publishing Co. All rights reserved. Entered as second-class matter, January 12, 1907, at the post-office at Nashville, Tennessee. _THE TAYLOR-TROTWOOD MAGAZINE ADVERTISEMENTS_ BRANDON PRINTING COMPANY BLANK BOOK MAKERS A SHIELD AGAINST INFERIORITY Brandon’s name on a blank book means that it is well seasoned, well made, of the best materials obtainable. A book that falls to pieces before it is used up is dear at half the price of a good book. We make ours right, sell them right—in fact, they are the right books for you to use. Brandon Printing Co. Lithographers, Printers and Blank Book Makers NASHVILLE, TENN. CATALOGUE OF OUR 50c BOOKS. Hunter & Co., Nashville, Tenn. _In writing to advertisers please mention the Taylor-Trotwood Magazine_ [Illustration: “Standing at the small gate, now off its hinges, she took in all the surroundings and tried to imagine Ervin amid them”—_The Shadow of the Attacoa, page 626_] THE TAYLOR-TROTWOOD MAGAZINE VOL. IV MARCH, 1907 NO. 6 FAMOUS THRESHOLDS IN WASHINGTON THE OCTAGON HOUSE By Annie Riley Hale At the northwest corner of New York Avenue and Eighteenth Street, within a stone’s throw of the War, State and Navy Department, and almost within the shadow of the Corcoran Art Gallery, is a queer old red brick structure, with stone steps leading up to the white-pillared portico, which is known in Washington as the “Octagon House.” As a historic mansion, as a “haunted dwelling,” and as a unique piece of Colonial architecture, the Octagon has a triple claim to a place in the catalogue of “famous thresholds.” Back in 1798—that same year in which George Washington laid the cornerstone of his “two buildings” on North Capitol Street—another Virginian, Colonel John Tayloe, moved by the persuasive arguments of our first President and first real estate boomer for the Federal City, decided to build his “town residence” in Washington, instead of Philadelphia, as was his original intention. Colonel Tayloe’s Virginia estate, “Mt. Airy,” comprised eight thousand fertile acres along the Rappahannock, with five hundred slaves and a superb villa, all inherited from his father, a member of the House of Burgesses, who built the Mt. Airy country seat in 1758, on a scale of magnificence unsurpassed at that period in this country. The site of the Octagon was purchased from Mr. Benjamin Stoddert, our first Secretary of the Navy, an office created by the first Adams.