The Seward House

The Seward House stood at 717 Madison Place, on the east side of Lafayette Square, where the Howard T. Markey National Courts Building now stands. Built by Commodore John Rodgers about 1831, it later became the Washington Club, a gentlemen's club. On 27 February 1859 Congressman Daniel Sickles shot Philip Barton Key, the son of Francis Scott Key, in the square a few steps from the club, and bystanders carried Key inside, where he died. Sickles was acquitted on a plea of temporary insanity, one of the first American trials won that way.

Secretary of State William H. Seward rented the house from 1861 for $1,800 a year. On the night of 14 April 1865, while Lincoln was being shot at Ford's Theatre, Lewis Powell came to the door with a story about medicine from Seward's doctor and pushed past the servant, William Bell. Seward was in bed, recovering from a carriage accident nine days earlier that had broken his jaw and right arm. On the stairs Powell's revolver misfired at Frederick Seward, the Secretary's son, and Powell beat him with it until it broke, then slashed the Secretary's face and neck with a knife. The nurse, Private George F. Robinson of the 8th Maine, and another son, Augustus, were wounded fighting him off, and a messenger, Emerick Hansell, was stabbed as Powell fled. Five men were hurt and none died.

The house was demolished in 1894. The Lafayette Square Opera House opened on the site in 1895 and was renamed the Belasco Theatre in 1905; it was razed in 1964, and the courts building was dedicated in 1967.