Rachel Carson was your neighbor.
“She wrote letters to the Washington Post, spoke to her neighborhood Civic Association, was in touch with politicians, elected officials, went on nature outings and served on the board of the Audubon Naturalist Society (now Nature Forward),” says Laura Mol, a founding member of Friends of Sligo Creek and a longtime resident of the watershed.
Carson wrote “Silent Spring” in Silver Spring: Its subject, the toxic impact of the agricultural pesticide DDT and several other chemical contaminants. The book, which
detailed their widespread harm on people and animals, led to an outcry across the country.
Despite a vigorous campaign to discredit Carson by the chemical industry, DDT was banned in 1972. An international treaty put an end to its agricultural use worldwide in 2001 but was still permitted in the fight against malaria.
The attention that Carson brought to this issue ignited the modern environmental movement with passage of the Clean Air Act in 1963 and, in quick succession in the early 1970s, the first Earth Day, the Clean Water Act, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Endangered Species Act.
Carson, a biologist, moved to Silver Spring in 1937 to support her family.
It was a convenient location for work with the now called Fish and Wildlife Service, where she rose to editor-in-chief for all its publications. Over the years, she also gained acclaim for her nature writing. “The Sea Around Us,” serialized in The New Yorker, went on to become her first bestselling book.
Published in 1951, it gave her the financial security to leave her government job and continue writing.
Five-Rentals and a Homestead
Paging among multiple biographies and online sources, Mol meticulously constructed a timeline to detail where Carson lived, worked, and what books and articles she wrote from 1937 until her death in 1964.
Mol then set out to photograph each of Carson’s homes or, as she soon discovered, what was left of them. The result is an annotated photo essay on the Friends of Sligo Creek website with a map of Carson’s journey through the Sligo Creek and Northwest Branch watersheds.
Mol recorded that Carson lived in six homes. The first five were rentals (four in Silver Spring), including the house at 904 Highland Drive, in Woodside Park, a 1920s subdivision with large trees and deep backyards that retains much of the same wooded character as when Carson lived there from 1937-1939.
Her second home (1939-1942) at 9409 Flower Avenue in the Seven Oaks neighborhood, Mol located near Eastern Middle School.
A third rental (1943-1945) at 7724 Maple Avenue in Takoma Park, no longer exists, replaced by a three-story condo.
Her fourth home at 9713 Sutherland Road (1945-1949) in the upper edge of North Hills is also gone, torn down with Beltway construction.
The fifth rental (1949-1956) was at 204 Williamsburg Drive, off of University Boulevard, close to the (then) new Woodmoor Shopping Center and across from where Montgomery Blair High School stands today.
At Home in Quaint Acres
Financially able to build her own home, Carson decided on Quaint Acres, a former nursery and wooded area, a short walk from the Northwest Branch of the Anacostia River.
She describes the location in a letter on April 9, 1957, to her dear friend Dorothy Freeman. This and other letters between the two women were published in “Always Rachel: The letters of Rachel Carson and Dorothy Freeman, 1952-64.”
“Today I noticed a nice little apple tree – crab apple, perhaps – showing pink buds, in the future backyard. And there are several lovely hawthorns, a legacy from the nursery, I imagine. There are several large maples, including a handsome one in the front; a big sycamore, some willows, poplars, and lovely pines of all sizes.”
In that same letter, Carson noted that the landscape around the house should remain wild.
“Yes, a whole corner left as a wild tangle, wet underfoot for birds and frogs. And few, if any, formal beds or border.”
On April 14, 1956, Carson wrote to Dorothy that her ideal home must have lots of light.
“If there is one thing I long for in considering the ideal house it’s light. I want lots of it and if possible, windows open to views of sunrise and sunset and moonlight.
It’s here at 11701 Berwick Road that Carson built the mid-century-modern single-story brick rambler, with three bedrooms, two bathrooms and lots of windows. In 1957, she moved in with her mother, adopted grandnephew Roger and two cats and would live there until her death seven years later.
The Rachel Carson House
In 1991, the Rachel Carson House was designated a National Historic Landmark by the Department of the Interior.
Today, it’s managed by the Rachel Carson Landmark Alliance, a nonprofit dedicated to Carson’s ecological legacy and life associated with her writing. Its president, Diana Post, a veterinarian by training, left her job as president of the Rachel Carson Council, to form the alliance.
Post and her husband Cliff Hall own the house, but they don’t live there; however, it’s where Post works on most days.
As she guides us through the home, she notes that structurally the house remains largely the same as when Carson lived there. She points out the large picture windows in the
living room, the natural stone fireplace and mirrored shelves in the kitchen, where Carson likely kept her beloved shell collection from Southport, Maine, where she spent the summers.
Then we walk into Carson’s wood-paneled study, which is lined with shelves with Carson’s own books.
Among them are “The Joy of Gardening” by Vita Sackville-West, “My Wilderness” by William O. Douglas, “Man of Mercy” by Albert Schweitzer and “Profiles in Courage” by John F. Kennedy, whose science advisers validated the findings in “Silent Spring.”
A Home at One With Nature
Carson was exuberant about her home, and in tune with the seasons, writing to Dorothy Freeman on March 4, 1961:
“I think I see my bluebells coming up — you know clumps of early leaves are a dark purple. Yesterday I saw my first grackles — glistening in the sun. They may have been here a while unseen by me, for usually they return in February. All these reminders that the cycles and rhythms of nature are still at work are so satisfying.”
Post says stewardship of the National Historic Landmark is truly inspiring year-round.
“Outdoors, there is the delight in observing the wild birds on the grounds that surround the house,” she says. “Indoors, there is the special thrill of having access to Rachel Carson’s study where she combined her literary genius with high scientific standards to create ’Silent Spring,’ a great book that changed history.”
During COVID, the Rachel Carson Landmark Alliance canceled its annual public open house on Sept. 27, the anniversary of the publication of “Silent Spring.”
Post says this year the Alliance is considering an online event with lectures, music and poetry. The house is open by appointment only for those who want to explore Rachel Carson’s life and work, and to pay tribute to their neighbor.
Over her long career as an environmental reporter for Voice of America, Rosanne Skirble walked by Rachel Carson’s house on Highland Drive in Silver Spring every day on her way to work.