Owners and Tenants, 1819-1956

• Decatur
• Hyde de Neuville
• de Tuyll
• Clay
• Van Buren
• Livingston
• Vaughn
• Gadsby
• Dallas
• Gales
• John & James King
• Appleton
• Orr
• Benjamin
• McBlair
• United States Army
• Edward Beale &
  Mary Beale
• Truxtun Beale
• Marie Beale

TIMELINE OF OWNERS AND TENANTS
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Joseph Gales (tenant, 1849-1850)

Though not as well known nationally as previous Decatur House residents, Joseph Gales was a fixture in Washington as the writer and editor of the National Intelligencer, a journal dedicated to recording the daily happenings in both Congress and the White House. Born in England, Gales began his journalism career working on his father’s democratic journal, the Register. After the publication drew the ire of the British government, Gale’s father moved to the United States and set up a new newspaper in Philadelphia, the Independent Gazetteer. Though his father sold the paper in 1799,
Joseph Gales continued to work for its new owner, Samuel Harrison Smith, who moved the paper to Washington and renamed it the National
Intelligencer. Gales became sole proprietor of the paper in 1810.

Gales became part of the inner political circles of Washington, and had been friends of the Adams, Webster, and Calhoun families. Gales was not shy to politics, and actively supported successively the Republicans, Whigs, and Constitutional Democrats. He was an avid supporter of Clay’s pan-American policy, as well as unabashed critic of Jackson’s administration. Gales’ influence gradually waxed and waned according to these loyalties. While the National Intelligencer had successively been the officially-sanctioned paper of the Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and Adams administrations, Gales’ harsh criticism of Andrew Jackson led the Tennessee General to choose a different journal with which to expound his influence. Gales and his partner William Seaton were now media outsiders, and were stigmatized by the Jackson and van Buren administrations for the next twelve years.

By the time of his residency at Decatur House in 1849, the paper’s influence had declined even more. It is unclear why Gales chose to reside at Decatur House in 1849 when his mansion in Eckington, Virginia had already been finished. It may be related to the fiftieth anniversary of the Intelligencer in
1850. In any case, Gales did not rent long from Providence Gadsby, staying
in the house for under a year, leaving no records of why he rented the house
or who he entertained here. After moving out of Decatur House in 1850, Gales continued publishing the National Intelligencer until his death ten years later.

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