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Life Sketches of Ellen G. White
at once to inspect the outlying portions of the District of Columbia
for suitable properties. Morning by morning, before going out, they
met to pray earnestly for divine guidance. And their prayers were
signally answered. In Takoma Park, one of the most attractive and
healthful of the towns near Washington, was found a tract of fifty
acres, which seemed to meet all requirements. With an altitude of
about three hundred feet, the tract was only seven miles from the
capitol building, and within the limits of Takoma Park, thus having
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the advantages of postal services, gas, water, sewerage, and streets;
and at the same time it was sufficiently isolated by dense forests to
have the added advantages of a retired country estate. The property
was covered with hundreds of native trees; and across one side of it,
yet inside the boundary line, ran a picturesque stream fed by living
springs.
In former years this property had been selected by a Boston physi-
cian for a sanitarium site, and upon it he had expended, including
purchase price, about sixty thousand dollars. At heavy cost he had had
cleared away the underbrush, logs, and rubbish; but he had been unable
to finance his proposed enterprise, and after his death the property had
fallen into the hands of a gentleman who held a $15,000 mortgage
against it, and who was now offering it for $6,000.
The brethren felt clear in securing, without delay, this beautiful
property, thereby making practicable the establishment of a sanitarium
and a school near the proposed denominational headquarters. Though
the fifty-acre tract in Takoma Park was situated a mile or so beyond
the District line, yet the locating committee were able to purchase in
the same village sufficient land lying within the District line to serve
as a site for the factory building of the Review and Herald Publishing
Association. Adjacent lots were secured for the General Conference
administration building and for the local church edifice and church
school.
Thus the way was opening, step by step, for the early removal
of the Review and Herald printing plant and the General Conference
offices from Battle Creek, Mich., to the nation’s capital. Only a few
weeks elapsed before actual transfers were made, and the brethren
established themselves in temporary rented quarters in the heart of the
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city, pending the erection of buildings at Takoma Park.