Agricultural and Commercial Society has a large reading-room and lending library. The assembly rooms, above and owned by the Georgetown club, has a good stage and is admirably adapted to dramatic and musical entertainments. A museum (free), belonging to the Royal Agricultural and Commercial Society, is chiefly devoted to the fauna of British Guiana, but also contains an instructive collection of local economic, mineralogical and botanical exhibits, a miscellaneous collection of foreign birds and mammals, and an interesting series of views of the colony. The botanical gardens to the east of the city are of considerable extent and admirably laid out. The nurseries cover a large area and are devoted chiefly to the raising of plants of economic importance which can be purchased at nominal rates. The collections of ferns and orchids are very fine. In the gardens are also located the fields of the board of agriculture, where experimental work in the growth of sugar-cane, rice, cotton and all tropical plants of economic importance is carried on. Other popular resorts are the sea wall and the promenade gardens in the centre of the city.
The local government of Georgetown is vested in a mayor and town council elected under a very restricted franchise. The city is divided into fourteen wards each with one representative. A councillor must possess, either personally or through his wife, premises within the city of the appraised value of at least $1500. A voter must either own house property of the appraised value of $250 or occupy premises of an annual rental of $240. There are indeed only 297 municipal voters in a population of nearly 50,000. The revenue, just over £50,000 annually, is mainly derived from a direct rate on house property. The colonial government pays rates on its property and also gives a grant-in-aid towards the upkeep of the streets. The expenditure is principally on sanitation, fire brigade, streets, water-supply, street lighting and drainage. Street lighting is carried out under contract by the Demerara Electric Company, which has a monopoly of private lighting and works an excellent tram service. Water for public and domestic purposes is taken from the conservancy of the east coast and is delivered by pumping throughout the city, but drinking-water is collected in tanks attached to the dwellings from the rain falling on the roofs. The fire brigade is a branch of the police force, half the cost being borne by the rates and half by the general revenue. There is an excellent service of telephones, a branch of the post office, and halfpenny postage within the city boundaries. There are in Georgetown two well-equipped foundries, a dry dock, and factories for the manufacture of rice, cigars, soap, boots, chocolate, candles, aerated waters and ice. Georgetown is connected by rail and ferry with New Amsterdam, by ferry and rail with the west coast of Demerara, and by steamer with all the country districts along the coast and up the navigable reaches of the principal rivers. (A. G. B.*)
GEORGETOWN, formerly a city of the District of Columbia,
U.S.A., and now part (sometimes called West Washington)
of the city of Washington, U.S.A., at the confluence of the
Potomac river and Rock Creek, and on the Chesapeake and Ohio
Canal, about 212 m. W.N.W. of the National Capitol. Pop.
(1890) 14,046; (1900) 14,549. The streets are old-fashioned,
narrow and well shaded. On the “Heights” are many fine
residences with beautiful gardens; the Monastery and Academy
(for girls) of Visitation, founded in 1799 by Leonard Neale,
second archbishop of Baltimore; and the college and the
astronomical observatory (1842) of Georgetown University.
The university was founded as a Roman Catholic Academy in
1789, was opened in 1791, transferred to the Society of Jesus
in 1805, authorized in 1815 by Congress to confer college or
university degrees, and by the Holy See in 1833 to confer degrees
in philosophy and theology, incorporated as Georgetown College
by Act of Congress in 1844, and began graduate work about
1856. The college library includes the historical collection of
James Gilmary Shea. A school of medicine was opened in 1851,
a dental school in 1901 and a school of law in 1870. In 1909–1910
the university had an enrolment of 859 students. Rising
in terraces from Rock Creek is Oak Hill Cemetery, a beautiful
burying-ground containing the graves of John Howard Payne,
the author of “Home, Sweet Home,” Edwin McMasters Stanton
and Joseph Henry. On the bank of the Potomac is a brick house
which was for several years the home of Francis Scott Key, author
of “The Star-Spangled Banner”; on Analostan Island in the
river was a home of James Murray Mason; Georgetown Heights
was the home of the popular novelist, Mrs Emma Dorothy
Eliza Nevitte Southworth (1819–1899). Before the advent of
railways Georgetown had an important commerce by way of the
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, by which considerable coal as well
as some grain is still brought hither, and of which Georgetown
is now a terminus; the canal formerly crossed the Potomac
at this point on an aqueduct bridge (1446 ft. long), but in 1887
the crossing was abandoned and the old bridge was purchased
by the United States government, which in 1889 constructed
a new steel bridge upon the old masonry piers. Chief among the
manufactories are several large flour mills—Georgetown flour
was long noted for its excellence. There is a very large fish-market
here. Georgetown was settled late in the 17th century,
was laid out as a town in 1751, chartered as a city in 1789,
merged in the District of Columbia in 1871, and annexed
to the city of Washington in 1878. In the early days of
Washington it was a social centre of some importance, where
many members of Congress as well as some cabinet officers
and representatives of foreign countries lived and the President
gave state dinners; and here were the studio, for two years, of
Gilbert Stuart, and “Kalorama,” the residence of Joel Barlow.
GEORGETOWN, a city and the county-seat of Scott county,
Kentucky, U.S.A., about 11 miles N. of Lexington. Pop.
(1900) 3823 (1677 negroes); (1910) 4533. Georgetown is served
by the Cincinnati Southern (Queen & Crescent Route), the
Frankfort & Cincinnati, and the Southern railways, and is
connected with Lexington by an electric line. It is the seat
of Georgetown College (Baptist, co-educational), chartered in
1829 as the successor of Rittenhouse Academy, which was founded
in 1798. Georgetown is situated in the Blue Grass region of
Kentucky, and the surrounding country is devoted to agriculture
and stock-raising. One of the largest independent oil refineries
in the country (that of the Indian Refining Co.) is in Georgetown,
and among manufactures are bricks, flour, ice, bagging and hemp.
The remarkable “Royal Spring,” which rises near the centre
of the city, furnishes about 200,000 gallons of water an hour
for the city’s water supply, and for power for the street railway
and for various industries. The first settlement was made in
1775, and was named McClellan’s, that name being changed to
Lebanon a few years afterwards. In 1790 the place was incorporated
as a town under its present name (adopted in honour
of George Washington), and Georgetown was chartered as a city
of the fourth class in 1894. Bacon College, which developed into
Kentucky (now Transylvania) University (see Lexington, Ky.),
was established here by the Disciples of Christ in 1836, but in
1839 was removed to Harrodsburg.
GEORGETOWN, a city, a port of entry and the county-seat of Georgetown county, South Carolina, U.S.A., at the head of Winyah Bay, and at the mouth of the Pedee river, about 15 m. from the Atlantic Ocean, and about 55 m. N.E. of Charleston. Pop. (1890) 2895; (1900) 4138 (2718 negroes); (1910) 5530. Georgetown is served by the Georgetown & Western railway, has steamship communication with Charleston, Wilmington, New York City and other Atlantic ports, and, by the Pedee river and its tributaries (about 1000 m. of navigable streams), has trade connexions with a large area of South Carolina and part of North Carolina. The principal public buildings are the post office and custom house. Among the city’s manufactures are lumber, foundry and machine-shop products, naval stores and oars; and there are shad and sturgeon fisheries. The growing of cotton and truck-gardening are important industries in the neighbouring region, and there is considerable trade in such products. The first settlement here was made about 1700; and the town was laid out a short time before 1734. The Winyah Indigo Society grew out of a social club organized about 1740, and was founded in 1757 by a group of planters interested in
