The Ringgold-Carroll House (also known as the DACOR Bacon House and John Marshall House) is an historic home, located at 1801 F St Northwest, Washington, D.C.
It was built in 1825 for Tench Ringgold, who was part of a three-member team in charge of restoring public buildings in the District of Columbia, following the War of 1812.
From 1832-1833, Chief Justice John Marshall resided with Ringgold in the house.
In 1835, the house was sold, and a number of prominent people have since lived in the house, including William Thomas Carroll, a clerk at the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Melville Fuller, Senator Joseph Medill McCormick, and Congressman Robert Low Bacon. The Diplomatic and Consular Officers Retired (DACOR) now occupy the house, which is only open to the public on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from 2:30 - 4:30 p.m. as the "Ringgold Museum".
DACOR Bacon House was built in 1824-1825 by Tench Ringgold, a close friend of President James Monroe. Mr. Ringgold was U.S. Marshal for the District of Columbia. He purchased the lot from the estate of Tobias Lear, George Washington’s private secretary, U.S. Consul in Santo Domingo from 1801-1802, and Consul General in Algiers from 1803-1812.
During the years 1831-33, Chief Justice John Marshall (a former Secretary of State), Associate Justices Joseph Story, William Johnson, Gabriel Duvall, Smith Thompson, John McLean, Henry Baldwin, and several other members of the Supreme Court boarded at 1801 F Street.
In 1835, the former Governor of Maryland, Samuel Sprigg, purchased the home. Although he held title to the mansion, it was his daughter, Sally, and her husband, William Thomas Carroll, who occupied it. Mr. Carroll was a member of the distinguished Carroll family of Maryland, also one of the founders of the Law Department of Columbia College, now The George Washington University, and Clerk of the Supreme Court from 1827 until his death in 1863. Following Mrs. Carroll’s death in 1895, the house was purchased by Mrs. Mary Ellen Coolbaugh Fuller, wife of Chief Justice of the United States Melville Weston Fuller. Mrs. Fuller died in 1904 and Chief Justice Fuller in 1910.
The following year, Pittsburgh heiress Alice Copley Thaw, the former Countess of Yarmouth, purchased the house and engaged architect J. H. de Sibour to modernize it, including wiring the premises for electricity. Before she could occupy the renovated house, she married Geoffrey Whitney and established her residence in New York. For the next decade she rented the house to several prominent figures, including Senator and Mrs. Medill McCormick, brother of Colonel Bertie McCormick of the Chicago Tribune, and Congressman and Mrs. Robert Low Bacon. The Bacons bought the house in 1925. Mrs. Bacon continued living in the house after her husband’s death in 1938 until 1980, when she died at the age of 89. The house is furnished with many of her art objects, paintings, and family portraits. It is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
The house is in excellent condition and is open for tours Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday afternoons from 2:30-4:30.