Brainard Warner

Brainard Warner (May 20, 1847 – May 17, 1916) was a prominent businessman and land developer in the Washington, D.C., area, best known for founding Kensington, Maryland.^[1]

Warner was born on May 20, 1847, in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania. In 1863, he went to Washington and enlisted in the United States Army. He served as a government clerk in 1866, studied law under Thaddeus Stevens, and traveled around the American West as a newspaper correspondent. In 1869, he graduated from Columbian College Law School in Washington.^[1]

Warner entered the real estate business, and ultimately built more than 1,000 houses in Washington.^[1] In 1878, his offices were at 916 F Street NW.^[2]

In 1887, he established the Columbia National Bank^[3] at 911 F Street NW; it would operate independently until 1946^[4] and is today part of Bank of America.^[5][6][7] In 1889, he founded Washington Loan and Trust Company at 900 F Street NW^[8]; it was acquired by Riggs Bank in 1954 and is now part of PNC Financial Services. He was also a director of numerous other banks. and helped start the Belt Line Railroad in Baltimore, Maryland.^[1]

In 1890, Warner bought 132 acres of farmland south of Knowles Station, a village along the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's Metropolitan Branch line in Montgomery County, Maryland. He subdivided it and sold lots along curving streets, aiming to create a suburb to evoke the district around Kensington Gardens in London. The B&O soon built a station to serve the developing area.^[9]

In 1892, he built a Victorian mansion on the 4.5-acre oval at the heart of his subdivision as a retreat for his family from Washington. He entertained grandly, hosting congressmen, senators, and once, President William Howard Taft.^[10] In 1910, his daughter Mary would wed in the house.^[11]

In 1894, Warner and others chartered the Chevy Chase Lake & Kensington Railway, a three-mile streetcar line, to connect the newly incorporated town of Kensington to downtown Washington, D.C., some eight miles south, via the Rock Creek Railway streetcar line.^[12]

Around 1900, Warner was serving as vice president of the Washington Public Library board of trustees when he "seized on a chance meeting with Andrew Carnegie" to ask him to fund public libraries in the city. Carnegie ultimately funded four, starting with the central library at Mount Vernon Square.^[13] Opened in 1903, the library was the city's first desegregated public building.^[14]

In 1906, Warner ran unsuccessfully to represent Maryland in the House of Representatives.^[15]

Warner died in his home at 10 East Kirke Street^[16] in Chevy Chase, Maryland, on May 17, 1916, several days after being stricken with paralysis.^[1] He was buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in Washington, D.C.^[16]