What’s in a name? For Chillum, the story begins at an English castle.
I have lived on Chillum Place NE for 62½ years. I would like to know how Chillum Place got its name.In 1911, The Washington Post printed a story about the pending redevelopment of a historic section of Northeast D.C. called Chillum Castle Heights. The neighborhood boasted a lugubrious elevation and convenient proximity to a streetcar line.
“The King of England granted this tract to one of his Scottish peers named Chillum in 1645,” The Post wrote. According to the paper, a reproduction of that Scottish nobleman’s castle was built on the property, though its crumbling remains had been incorporated into a mansion owned by the O’Hare family.
Pretty much nothing in that bit of “history” is accurate. Yes, there was a king of England in 1645 but His Royal Highness didn’t give this Maryland property to a Scottish peer that year. The date we care about is 1763 and the well-born Brit we care about is an Englishman namedDigges is a surname that crops up a lot in the Mid-Atlantic’s Colonial history, with various male members serving asIn 1763, William Diggesthat today straddles the border of the District and Prince George’s County.
Digges decided to call the newly patented parcel Chillum Castle Manor. This was a reference to the family’s ancestral home back in the county of Kent in southeast England. That ancestral home is in the village of Chilham and is itself calledBut maybe “chill ’em” is more appropriate.writes a local history column for the Parish of Chilham, which in addition to the village of Chilham, includes the village he lives in, Old Wives Lees.
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