Photo credit: Historical Society of Washington

A Community Exploring Its Past

The Overbeck Project preserves and publicizes the history of the Capitol Hill community by recording the recollections of its longtime residents, presenting history lectures and promoting historical research.

Lecture Series

United States Slave Trade, 1830 (courtesy of the Library of Congress)

Thomas Smallwood, the Underground Railroad, and Capitol Hill

Lecture By :
Scott Shane
May 13, 2024
Thomas Smallwood, a free black man residing in the Navy Yard area organized audacious escapes for large numbers of enslaved people in Washington, Baltimore, and the surrounding region, and wrote about it in a series of extraordianarly satirical newspaper dispatches.
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In Memoriam

Remembering Hayden Wetzel

The Overbeck Project notes with sadness the passing of Hayden Wetzel, an extraordinary tour guide who has been described as a "touchstone for history" in the District of Columbia.
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