The brick townhouse, built c. 1806, is notable as the home for many years of Charles Sumner (1811–1874), an outspoken and aggressive political opponent of slavery, whose beating on the floor of the United States Senate in 1856 was a defining moment of the pre-American Civil War period.

[2] Charles Sumner was born to abolitionist parents, and was educated at Harvard College, where he studied law under Joseph Story.

This marked the beginning of a more vocal and aggressive opposition to slavery in the political halls of Washington, D.C. His searing verbal reprobation of his opponents escalated into violence when he was beaten unconscious on the floor of the Senate by South Carolina Representative Preston Brooks in 1856, an event that emotionally polarized the country.

After Sumner's recovery, he returned to the Senate, where he played a leading role as a Radical Republican during the American Civil War, as an advocate of emancipation.

After the war he championed civil rights for free slaves during the Reconstruction Era, and played a role in the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson.