Seaport in Virginia
by Gay Montague Moore · English · Gutenberg #30747 · 525,256 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Seaport in Virginia
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: Seaport in Virginia
Author: Gay Montague Moore
Release date: December 23, 2009 [eBook #30747]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30747
Credits: E-text prepared by Mark C. Orton, Graeme Mackreth, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SEAPORT IN VIRGINIA ***
E-text prepared by Mark C. Orton, Graeme Mackreth, and the Project
Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the numerous original illustrations.
See 30747-h.htm or 30747-h.zip:
(https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/30747/pg30747-images.html)
or
(https://www.gutenberg.org/files/30747/30747-h.zip)
Transcriber's note:
Characters immediately after a caret (^) were superscripts
in the original.
SEAPORT IN VIRGINIA
[Illustration: GEORGE WASHINGTON
By Dr. Elisha Cullen Dick. A painting in oil after a pastel by James
Sharples. (_Courtesy Mount Vernon Ladies' Association_)]
SEAPORT IN VIRGINIA
George Washington's Alexandria
by
GAY MONTAGUE MOORE
[Illustration]
Drawings by Worth Bailey
Photographs by Walter Wilcox
The University Press of Virginia
Charlottesville
The University Press of Virginia
Copyright © 1949 by The Rector and the Visitors of
the University of Virginia
Second printing 1972
ISBN: 0-8139-0183-9
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 73-188711
Printed in the United States of America
TO MY HUSBAND
CHARLES BEATTY MOORE
TOGETHER WE HAVE DELVED INTO WHAT RECORDS
WE COULD FIND THAT MIGHT THROW UPON THE
SCREEN SOME SHADOW OF THOSE WHO BUILT
AND LIVED IN THE OLD HOUSES IN
ALEXANDRIA
[Illustration]
PREFACE
Twenty years ago on a hot and sultry July afternoon, my husband and I
started to Mount Vernon to spend the day. On our return to Washington,
we lazily drove through the old and historic town of Alexandria--and
bought a house!
The town at once became of vital interest to us. We spent months and
years going through every vacant building into which we could force an
entrance. Our setter dogs could point an empty doorway as well as a
covey of quail, and seemed as curious about the interiors as we were
ourselves. I became obsessed with a desire to know the age of these
buildings and something of those early Alexandrians who had lived in
them.
Old maps and records littered my desk. Out of the past appeared clerks
on high stools wielding quill pens and inscribing beautiful script for
me to transpose into the story of one of America's most romantic and
historic towns. It has been impossible to write about every house in
Alexandria--even about every historic house. I tried to recall the old
town as a whole. A succession of hatters, joiners, ships' carpenters,
silversmiths, peruke makers, brewers, bakers, sea captains, merchants,
doctors and gentlemen, schoolteachers, dentists, artisans, artists and
actors, began to fill my empty houses. Ships, sail lofts, ropewalks,
horses, pigs, and fire engines took their proper places, and the town
lived again as of yore--in my imagination.
Everywhere I turned I found General Washington: as a little boy on his
brother Lawrence's barge bringing Mount Vernon tobacco to the Hunting
Creek warehouse; on horseback riding to the village of Belle Haven; as
an embryo surveyor carrying the chain to plot the streets and lots. He
was dancing at the balls, visiting the young ladies, drilling the
militia, racing horses, launching vessels, engaging workmen, dining at
this house or that, importing asses, horses, and dogs, running for
office, sitting as justice; sponsoring the Friendship Fire Company, a
free school, the Alexandria Canal, or other civic enterprises. He was
pewholder of Christ Church and master of the Masonic lodge. To town he
came to collect his mail, to cast his ballot, to have his silver or his
carriage repaired, to sell his tobacco or his wheat, to join the
citizenry in celebrating Independence. His closest friends and daily
companions were Alexandrians. The dwellings, wharves, and warehouses of
the town were as familiar to him as his Mount Vernon farm.
In Alexandria Washington took command of his first troops. From the
steps of Gadsby's Tavern he received his last military review, a display
of his neighbors' martial spirit in a salute from the town's militia. An
Alexandrian closed his eyes, and Alexandrians carried his pall.
Washington belongs to Alexandria as Alexandria belongs to him. This is
_George Washington's Alexandria_.
GAY MONTAGUE MOORE.
Alexandria, Virginia
September 1949
[Illustration]
CONTENTS
PREFACE vii
PART ONE: PROLOGUE
_AN ACCOUNT OF THE FIRST CENTURY OF THE
SEAPORT OF ALEXANDRIA_
PART TWO
THE PRESENCE OF GEORGE WASHINGTON, 1749-1799
CHAPTER
1: William Ramsay: Romulus of Alexandria 52
2: John Carlyle and His House 62
3: The Married Houses 71
4: The Fairfaxes of Belvoir and Alexandria 77
5: The George William Fairfax House 87
6: John Gadsby and His Famous Tavern 99
7: The Michael Swope House 112
8: Dr. William Brown and His Dwelling 119
9: The Peruke Shop 127
10: Historic Christ Church 131
11: The Presbyterian Meetinghouse 139
12: Presenting The Sun Fire Company 147
13: Captain John Harper and His Houses 156
14: Dr. Elisha C. Dick and the Fawcett House 162
15: The Benjamin Dulany House 173
16: Dr. James Craik and His Dwelling 184
17: Alexandria's Old Apothecary Shop 195
18: Spring Gardens 197
19: William Fitzhugh and Robert E. Lee 202
20: George Washington's Tenements 210
21: The Georgian Cottage 217
22: The Vowell-Snowden House 222
23: The Edmund Jennings Lee House 225
EPILOGUE: Washington in Glory--America in Tears 230
PART THREE
_FIVE SKETCHES OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY_
24: The Yeaton-Fairfax House 232
25: The Lafayette-Lawrason-Cazenove House 239
26: Enter the Quaker Pedagogue: Benjamin Hallowell 247
27: The Alexandria Lyceum 254
28: The Sea Captain's Daughter and Her House 259
Acknowledgments 263
Chapter References 265
Bibliography 272
Index 275
CHAPTER DRAWINGS
CHAPTER 1: Ramsay house. After restoration plans by Milton L. Grigg.
CHAPTER 2: Keystone from Carlyle House, basement level.
CHAPTER 3: John Dalton's frame house. Hypothetical restoration with false
front removed.
CHAPTER 4: Fairfax coat of arms. From Belvoir fireback. Preserved in the
Mount Vernon collection.
CHAPTER 5: George William Fairfax house, south façade.
CHAPTER 6: John Gadsby's famous hostelry and tavern sign, "Bunch of
Grapes."
CHAPTER 7: Michael Swope house, showing flounder type ells.
CHAPTER 8: Dr. William Brown house, west façade.
CHAPTER 9: Peruke shop. Hypothetical restoration with false front removed.
Showing an Alexandria alley house adjoining.
CHAPTER 10: Christ Church through open gates of churchyard.
CHAPTER 11: Presbyterian meetinghouse before fire of 1835 and subsequent
enlargement. _From an old print._
CHAPTER 12: Fire engine of Friendship Fire Company, said to have been
presented by George Washington. This old rotary type pumper is preserved
in the Maryland Building at Druid Hill Park, Baltimore.
CHAPTER 13: Ship model, believed to represent the _Lexington_ owned and
commanded by Captain James MacKenzie, who presented it to the Alexandria
Library Association.
CHAPTER 14: Fawcett house, south façade.
CHAPTER 15: Benjamin Dulany house, south façade.
CHAPTER 16: Dr. James Craik house, north façade.
CHAPTER 17: Old Apothecary Shop Museum and adjoining antique shop.
CHAPTER 18: Spring Gardens, north façade.
CHAPTER 19: Robert E. Lee house, south façade.
CHAPTER 20: George Washington's tenements, appearance before remodeling.
CHAPTER 21: Flounder house of the type said to have been the nucleus
of the Georgian Cottage. Example shown (demolished 1944) stood
on the grounds of the Alexandria Hospital.
CHAPTER 22: Vowell-Snowden house, east façade.
CHAPTER 23: Edmund I. Lee house, showing wisteria-covered gallery.
EPILOGUE MEMORIAL MOTIF, incorporating swords used on Washington's
casket, owned by Alexandria-Washington Lodge of Masons.
CHAPTER 24: Yeaton-Fairfax house, south façade.
CHAPTER 25: Lafayette-Lawrason-Cazenove house and doorway detail.
CHAPTER 26: Alexandria Boarding School (1834) of Professor Hallowell.
_From an old print._
CHAPTER 27: Alexandria Lyceum, classic portico.
CHAPTER 28: Wax flowers under glass dome, made by Melissa Hussey Wood.
[Illustration]
PART ONE: PROLOGUE
An Account of the First Century of The Seaport of Alexandria
[Illustration: A typical Alexandria shipping merchant's home: Bernard
Chequire, called the "count," built his dwelling and storeroom under the
same roof]
[Illustration]
SITE AND ANTECEDENTS
In the middle of the seventeenth century when the English King, Charles
II, was generously settling Virginia land upon loyal subjects, what is
now the port of Alexandria was part of six thousand acres granted by the
Royal Governor, Sir William Berkeley, in the name of His Majesty, to
Robert Howsing. The grant was made in 1669 as a reward for bringing into
the colony one hundred and twenty persons "to inhabit."
Howsing did not want this land but John Alexander did. He had surveyed
the tract and knew its worth. Howsing doubtless thought himself well out
of it when Alexander paid six hundredweight of tobacco and took it off
his hands within a month.[1]
The growth and development of the colony of Virginia into a great
agricultural population occupied in the cultivation of tobacco was not
at all what the London Company had in mind. It visualized a colony of
towns. But the possibilities offered by the great rivers emptying into
Chesapeake Bay and the development of the tobacco trade were responsible
for a civilization unique to Englishmen. True that the establishment of
towns as trading centers was a recognized need--generally agitated by
the Burgesses and planters from interested motives--but little came of
it. Planters whose lands and domiciles lined the Virginia waterways
found the direct trade with English ships a facile, if expensive,
convenience. It was so easy to dispose of a cargo of tobacco and receive
at one's door in return delivery of a neat London sofa, greatcoat, or a
coach and harness. So instead of towns, great tobacco warehouses were
built at convenient centers where tobacco was collected, inspected, and
shipped. Such a warehouse was established by act of Assembly in 1730 and
1732[2] at the mouth of Great Hunting Creek, where it empties into the
Potomac River, on the land of Hugh West, Sr. (a member of the Alexander
clan) and where there was already a ferry to the Maryland side of the
river. Almost immediately a little village grew up--a group of small
houses and a school--known then as Belle Haven.
Tobacco was currency in the colony, tendered as such, and it constituted
the first wealth. Salaries and fees were paid in tobacco, fines were
levied in tobacco; it was the medium of exchange in England as well as
in Virginia. When the colonists wrote the word, they used a capital T!
His Majesty's government of the New World was much occupied with the
cultivation, housing, and transportation of this natural weed. The
importance attached to tobacco is best illustrated by a most
extraordinary law. When Englishmen, whose homes are their castles,
permitted the right of search of citizens' private dwellings, some idea
of the value of this commodity may be realized. The Burgesses resolved
early "that any Justice of Peace who shall know or be informed of any
Package of Tobacco of less than----weight made up for shipping off,
shall have power to enter any suspected House, and by night or by day
and so search for, and finding any such Package, to seize and destroy
the same; and moreover the Person in whose Possession the same shall be
found, shall be liable to a Penalty."[3] Inspectors of tobacco held
their appointments under the King; theirs was the responsibility of
watching the crop, estimating its yield and weight, maintaining the
standard of quality and inspecting the packing. Moreover, no tobacco
could be "bought or sold, but by Inspector's Notes, under a Penalty both
upon the Buyer and Seller."[4]
In 1742 the Burgesses, lower house of Virginia's Parliament, in session
at Williamsburg, became exercised about the tobacco trade and "Resolved,
That an humble address of this house be presented to His Majesty, and a
Petition to the Parliament of Great Britain; representing the distressed
state and decay of our Tobacco Trade, occasioned by the Restraint on our
Export; which must, if not speedily remedied, destroy our Staple; and
there being no other expedient left for Preservation of this Valuable
Branch of the British Commerce, to beseech His Majesty and His
Parliament, to take the same into Consideration; and that His Majesty
may be graciously pleased to grant unto his subjects of this Colony, a
Free Export of their Tobacco to Foreign Markets directly, under such
Limitations, as to His Majesty's Wisdom, shall appear Necessary."[5]
From 1742 a series of petitions from the inhabitants of Prince William
and Fairfax[6] counties, asking authority from the Assembly at
Williamsburg to erect towns in the county, were presented to the
Burgesses. Several years passed before any notice was taken of these
requests.
At a General Assembly, begun and held at the College in Williamsburg on
Tuesday, November 1, 1748 (sixteen years after the establishment of the
warehouse at Hunting Creek) in the twenty-second year of the reign of
George II, a petition was presented from "the inhabitants of Fairfax in
Behalf of Themselves and others praying that a Town may be established
at Hunting Creek Ware House on Potomack River."[7] On Tuesday, April 11,
1749, a bill for establishing a town at Hunting Creek Warehouse, in
Fairfax County, was read for the first time.
The bill went through the regular proceedings and was referred to
Messrs. Ludwell, Woodbridge, Hedgeman, Lawrence Washington, Richard
Osborne, William Waller, and Thomas Harrison. On April 22, the ingrossed
bill was read the third time, and it was "resolved that the Bill do
pass. Ordered, that Mr. Washington do carry the Bill to the Council for
their concurrence."[8] On May 2, 1749 the bill came back from the
Council (the upper house) with additional amendments to which the
Council desired the house's concurrence. Washington was again sent up to
the Council with the approved amendments, and on Thursday, May 11, 1749,
Governor Gooch commanded the immediate attendance of the house in the
Council chamber. The Speaker, with the house, went up accordingly; and
the Governor was pleased to give his assent to the bill "for erecting a
town at Hunting Creek Ware House, in the County of Fairfax."[9]
The act stated that such a town "would be commodious for trade and
navigation, and tend greatly to the best advantage of frontier
inhabitants."[10] Within four months after passage of the act, sixty
acres of land belonging to Philip Alexander, John Alexander, and Hugh
West, "situate, lying and being on the South side of Potomac River,
about the mouth of Great Hunting Creek, and in the County of Fairfax,
shall be surveyed and laid out by the surveyor of the said County ...
and vested in the Right Honorable Thomas, Lord Fairfax, the Honorable
William Fairfax, Esq., George Fairfax, Richard Osborne, Lawrence
Washington, William Ramsay, John Carlyle, John Pagan, Gerard Alexander,
and Hugh West, of the said County of Fairfax, Gentlemen, and Philip
Alexander of the County of Stafford, Gentleman, and their successors in
trust for the several purposes hereinafter mentioned."[11]
These same gentlemen were "constituted and appointed directors and
trustees, for designing, building ... the town"[12] and the trustees and
directors or any six of them were to have the power to "Meet as often as
they shall think necessary, and shall lay out the said sixty acres into
lots and streets not exceeding half an acre of ground in each lot; and
also set apart such portions of the said land for a market place, and
public landing as to them shall seem convenient; and when the said town
shall be so laid out, the said directors and trustees shall have full
power and authority to sell all the said lots, by public sale or
auction, from time to time, to the highest bidder so as no person shall
have more than two lots."[13] The money arising from the sale was to be
paid to the two Alexanders and to Hugh West, the proprietors.
It was further enacted that purchasers of every lot or lots should
"within two years next after the date of the conveyance for the same,
erect, build and finish on each lot so conveyed, one house of brick,
stone or wood, well framed of the dimensions of twenty feet square, and
nine feet pitch, at the least or proportionably thereto if such grantee
shall have two lots contiguous, with a brick or stone chimney ... and if
the owner of any such lot shall fail to pursue and comply with the
directions herein prescribed for the building and finishing one or more
house or houses thereon, then such lots upon which such houses shall not
be so built and finished shall be revested in the said trustees, and
shall and may be sold and conveyed to any other persons whatsoever, in
the manner before directed, and shall revest and be sold as often as the
owner or owners shall fail to perform, obey and fulfill the directions
aforesaid, and the money arising from the sale of such lots as shall be
revested and sold applied to such public use for the common benefit of
the inhabitants of the said town as to them shall seem most proper; and
if the said inhabitants of said town shall fail to obey and pursue the
rules and orders of the said directors in repairing and mending the
streets, landing, and public wharfs, they shall be liable to the same
penalties as are inflicted for not repairing the highways in this
Colony."[14]
The county surveyor wrote on July 18, 1749:
By Virtue of an Act of the General Assembly ... I, the Subscriber did
Survey and lay off sixty acres of land to be for the said town, and
divided the same into lotts, streets, etc., as per the plan thereof
JOHN WEST, JR.
Dept. S.F.C.[15]
George Washington had been living with his half-brother, Lawrence, at
Mount Vernon for some time and studying engineering under Mrs. Lawrence
Washington's brother, Colonel George William Fairfax. It is a safe
assumption that the three young men sailed up the Potomac numerous times
to see the layout for the prospective new town; or, that wanting an
afternoon's ride, they set their horses towards Belle Haven. It was not
a strange journey. For years the Hunting Creek warehouse had handled
tobacco from Mount Vernon, Belvoir, Gunston Hall, and the neighboring
estates. Tradition has it in Alexandria that Washington aided John West
when he was struggling through the underbrush and tree stumps staking
out the lots. So familiar did the embryo engineer become with the future
town site that he drew a map, and added the names of lot purchasers to
the side of his drawing.[16]
News traveled throughout the colony, from the Tidewater to the
Shenandoah, of the town to be built near the Hunting Creek warehouses.
Advertisements were inserted in the colony's gazettes. Auction of lots
was to take place on the site, in the month of July, on the thirteenth
day.
On the morning of the sale people on horseback began pouring into the
village of Belle Haven from all the nearby plantations and estates.
Tidewater was represented by Ralph Wormley of Rosegill in Middlesex;
from Westmoreland came Augustine Washington; from Fredericksburg,
William Fitzhugh; from Gunston Hall, George Mason; from Belvoir, the two
Colonels Fairfax; and from Mount Vernon, young George Washington and his
half-brother, Augustine, up for the proceedings.
Lawrence Washington was not present, possibly away in England at the
time. His brother, Augustine, however, stood proxy and the letter in
which he reported the day's proceedings throws a new light upon the
sale. It is believed never to have been published; here is the portion
relating to the Alexandria auction:
Mount Vernon July 19th 1749
D^r Brother
I have this day returned from Goose Creek, and the Vessel by whom
this comes being under way alows one but a short time to write. As to
your family I need only to say that they are well as my Sister &c
wrote to you by the same ship whilst I was up the Country. You have a
very fine prospect for a Crop of Corn & I am in hopes you have made a
worse Crop of Tob^o than you'll make this year if the fall is
Seasonable, but that depends very much upon the fall. As to Belhaven
or Alexandria I understand my Brother George has left much to say
upon that head. I purchased you two lots near the water upon the
Main street, as every one along the rode will be trough that street.
I thought they would be as agreeable to you as any, as M^r Chapman
was determined upon having the Lot on the point. I had a Plan & a
Copy of the Sale of the Lots to send you, but as my Broth^r has
sent both & I am [torn] very exact, I need not trouble you with any
more; you will see by the amount of the Sale that your part cleared
three hundred & eighty three pistoles [torn] sensible if Alexander
had Stood to the sale of them he would not have made half the Sum by
th [torn] every one seem'd to encourage the thing, upon y^r and
M^r Chapman's account, as they were sensible what you did was
through a Publick Spirit & n [torn] of interest; the reason the lots
sold so high was River side ones being sett up first which were
purchased at a very extravagant price by the prop [illegible] Your
two, M^r Carlyles M^r Dortons M^r Ramseys [illegible] M^r
Chapmans sold at different prices, as you may se by the Sale, but we
agreed before the Sale to give any Price for them & to strike them
upon an average so that by adding them up & dividing them by five you
will se what your two lots Cost. M^r Chapman was obliged to pay
Phil Alexander the money for your & his bond last Stafford Court
(before the Sale) or other wise was to have George the Second upon
his back. M^r Chapman took into Partnership M^r Ramsey Carlyle &
Dorton, Ramsey has a fourth, Dorton & Carlyle the other fourth....
The price is £10 12_s._ 10_d._
Here assuredly are the circumstances surrounding the plan of the town in
the youthful George Washington's hand, still preserved among the
Washington papers in the Library of Congress, as indeed is the relevant
letter. If this was not the actual map sent by George to Lawrence, it
most certainly was the copy which he retained for his personal files of
the eighty-four lots divided by seven streets running east and west; and
three north and south, checkerboard fashion, which comprised the
contemplated town.
The bell was rung. Business got under way. John West was crier and
announced that the lots put up would be sold within five minutes. The
hot crowd pressed in to hear and see all that took place. The disturbed
dust blanketed man and beast.
Bidding was brisk; and twenty-four lots were sold in short order. Among
the first day's purchasers, besides those mentioned above, were William
Fitzhugh, the Honorable William Fairfax, and Colonel George Fairfax.
The trustees met again the next day, July 14, and wasted no time. At
once seventeen lots were sold. The trustees agreed to adjourn "till 20th
of September next,"[17] at which time the "deeds are to be executed for
the above lots and the remaining lots to be sold, and that the Clerk
prepare blank deeds for the same."[18]
As for the prices paid for the lots--it is surprising to find a foreign
coin, the Spanish _pistole_, as the basic unit of currency. This was due
to a situation where hard money was seriously lacking in colonial
Virginia. As early as 1714 a general act had been passed to attract
foreign specie, which was declared _current_ according to weight. Thus
the legal valuation of the _pistole_ was slightly in excess of 21s. or
approximately $4.34.[19] Its purchasing power in the eighteenth century
was about five times as great as today. Lots purchased at auction on the
first day brought from 16 to 56-1/2 _pistoles_. On the second day, they
went for as little as six _pistoles_, the highest bidder for that day
being Henry Salkeld, who purchased lots Nos. 38 and 39 for 23 _pistoles_
(present-day normal evaluation about $282.00).
[Illustration]
THE TOWN BUILT
For many months the trustees were primarily concerned with the disposal
of the lots and "advertisements were set up to that purpose,"[20] in the
gazettes. Sales were numerous, houses began to go up speedily. By
January 1750, eighty lots had been sold with two lots set apart for the
town house and market square. In August 1751, Colonel Carlyle was
"appointed to have a good road cleared down to Point Lumley and to see
the streets kept in repair."[21] On July 18, 1752, the trustees "Ordered
on Coll. George Fairfaxe's motion that all dwelling houses from this day
not begun or to be built hereafter shall be built on the front and be in
a line with the street as chief of the houses now are, and that no gable
or end of such house be on or next to the street, except an angle or
where two streets cross, otherwise to be pulled down."[22]
While the trustees were feverishly building the new port, the Assembly
at Williamsburg was discharging the purchasers of marsh lots from the
necessity of building on and improving them; approving the proposition
"for appointing fairs to be kept in the Town of Alexandria."[23] Fairs
and lotteries were the principal source of municipal income in early
years; the journals of the House of Burgesses contain frequent requests
for such from many of the Virginia towns.
[Illustration: Plan of the Town of Alexandria by George Washington.
(From the Washington Papers in the Library of Congress)]
On March 10, 1752, a committee reporting to the House of Burgesses
"Resolved That it is the opinion of the Committee that the Proposition
from the County of Fairfax, in opposition to the proposition from that
county, for appointing the Court of the said County to be held at the
Town of Belhaven, be rejected."[24] A somewhat complicated manner of
ordering the court to be held at Alexandria.
[Illustration: The good ship Metamora of Alexandria, John Hunter,
builder and owner. He was the founder of Hunter's Shipyard, "the most
complete private establishment of the kind in the country."]
Four days later the Burgesses rejected "the proposition from the Town of
Alexandria for altering the name of that town to Belhaven."[25] There
had been much talk about this, and for long "The Town at Hunting Creek"
was the only designation. The Alexander family, which was both numerous
and important (the head of the clan bearing the title Lord Stirling),
and the bulk of the land upon which the town was built having been a
part of its patent,[26] it was deemed appropriate to name the new town
Alexandria. Save for an occasional slip in some old letter (Washington
dated some letters Bellehaven) Alexandria is the name by which the town
was called since this time.
By 1753 a village had become a town with the market place located
exactly in the middle. The first courthouse of frame was built on the
east side of lot No. 43, at the intersection of Cameron and Fairfax
Streets. South of the Town House on Fairfax stood the jail, stocks, and
whipping post for the use of those who failed to keep the law. Directly
behind these buildings the market square, or green, occupied all of lot
No. 44. Here the town militia drilled, here were held the carnivals, and
public gatherings, and here was the larder of Alexandria. To this day
the market square caters to the appetites of hungry townsmen. Across
Royal Street, facing the square, stood the City Tavern or Coffee House;
southward on the same side of the street was the Royal George, after the
Revolution called George Tavern. Already substantial wharves and
warehouses appeared along the water front, and private houses and stores
were beginning to fill the empty lots.[27]
[Illustration]
HEADQUARTERS AND PORT OF SUPPLY
As the passage of four years marked physical growth in Alexandria, so it
made a difference between a lad barely seventeen and an officer in His
Majesty's Militia. Early in November 1753, Major George Washington, aged
twenty-one, and an Adjutant General of the Colony, was sent by the Royal
Governor to the Ohio to "visit" the commandant of the French forces and
deliver a letter asking him to withdraw from the lands "known to be the
property of the Crown of Great Britain." Up to town came Major
Washington to busy himself acquiring the "necessaries" for the
expedition. Once equipped, he set out from Alexandria and was gone about
two months, returning on January 11, 1754. January 16 found him in
Williamsburg making his report to the Governor. The report was of such a
nature that His Excellency alerted the Virginia troops; it was deemed of
such importance as to be published in both Williamsburg and London
gazettes.
When Washington returned he carried a commission from His Excellency of
a lieutenant colonelcy in the Virginia regiment "whereof Joshua Fry,
Esquire, was Colonel," and joined his command in Alexandria. The market
square took on a militant atmosphere. "Two Companies of Foot, commanded
by Captain Peter Hog and Lieutenant Jacob Van Braam, five subalterns,
two Sergeants, six Corporals, one Drummer and one hundred and twenty
Soldiers, one Surgeon, one Swedish Gentleman, who was a volunteer, two
wagons, guarded by one Lieutenant, Sergeant, Corporal and twenty-five
soldiers," were all under the command of Lieutenant Colonel
Washington.[28]
Many brave young men newly outfitted in the colorful uniforms of His
Majesty's Militia, short clothes and white wigs, drilling in the market
square, swaggering around the town, filling up the new City Tavern.
Dances and dinners for the officers were the order of the day. Then came
the command for Washington to join Fry in defending British possessions
against the French, who had continued their depredations despite the
earlier diplomatic parley, and had not removed from the lands claimed as
the property of Great Britain.
Came April 2, and from the market place crowded with citizens, "Every
thing being ready," the commander, aged twenty-two, gave the order and
the company set forth to the strident beats of one drummer.[29] As the
creaking wheels of the two wagons and the tramp of marching feet faded
out of hearing, Alexandria had sent her sons off to her first war.
While Lieutenant Colonel Washington was occupied in so spectacular a
fashion, the town trustees were not without their troubles, also. People
were delinquent about complying with the Assembly laws. In June 1754,
the trustees ordered that various lots not built upon be put up at
auction and sold to the highest bidder. They were in earnest about this
dereliction on the part of purchasers, and seven lots were forfeited at
this time. Among those paying such a penalty was George Washington's
half-brother, Augustine Washington.
By December 1754, public buildings were well under way, the courthouse
lot was ordered "paled in with Posts and Rails in a workman-like
manner," and John Carlyle, John Dalton, George Johnston and William
Ramsay were appointed to see what was necessary to be done to the
finishing of the courthouse.
Within the year, his expedition defeated, Washington was back at Mount
Vernon, and very irritated by army orders demoting colonials of the same
grade and rank below the British regulars. Despite a vote of
commendation by the Burgesses and the sum of £50 voted for his services,
he threw up his commission.
The French continued hostilities, stirring up the Indians and causing no
end of trouble. His Majesty's government became sufficiently exercised
to dispatch an officer of the line, Major General Edward Braddock, two
warships in which were stowed a fine arsenal of powder, rifles, and
cannon, and two regiments of regulars. Word reached Alexandria in
February of Braddock's arrival in Williamsburg and that he and the
Governor were in conference. The first result of this conference was a
letter to "Mr. George Washington" written on March 2, 1755, and
dispatched in the person of General Braddock's aide-de-camp, Lieutenant
Robert Orme, requesting the presence of _Mr._ Washington as a member of
the General's military family. This, thought the Governor and the
General, would do away with any unpleasantness due to difference in
rank. A second decision reached in Williamsburg was one that resounded
along the Atlantic seaboard--to call a conference of the colonial
governors to consider ways, and especially means, of waging the coming
campaign. Alexandria was chosen as a meeting place and the day set was
April 14, 1755.
In the meantime, the English warships _Sea Horse_ and _Nightingale_
under command of Admiral Keppel arrived in Alexandria. Two of His
Majesty's regiments disembarked from the sea-grimed ships and the
Redcoats in formation marched to the "northwest of the town" led by
Colonel Sir Peter Halket and Colonel Dunbar. The humbler citizens had
never seen such a sight; neither had the Redcoats, and up went British
noses for all things Colonial. The regulars promptly dubbed the militia
"Bobtails."
After the exchange of several letters, Colonel Washington "volunteered"
to go unpaid with General Braddock on the campaign, and he came to
Alexandria to attend the governors' conference and whip his militia into
shape. Again he occupied the City Tavern as headquarters.
All at once the town was overrun with governors, His Majesty's royal
representatives. From Williamsburg came Dinwiddie; from Maryland,
Governor Sharpe; from Massachusetts, Governor Shirley; from New York,
Governor De Lancey; and from Pennsylvania, Governor Morris. Neither
dress nor ceremony had yet been curtailed by the drabness of Democracy.
Each governor arrived with a retinue of secretaries, attendants, and
aides; each by coach, decorated in gilded scrolls and colorful arms,
drawn by four to six horses; each governor resplendent in wig and
powder, silken hose, coats of brocade, velvet or broadcloth, waistcoats
of satin or damask, embroidered and braided, shirts of finest linen,
betucked and belaced, and attended by servants in livery as colorful as
their masters. The town was packed. Taverns were full, and private
houses were put at the disposal of these visitors. Dinners and balls
followed the serious councils of the day, which lasted until eleven or
twelve o'clock at night. The market place rang with the continuous
drilling of the Bobtails. Redcoats were everywhere. The ladies of the
town vied with one another in presents of potted woodcock and delicious
cake to the distinguished guests.
It has been one hundred and ninety-four years since the citizens of
Alexandria were treated to the panoply of five of His Majesty's royal
governors, two warships, and the presence of Major General Edward
Braddock with Mr. George Washington as part of his military family.
These days established the little seaport in history and furnished
sights and subjects resulting in tales and traditions more firmly
established than the printed word. Amid the scratching of quills and the
dipping of snuff, the destiny, not only of this hemisphere but of the
world, was changed, for the five governors assembled decided to tax the
colonies to support Braddock's expedition. It was not a popular
decision, and great difficulties arose in collecting the allotted sums.
It was a fateful step which led eventually to revolt by the colonies.
The conference over, pomp and pageantry departed, but not before Mr.
Washington and General Braddock had disagreed heartily on the fashion of
waging warfare. The heavy cannon brought by the British were dumped
overboard, notwithstanding, or were otherwise abandoned as too
cumbersome for the long trek west. General Braddock purchased from
Governor Sharpe of Maryland "an old English chariot and six horses" for
the march.
On April 20 the Redcoats and Bobtails (six companies, two from
Alexandria and the nearby countryside) set out. To Sir Peter Halket's
regiment were assigned Captain Stephens', Captain Peyronny's and Captain
Cock's Company of Rangers, and Captain Polson's Company of Artificers.
The heavy coach lumbered over the rough country roads, shaking poor
General Braddock almost to pieces and "greatly increased his
discomfort." Mr. Washington, desiring time to arrange his private
affairs at Mount Vernon, was unable to depart with his military family
for eight days after they left.
This tragically ill-fated expedition resulted in heavy casualties. On
July 9, Braddock was attacked unexpectedly near Fort Du Quesne by a body
of French and Indians, some three hundred strong, which so surprised the
British regulars they were struck with a "deadly panic" and
ignominiously fled. "The officers behaved with incomparable bravery ...
there being near 60 killed and wounded. The Virginian Companies behaved
like men and died like Soldiers ... scarce 30 were left alive ... The
General was wounded behind in the shoulder and into the Breast, of which
he died three days after."[30] George Washington miraculously saved the
army from complete rout. He afterwards collected his decimated
Virginians and marched them back to the market square in Alexandria. The
reception was a sad one.
[Illustration]
EARLY GROWTH
The minutes of the trustees for 1755 announced that by this time the
first frame courthouse was fenced--it had taken two years--and the
gentlemen justices of Fairfax County, sitting on November 17, 1756,
ordered John West, John Carlyle, and William Ramsay, Gentlemen, to be
paid five thousand pounds of tobacco; John Doonas, Alexandria's first
policeman, was to receive 120 pounds for patrolling twelve days.
For the next hundred years the great municipal interests were to be
tobacco, wheat, and ships; the rapid and proper dispatching of the
produce stored in the great warehouses occupying the river front; the
housing and sale of the vast diversity of goods coming to anchor with
each new sail. But in these earliest days, tobacco and ships to
transport it were the motivating forces of the town.
Turning the pages of a journal of long ago, one gets this glimpse of the
fit setting:
In the evening we returned down the river about fifteen miles to
Alexandria or Belhaven, a small trading place in one of the finest
situations imaginable. The Potomac above and below the town is not
more than a mile broad, but it here opens into a large circular bay
of at least twice that diameter. The town is built upon an arc of
this bay; at one extremity of which is a wharf; at the other a dock
for building ships; with water sufficiently deep to launch a vessel
of any rate or magnitude.[31]
On May 19, 1760, George Washington "went to Alexandria to see Captn.
Litterdale's ship launched, wch. went off extreamely well."[32] Again on
October 5, 1768, he "went up to Alexandria after an early dinner to see
a ship [the _Jenny_] launched, but was disappointed and came home."[33]
Next day, the 6th, he "went up again, saw the ship launched; stayd all
night to a Ball and set up all Night."[34] His expense account shows a
loss of 19 shillings at cards for the evening.
Alexandria's importance as a seaport was phenomenal and after a few
years it was ranking third in the New World--greater than New York, the
rival of Boston. Master shipbuilders turned out vessels to sail any
sea--manned, owned, and operated by Alexandrians. Down the ways of
Alexandria shipyards glided as good vessels as could be built. From her
ropewalks came the rope to hoist the sails made in her sail lofts.
Chemists' shops specialized in fitting out ships' medicine boxes for the
long voyages, and bakeshops packed daily thousands of ships' biscuits.
Ship chandlers forsook older ports for the new one; planters rolled in
tobacco in ever increasing bulk to fill the vessels crowding the harbor.
With greater wealth came the means to fill the need and desire of
Alexandrians for good clothes and fine furnishings. And so back to
England with each cargo went orders for the newest taste and the latest
fashion.
It took months, sometimes longer than a year, to complete an order for
goods. Each voyage was a stupendous adventure. Ships with full cargoes
often disappeared and were neither seen nor heard of again. George
Washington's writings serve as a good history of Alexandria. His
voluminous letters reveal what our first citizens needed, bought, and
used, what various articles cost, and how business details were handled:
November 30, 1759
To Robert Cary & Company
Gentn: By the George and Captns Richardson and Nicks who saild with
the Fleet in September last I sent invoices of such Goods as were
wanting for myself Estate etc, but knowing that the latter
unfortunately foundered at Sea soon after her departure from Virginia
and that the former may probably have suffered by that Storm or some
other accident, by which means my Letters &c would miscarry I take
this oppertunity by way of Bristol of addressing Copies of them, and
over and above the things there wrote for to desire the favour of you
to send me a neat Grait (for Coal or small Faggots) in the newest
taste and of a size to fit a Chimney abt. 3 feet wide and two Deep,
and a fender suited to Ditto. Steel I believe are most used at
present; also send me a New Market Great Coat with a loose hood to be
made of Blew Drab or broad cloth with Straps before according to the
present taste, let it be made of such cloth as will turn a good
shower of Rain and made long, and fit in other respects for a Man
full 6 feet high and proportionately made, possibly the Measure sent
for my other cloths may be a good direction to these. Please to add
also to the things ordered for Mrs. Dandridge 12 yds of Silver cold
Armozeen or Ducape and cause it to be packed up with the Rest of her
things charged with them. &ca.
Five days ago I dropt a letter at Williamsburg, to take the first
Conveyance to you, desiring Insurance on 50 Hhds Tobo pr. the Cary
since then I have got 4 more Inspected and all on Float ready to
deliver at the Ships side. You will therefore Insure that Quantity
and dispose of them in the best manner for Our Interest. If Captn.
Talman uses that Dispatch in Loading of his Vessell, which I am sure
he now has in his power to do this Tobo. wl come to a very good
market, I hope.
It is almost as much trouble and expense getting Goods from any of
the Rivers round to Potomack as the Original Charges of Shipping them
amount to, unless they are committed to the charge of very careful
Captains who has an Interest in forwarding. I should be glad
therefore if you would take the oppertunity of some Ship to that
River of sending my Goods for the Future.
Your favour of the 6th Augt. I have had the pleasure of receiving,
and acknowledge myself particularly obliged to you for your polite
Congratulations on my Marriage, as I likewise am for your Dispatch of
my Goods.
I am Gentn.[35]
[Illustration: A Suffer to Pass of the ship Polly and Nancy of
Alexandria; John McKnight, Master. Signed by George Washington.
(Courtesy Mount Vernon Ladies' Association)]
An invoice of goods of earlier date sent by the same firm for the use of
George Washington contained 194 items. Wearing garments, ornaments for
the chimney place, busts, drugs, sugar, carpenter's and plowman's tools,
candy, a case of pickles containing anchovies, capers, olives, "salid
oyl" and a bottle of India mangoes; tea, harness, saddles, corks, six
pounds of perfumed powder, three pounds of the best Scotch snuff,
ribbons, gloves, sword belt, nine dozen packages of playing cards, paint
and brushes, one and one-half dozen bell glasses for the garden; one
mahogany closet stool case in the newest taste, with place for chamber
pot, etc.; soap, garden seeds, nuts and condiments, locks and two dozen
H&L hinges and three pounds of bird lime, were but a few of the items
listed.
In addition to his own orders, the General supervised the shopping for
the two Custis children and his mother-in-law, Mrs. Dandridge. Not only
were clothes and materials ordered, fine ivory combs, stockings, etc.,
but toys. Here is a selection made by the Cary firm--a child's fiddle, a
coach and six in a box, a stable with six horses, a toy whip, a filigree
watch, a neat enameled watch box, a corner cupboard and a child's huzzit
[housewife].
General Washington was a Virginia gentleman who lived in a fashion
similar to his neighbors; like orders, we may be sure, went from
Alexandria, and like articles were bought and received into its homes.
Perhaps the system was not always so direct, for the average townsman
doubtless relied more upon local merchants as agents. Washington
followed this course at various times, but until the American
Revolution he rather steadfastly depended upon Robert Cary & Company of
London.
With the growth of trade and population came the necessity for expansion
of the town, and we see the Assembly approving the petition of the
trustees and sundry inhabitants of the town of Alexandria in 1762,
"Praying that an Act may pass to enlarge the Bounds of the said
Town."[36] All lots save those in the marsh were then built upon.
On May 9, 1763, the trustees proceeded to sell the new lots, which had
been added by act of Assembly. The town property was enhancing in value
and for that reason the lots were sold with a twelve-month credit,
hoping to increase the sale value. Forty-six lots were disposed of,
among the purchasers being George Johnston, Robert Adam, Francis Lee,
John Dalton, John Carlyle, and George Washington, who at thirty-one
years of age became a _bona fide_ citizen of Alexandria. The town which
he had honored returned the compliment four years later when the city
fathers meeting on December 16, 1766, "proceeded to elect as Trustee in
the room of George Johnston, decd, and have unanimously chosen George
Washington, Esq., as Trustee for the town aforesaid."[37]
Fifteen years after the laying out of the town, at a session of the
House of Burgesses, November 5, 1764, in the fifth year of the reign of
George III it was "Resolved, That it is the Opinion of this Committee
that the Petition of divers Proprietors of Lots, and other Inhabitants
of the Town of Alexandria, in the County of Fairfax, praying that so
much of the Act of Assembly for establishing the said Town as obliges
the Purchasers of Lots therein to build and improve the same in a
limited Time, may be repealed, and the Purchasers left at Liberty to
build thereon when convenient to them, is reasonable."[38] George
Washington found it convenient to build a house on one of his lots in
1769; the other was not built upon until almost thirty years later.
The prodigious development of the new port was accompanied by a growing
civic pride and the demand for better public buildings. A
story-and-a-half brick town hall was erected in 1759 by funds raised by
lottery, tickets selling at ten shillings each, the trustees making
themselves responsible for a sum adequate for the purpose. At the
trustees' meeting of April 1767, John Dalton and John Carlyle produced
an account of moving the courthouse amounting to £52 7_s._ 5-1/2_d._;
while William Ramsay presented his account for a "scheme of a lottery to
build a Church and Market house" in the amount of £11 12_s._[39] The new
town house with its clerk's office and assembly room stood on the
northeast corner of the square; nearby on Cameron Street stood the
Fairfax Court House, which town promotion had brought to Alexandria. The
church and market did not materialize so early.
[Illustration: The addition to the town in 1763 and 1767. (Library of
Congress)]
EARLY EDUCATION
Space in the lower floor of the town hall was provided for a grammar
school soon after the completion of this building in 1760. Seven years
later the town fathers found that the schoolhouse was so misused that
repairs were urgent and minutes for the meeting of February 2, 1767,
record how they considered it necessary to put it in better condition,
"also to make some additions in order to make the upper room usefull not
only for meeting of the Trustees but for such other purposes as may be
thought necessary." Apparently a separate entrance for the schoolroom
dates from this time; other improvements included the raising of the
roof for greater utility upstairs. The trustees further resolved: "As it
appears to us that the House has been very much injured by the
negligence of the School Masters it is now determined that each Master
give security to repair any injury that the House may sustain during the
time they have it." Robert Adam and Thomas Fleming were appointed
overseers of the property for a term of twelve months.
[Illustration: Corner mantel at 211-1/2 Prince Street in the house built
about 1786 by William Hickman. The builder was trying to cram into a
given space every motif in the _Builder's Handbook_: Greek entablature
at the top of the pediment, crowded center panel, broken pediment, and
the top of the pediment jammed into the cap fretwork. The whole is very
amusing but interesting and altogether charming.]
A grammar school reputed to have been supported by public funds was in
existence at Belhaven in 1739, just ten years before Alexandria was
founded. Presumably the Alexandria school of 1760 was put into operation
under identical conditions and it may be that special classes beyond the
mere rudiments of education were conducted for children whose families
could pay extra tuition. Such a plan would closely approximate the
tutorial arrangement prevailing on outlying plantations. For orphaned
children and the very poor who had to earn while they learned, provision
was usually made for a little schooling within the framework of the
apprenticeship system, and church wardens were charged with
responsibility for placing orphans with individuals to learn a useful
occupation. At a court held March 18, 1770, "James Gameron, five years
old the last of this month and Sarah Gameron three years old" were bound
out "to William Wren who is to learn them to read and write, and the
said James the trade of a shoe maker."[40]
After the Revolution, the town's educational system centered in the
Alexandria academy, which stood on the east side of Washington Street
between Wolfe and Wilkes, where now stands the present Washington Public
School. The old Marsteller house, acquired by the public school system
in 1882, when the present school building was erected, has by many been
confused with the old academy building. The Alexandria academy was a
one-story brick structure. Its cornerstone was laid September 7, 1785,
by the Alexandria Lodge of Freemasons, Robert Adam, Esquire, Worshipful
Master of the Lodge. Mrs. Powell, in her _History of Old Alexandria_,
states that after the stone was laid "a gratuity was distributed among
the workmen." The school was incorporated in 1786 by act of the Virginia
Assembly and the trustees were to be chosen by those gentlemen who had
contributed five or more dollars for the use of the academy, thirteen
fit and able men to serve beginning in 1788. In the meantime,
Washington, Dr. Brown, and twelve other generous public-spirited
citizens were appointed by law as trustees until the annual elections
should begin. The letter asking Washington to serve is extant.
General Washington, always a believer and a patron of learning,
contributed for many years prior to his death, £50 annually toward a
free department for poor students. In his will he left one thousand
dollars or "20 shares of stock which I hold in the Bank of Alexandria,
towards the support of a free school established at and annexed to the
said Academy, for the purpose of educating such orphans or children of
such poor and indigent persons as are unable to accomplish it with their
own means, and who in the judgment of the trustees of the said Seminary
are best entitled to the benefit of this donation."
[Illustration: A Mantel in the home of the late Miss Saidee M. Field,
316 Duke Street, in the Adam-McIntyre manner. The house was built prior
to 1795, at which time a trust to secure William Stoggett of
Carnelsford, County Cornwall, England for £253.16.9 is cited. Note the
large brick in the worn hearth and bit of original pine flooring. The
fireback has been rebuilt.]
By 1791 the school established by his bounty was caring for thirteen boy
and seven girl pupils. One graduate, John Weylie, wrote to thank the
General for his benevolence. This same young man later became tutor for
the children of Dr. David Stuart. In January 1800, following
Washington's death the month previous, the Alexandria council voted to
provide a suit of mourning for each of the poor scholars educated at his
expense that they might join in the memorial exercises scheduled for
February 22.
George Steptoe Washington and Lawrence Augustine, sons of the General's
deceased brother, Samuel, were both sent to the academy. They were
boarded by Washington with one of the trustees, Samuel Hansen, who
frequently reported to their uncle on their interests and behavior. In
1789, Hansen wrote to the General recommending for George one Cleon
Moore as teacher of the violin at £12 per year.
These gentlemen were not as circumspect when students as was Lorenzo
Lewis, who was cited in 1819 for "general deportment and propriety of
conduct." Young Lewis was the son of Nelly Custis and Lawrence Lewis,
the former Mrs. Washington's granddaughter and the General's ward, the
latter the General's nephew. Robert E. Lee perchance might be included
in this Washington family circle, by virtue of his subsequent marriage
to the daughter of George Washington Parke Custis, brother of Nelly. Lee
attended the academy from about 1820 until 1824, and was remembered by
his teachers as an exemplary scholar.
Education for the opposite sex was not overlooked. Through the interest
and encouragement of Washington, Mrs. Eliza Harriot O'Conner opened an
academy for young ladies as early as 1788. Quaintly worded announcements
appearing in local gazettes early in the nineteenth century reveal an
ever-increasing number of girls' schools.
Female scholars clad in blue worsted dresses, black aprons, muslin
handkerchiefs, leather shoes and colored hose, capes, blue lined straw
bonnets, sporting crimson ribbons, studied the exotic subjects of
"Painting in inks and colors on 'tiffany.' Embroidered landscapes both
plain and fanciful in chenile, gold and silver, wrought maps in
'ditto'--printed work in Tambour and needlework--made fringe and
netting."
EARLY AMUSEMENTS
Alexandrians were not without their lighter side. There were plays in
town at least as early as 1768, for on September 20 of that year George
Washington took Mrs. Washington and the Custis children to Alexandria to
see "The Inconstant, or, Way to Win." They remained overnight and the
next day attended the theatre again to see "The Tragedy of Douglas." The
cost of the two entertainments was given as £3 12_s._ 6_d._
In 1789 the _Virginia Journal and Alexandria Advertiser_ announced the
presentation of the "Tragedy of Jane Shore, with the musical farce of
the Virgin Unmasked." Mr. McGrath opened the Alexandria Theatre for four
seasons beginning in 1791. On November 6 he presented Garrick's comedy,
"The Lying Valet" and on November 19, 1793, the American comedy, "The
Contrast: or, the True Born Yankee." The theatre doors opened at six,
and the curtain was raised promptly at half-past six--or so the
announcement read, and it continued, "no money to be received by the
Door-Keepers."
In 1797, Thomas Wade West, Manager of "The Virginia and South Carolina
Comedians Companies" and Margaret, his wife, came to Alexandria for the
purpose of erecting a theatre. A lot on the north side of Cameron
Street, fronting thereon fifty-four feet, was purchased on July 8, 1797,
from Thomas and Sarah Porter, the ground rental of which was 108 silver
dollars yearly.
The patrons of this enterprise, some twenty-nine of the first citizens
of Alexandria--among them Edmund I. Lee, William Herbert, Josiah Watson,
Ludwell Lee, Elisha Cullen Dick, Joseph Riddle and Jonah
Thompson--agreed with one another to contribute the sum of two hundred
dollars each to be laid out and expended for the erection of a theatre
upon the aforesaid piece of ground. The subscribers had free tickets of
admission to every performance with the exception of benefits and
charities. This was to continue in effect for one season after
reimbursement at six per cent interest. Thomas Wade West agreed to
furnish all the decorations, scenery and furniture to the value of £500.
This was the New Theatre as shown on the early maps of the town.
Cockfights and horse racing, too, were popular, the latter attended by
women and children. But in 1816 the council forbade these activities
taking place within the town limits, and ruled that "every person who
shall trim, heel, or pit any cock so fought and every owner of such cock
consenting thereto and every person who shall bet on such a match or
main shall severally forfeit and pay for every offense the sum of twenty
dollars."[41] Since horse racing could not be easily secreted in cellars
and walled gardens, no such drastic penalties accompanied that
pertinent part of the act. Blooded horses were imported by John Carlyle
as early as 1762. Alexandria races attracted the best horses in the Old
Dominion. Famous Maryland and Tidewater stables participated in the
Jockey Club races. George Washington was steward of the Alexandria
Jockey Club. The gazettes were full of notices concerning the races and
frequently gave pedigrees of certain horses advertised for sale or stud.
[Illustration: Doorway of the supposed Jockey Club of which Washington
and Dulany were stewards. (814 Franklin Street)]
After the races, especially those of the Jockey Club, there was sure to
be an Assembly Ball at one of the larger taverns, followed by a fine
supper. In Gadsby's time the Jockey Club used his tavern as
headquarters. After dining, the members were frequently entertained by
"The Players" or "Jugglers and Tumblers." Maryland neighbors as well as
nearby Virginians turned out for these festivities.
[Illustration: Mantel in the home of the late Mr. and Mrs. Norman H.
Davis, 804 Prince Street. Late 18th and early 19th Century reeded
carving, typical of the Federal House. The decoration is achieved by the
returns around the pilasters, the reeded trim and diamond motif in the
center panel.]
Fox hunting was indulged in frequently by Alexandria gentlemen who went
often to Mount Vernon, Belvoir and to other estates near Alexandria for
the sport.
Fairs and circuses from time to time filled the town with excitement.
Feats of horsemanship, vaulting and dancing were performed every Fair
Day during the visitation of Messrs. Pepin and Breschard in April 1810.
The doors opened at half-past three and the performance commenced at
half-past four; beginning with a Grand Military Manoeuvre by eight
persons well mounted, and ending with the admired "Scene of the Domestic
Horse" (by the famous Conqueror) who brought chairs and baskets when
commanded, and the "Ladies Fireworks," composed by Mr. Condit.
Of course, there was much wining and dining out, followed by cards
rendered more spicy when played for stakes. Taverns and oyster houses
furnished recreation for those less affluent. Fields and streams
furnished rare sport for fishermen; the successful fisherman or hunter
could always dispose of his excess catch at the market. Fish fries were
common entertainment.
[Illustration]
DOMESTIC ECONOMY AND A NEW MONEY CROP
As the population grew, the markets were abundantly supplied. Great
vessels packed with ice for sale in the town tied up at the wharves;
open spaces devoted to gardens and outbuildings gave way to dwelling
houses, and the town became more compact. Twelve or more servants were
necessary for the maintenance of large establishments, varying in number
according to the size of the family and the house. There was generally a
butler, who acted as major-domo, a cook and kitchenmaid, body servants
or valets for the head of the house and the young gentlemen, a ladies'
maid, chambermaid, nurse and nursemaids, a coachman, stable boy,
gardener, yard boy and laundress.
During the first twenty years of the city's development, an entire block
might contain not more than four homes. Each of these units functioned
as a miniature and self-supporting estate, surrounded by flower and
vegetable gardens and the usual outbuildings--necessaries, kitchen,
dairy, ice house, smokehouse, fowl house, servant quarters and stable.
The following advertisement appearing as late as 1828 illustrates the
traditional layout:
TO LET
An elegant two story Brick House, with kitchen, wash house, bath
house, stable and carriage houses, an elegant garden, and a well of
excellent water, a pump in the middle or centre of the square, a
cistern for wash water and every convenience, equalled by few and
exceeded by none of its size in Alexandria and suited only to a
genteel family.
It stands on Prince Street. It will be let for one or more years as
best suits the tenant and possession given at once.
Apply to ROBERT BROCKETT
In spring the gardens were prepared, the herring salted and packed. In
summer great quantities of preserves, jellies, and pickles were put up
for the long winter. At the first frost the smokehouses were filled with
hams and great sides of bacon. Game was plentiful, and during the season
venison, duck, partridge, wild turkey, and woodcock appeared in market
and graced the tables of the well-to-do. With tea from China and India,
coffee from Brazil, oil and condiments from Spain, sugar and fruits from
the West Indies, Alexandrians fared sumptuously.
By 1770 Alexandria's tobacco trade had largely given way to wheat, and
the local shipping merchants were finding their supplies farther and
farther west in the valley of the Shenandoah. George Washington was one
of the first planters on the upper Potomac to change his money crop from
tobacco to wheat. He enlarged his mill and took advantage of the latest
mechanical advances of his time. However successful he became as a wheat
farmer, he never escaped the trials and grief caused by those middlemen,
his agents. In 1767 he wrote a nine-page letter roundly berating Carlyle
and Adam for the destruction of his bags and for delay in paying him for
his wheat.
A list of merchants and factors doing business in Alexandria in 1775
emphasizes the transition from tobacco to wheat. Of twenty-one firms
enumerated, fourteen were purchasers of wheat:
1. Hooe and Harrison--_wheat_ purchasers.
2. Steward and Hubard--_wheat_ purchasers.
3. Fitzgerald and Reis--_wheat_ purchasers.
4. Harper and Hartshorne--_wheat_ purchasers.
5. John Allison--_wheat_ purchaser.
6. William Sadler--_wheat_ purchaser.
7. Robert Adam and Co.--_wheat_ purchasers.
8. Henby and Calder--_wheat_ purchasers.
9. William Hayburne--_wheat_ purchaser.
10. James Kirk--_wheat_ purchaser.
11. George Gilpin--_wheat_ purchaser, inspector of flour.
12. Thomas Kilpatrick--_wheat_ purchaser, inspector of flour.
13. McCawlay and Mayes--import British goods which they sell
wholesale.
14. William Wilson--seller of British goods who buys tobacco.
15. John Locke--seller of British goods who buys tobacco.
16. John Muir--seller of British goods who buys tobacco.
17. Brown and Finley--they import goods from Philadelphia and
purchase tobacco and _wheat_.
18. Josiah Watson--he imports goods from Philadelphia and purchases
tobacco and _wheat_.
19. Robert Dove and Co.--distillers.
20. Carlyle and Dalton--import Rum and Sugar.
21. Andrew Wales--brewer.[42]
It is said that Virginia wheat was the best to be procured and all
Europe was a market for Alexandria flour. It was not long before the
great wagons that had formerly carried wheat from Tidewater to
Philadelphia and the Delaware found the Potomac port as good a market
and a shorter journey. Numerous bakehouses appeared and Alexandria
packed and shipped large quantities of bread and crackers along with
flour to Europe and the Indies.
Alexandria had been a port of entry since 1779 and time was when the
Potomac from mouth to port was so crowded with vessels that navigation
was difficult. The early gazettes constantly referred to the crowded
condition of the river. The water front seethed with activity. One finds
the notice in a newspaper of 1786 of the arrival from St. Petersburg,
Russia, of the ship _Hunter_ of Alexandria. She was advertised to ply
her trade between these two places. This ship was built, owned, and
sailed by an Alexandrian, and was but one of many claiming Alexandria as
home port. Far corners of the earth were united in this ancient harbor
for a hundred years or more. "Commerce and Shipping" columns in the
local journals were as well read then as are our "classifieds" today.
Ships from China lay beside ships from Spain; flags from Holland,
Jamaica, Portugal, Germany, France and Russia flaunted their gay colors.
Private as well as public wharves were built. Large and rich shipping
firms were numerous. Great warehouses of brick lined the river front. A
kinsman of President Washington wrote him in 1792 that the "port of
Alexandria has seldom less than 20 square-rigged vessels in it and often
many more. The streets are crowded with wagons and the people all seem
busy."[43]
Sloops, brigs, barques and schooners unloaded osnaburgs, wild boars,
moreens, brocades and damasks, bombazines, Russian and Belgian linens,
Scottish wools, French and Italian silk, caster hats, morocco leather
slippers, pipes of Madeira wine, casks of rum and port from Spain,
spices, fruits, and muscovado sugar from the West Indies, chests of
Hyson tea from China, neat sofas, bureaus, sideboards, harpsichords and
spinets from London, along with other things "too tedious to mention."
By 1816 decline in the importance of the port had set in, but no less
than 992 vessels entered and cleared the customs that year. This number
did not include the "vast number of inland packets, coal traders, lumber
vessells, wood d^o, grain d^o, etc." Of these 992 vessels, 195 were
foreign--ships, brigs, schooners, sloops--while coastwise entrances and
clearances reached 797. On January 22, 1817, the account of vessels in
the port of Alexandria stood:
Ships 9
Barques 1
Brigs 11
Schooners 30
Sloops 15
---
Total 66
These figures do not include a number of small craft in the port or the
steamboats _Washington_ and _Camdon_.
[Illustration]
AFTERMATH OF REVOLUTION
Participants in the Revolution made more impress upon Alexandria's
history than the war itself. The town was divided in its sentiments.
Many of the Scottish people remained loyal in their sympathies to the
mother country. Old Lord Fairfax, a Tory of Tories, became incensed with
young Washington, whom he had practically brought up, and 'tis said,
refused ever to see or speak to him again. His heir, Parson Bryan
Fairfax, of Mount Eagle, afterward Eighth Lord, remained on the
friendliest terms with the household at Mount Vernon, while holding the
strongest of Loyalist convictions. Tradition has it that Washington
personally saved him from molestation by the American troops.
[Illustration: An early cartoon representing John Bull collecting
indemnity from Alexandrians during the War of 1812. By Wm. Charles.
(_Library of Congress_)]
The Alexandria Committee of Safety obtained and outfitted fifteen
vessels for the protection of the town and the Potomac. On two occasions
the people became much excited and badly frightened. Rumor was rife in
1775 that Governor Dunmore had dispatched an expedition of warships up
the Potomac to "lay waste the towns and the country, capture Mrs.
Washington, and burn Mount Vernon."[44] Martha Washington remained calm,
and though finally persuaded by Colonel Mason to leave home, she stayed
away one night only.
The second scare is revealed in a letter from the General's manager,
Lund Washington, written in January 1776. "Alexandria is much alarmed
and indeed the whole neighborhood," he wrote. "The women and children
are leaving the town and stowing themselves in every hut they can find,
out of reach of the enemy's cannon. Every wagon, cart and pack horse
they can get is employed. The militia are all up, but not in arms, for
indeed they have none, or at least very few."[45]
[Illustration: Mantel in the house of the late Mrs. Davidson Maigne, 220
South Royal Street, dates about 1800 and is a good example of the
period, showing grace and restraint. Attention is drawn to the center
panel in an interesting way.]
La Fayette, De Kalb, Rochambeau, John Paul Jones, and "Light Horse
Harry" Lee, were in and out of Alexandria many times. On May 4, 1781,
the Commander in Chief of the Continental Army recorded in his diary: "A
letter from the Marq^s de la Fayette, dated at Alexandria on the 23rd,
mentioned his having commenced his march that day for Fredericksburg"--that
desertion had ceased, and that his detachment was in good spirits.[46]
High morale and grand strategy brought victory for the Continental cause
that October. Something like thirty-odd officers of the Revolution lived
in or near Alexandria, or came to live here after the war. Sixteen of them
became members of the Society of the Cincinnati, of which Washington was
President General.
The Peace of 1783 revived strangulated commerce and construction. The
harbor came to life. The brickmason and the carpenter took up their
tools. Wheat and tobacco rolled in to fill again the empty warehouses.
The citizens were gay and indulged themselves in festivities, as witness
an old letter written from Alexandria on February 13, 1787:
Last Evening there was an elegant Ball in this Town, being the
anniversary of General Washington's birth. No less than fifty Ladies
elegantly dressed graced the Ball Room, tho the mud in our
intolerable Streets was up to the Knees in Shoes (rather Boots) &
Stockings.
Mr. Jenckes attended--says the Ball was agreeable for one so
numerous. He has formed considerable acquaintances with the ladies,
who are very agreeable but in general they talk rather too broad
Irish for him.[47]
Brissot de Warville, who visited America in 1788, was impressed by the
possibilities of Alexandria:
... where thirty or forty years ago there were only one or two
houses, is now indeed smaller than Baltimore, but plans to surpass
her. She is already quite as irregular in construction and as muddy.
But there is more luxury evident at Alexandria, if a miserable
luxury; you see servants in silk stockings, and their masters in
boots.
At the end of the war the people of Alexandria imagined that the
natural advantages of their situation, the salubrity of the air, the
depth of the river channel and the safety of the harbour which can
accomodate the largest ships and permit them to anchor close to the
wharves, must unite with the richness of the back country to make
their town the center of a large commerce. In consequence they are
building on all sides, they have set up superb wharves and raised
vast warehouses.
At the moment the expected commerce languishes. This is attributed to
the heavy taxes. Whatever may be the cause many citizens are
emigrating or planning to emigrate. Some ships of Alexandria are now
trading regularly with the West Indies and at New Orleans.[48]
[Illustration: Classical Revival in mantel and doorway]
THE FEDERAL PERIOD
It was not long after the Revolution that the seat of the new federal
government was selected near Alexandria. In fact, one old story has it
that Alexandria was chosen as the site, and the patriot Washington was
twitted with the advantages that would accrue to him, with such vast
holdings of land so near the new capital. The tales go on that
Washington waxed very angry and replied that never, if he could help it,
should a public building be put south of the Potomac.
Be this as it may, the Virginia Assembly ceded to the federal government
on December 3, 1789, a generous slice of Fairfax County to be
incorporated with the State of Maryland's larger portion into a district
for the federal capital, ten miles square. The Congress of the United
States was pleased to accept this, and later an additional act of
Congress of March 3, 1791, amended and repealed a part of the first act,
naming Alexandria part of the ceded territory. And so for the next
fifty-six years we have no longer Alexandria in Virginia, but Alexandria
in the District of Columbia.
The Federal City (afterward Washington) which did not officially become
the nation's capital until 1800, was an undrained marsh in 1790.
Travelers visiting Alexandria about that time described it as having
"upwards of three hundred houses," many "handsomely built."[49] In 1795
Thomas Twining passed through Alexandria and commented: "What struck me
most was the vast number of houses which I saw building ... the hammer
and the trowel were at work everywhere, a cheering sight."[50] The Duc
de la Rochefoucauld in the following year stated: "Alexandria is beyond
all comparison the handsomest town in Virginia and indeed is among the
finest in the United States."[51] That same year, 1796, Isaac Weld
remarked, "Alexandria is one of the neatest towns in the United States.
The houses are mostly of brick."[52]
Virginians were largely their own architects. Thomas Jefferson designed
Monticello, the University of Virginia, and the Capitol at Richmond;
George Mason built Gunston Hall; and George Washington directed the
transformation of Mount Vernon from a simple villa into the famous
mansion it is. Alexandria "Undertakers," or contractors, did the
work--James Patterson in 1758 and Going Lamphire from 1773 onward for a
number of years. One Mr. Sanders, was called in about roof troubles and
afterwards dismissed. John Carlyle was the great gentleman architect and
builder of Alexandria. He built his own fine house, he took over Christ
Church in 1773 when James Parsons failed to complete his contract, and
he also superintended the erection of the Presbyterian meetinghouse.
James Wren, Gentleman, is remembered as the designer of Christ Church in
1767. Thomas Fleming is referred to as a ship's carpenter and "one who
is inclined to serve the Town." A story goes that George Coryell built a
gate in Philadelphia which so pleased the first President that he
persuaded him to move to Alexandria. True or not, the local _Gazette_
carried Coryell's advertisements of building materials and he is known
to have built a number of houses. Robert Brockett was building in 1785
the Presbyterian Manse. Benjamin Hallowell, William Fowle, and William
Yeaton at a later time proved themselves able architects.
The designs of Alexandria houses derived from the Old Country, and
follow the type of eighteenth century architecture found in the British
Isles, especially Scotland. The general floor plans of Alexandria's
homes are similar. With the _Builder's Companion and Workman's General
Assistant_, it was well-nigh impossible to go wrong. This series of
pamphlets, reprinted in 1762 by William Pain of London, offered the
purest and best of classical designs. The Scottish founders adapted them
to their needs, with the result that Alexandria differs from other
Colonial towns in Virginia, as Scotland differs from England. The
spiritual and physical variations are keenly sensed.
The interior trim of Alexandria's houses is simple and severe compared
to the plantation houses lining the Virginia rivers; to the elaborate
carving of the fine eighteenth century Charleston homes it seems plain
and austere. Nonetheless, there is a substantial dignity about these
houses that produces an atmosphere of calm, gracious peace not unlike
the interiors of meetinghouses. Even the little brick-and-frame cottages
partake of this same feeling and are remarkable for the charm of their
inviting and harmonious rooms. The simple overmantels, chair rails, wide
and low six-paneled doors hung on the proverbial H&L hinges, well
proportioned rooms and large, hospitable fireplaces, all done in
miniature, form interiors rare in scale, surprising in elegance, perfect
in balance.
For the better part of ten years after the Revolution, buildings
continued going up as rapidly as bricks could be made and artisans found
to put them together. As the town grew, the gaps along the streets were
filled. Alexandria assumed the character, not of Williamsburg or
Annapolis, but rather of Philadelphia or some Old World town. By 1795 it
wore an air of stability as row after row of fine brick buildings went
up. Alexandria houses were city dwellings and homes of merchants.
Comfortable and inviting they were, too, with a wealth of detail in
finish and appearance. Doorways and cornices for the outside; arches,
mantels and paneling within. Very sad it is to relate how much of this
has found its way into the museums of the country, and sadder still to
tell how much has been wantonly destroyed. The New York Metropolitan
Museum of Art houses one of the great rooms from Alexandria; the St.
Louis Museum another; and some interior woodwork has found its way to
Williamsburg.
[Illustration: Varied were the designs and never were the twain alike]
Conceived and built as a trading center, by 1796, almost without
exception, the first floor of every building was used as a place of
business while the upper floors served as the family dwelling. This
accounts for the more elaborate woodwork found on second floors. The
Mutual Assurance Society archives reveal many instances of a store,
countinghouse, office or shop located in a wing or attached building;
likewise warehouses on the premises as well as along the water front.
ARTISANS AND TRADESMEN
Alexandrians owned and operated shipyards, sail lofts, ropewalks, lumber
yards, brick kilns; print and apothecary shops; manufactories of
harness, saddles, boots, shoes, mattresses, and cloth. And of course
there were the taverns and hotels, inns and oyster houses, markets,
stables, ferries, and fish wharves (where millions of herring were
packed for export). Its citizens maintained churches, schools,
academies, banks, fire companies, counting houses, and newspapers. They
supported ministers, lawyers, doctors, dentists, oculists,
cabinetmakers, artists, musicians, actors, merchants and a town militia.
Mention has already been made of the important building professions--to
the activities of house and ship carpenters, and the "undertakers," or
contractors of the day.
Among the tradesmen and artisans of the town were watchmakers and
clockmakers, jewelers, goldsmiths, coppersmiths, gunsmiths, blacksmiths,
and ironmongers; confectioners, bakers and brewers; hatters, and
wig-makers. Cottom & Stewart was a firm of publishers and vendors of the
latest in literature. Joshua Delacour was a bookbinder who carried on
his business in all its branches, not only supplying ladies with
bandboxes, trunks, pasteboard stays and stomachers, but he also papered
rooms in the neatest fashion. Books and stationery were imported by
Joshua Merryman, who also advertised blotting paper, quills, ink powder,
inkpots, sealing wax and wafers--in fact, all the adjuncts of polite
correspondence.
Margaret Greetner set great store by her newly imported mangle, by which
"silk, linen and cotton stockings, and other articles were smoothed and
glossed in the most expeditious manner." She took in washing at
"moderate terms" and apparently was the eighteenth century counterpart
of our modern laundry. Joseph Delarue was her competitor in the
dry-cleaning field, offering his services to ladies and gentlemen of the
town and adjacent country as a scourer of silks, chintzes, and woolen
clothes. Coachmaking was carried on by E.P. Taylor and Charles Jones.
Unfortunately, records relating to Alexandria's early artisans are
pathetically scanty or altogether lacking.
Alexandria in its heyday boasted as fine silver as could be found in the
colony, and while there is a quantity of English silver thereabouts,
much was made by her own craftsmen. It exists today in families who,
while cherishing it for generations, have used it commonly for a century
or more.
A partial list of silversmiths includes some nineteen or twenty names,
for the earliest of whom there is any record, we must thank "the
General," for it is in his ledgers that these first five names are
found, noting some work done for Mount Vernon, usually of a repair
nature. Salt spoons and ladles evidently saw hard service, or were kept
so spick and span they had to go to the silversmith for frequent
mending. In 1773 the Washington silver chest was the richer for a punch
ladle made by William Dowdney. While this was in the making, one Edward
Sandford was restoring a salt and mending a punch ladle. He also
repaired Mrs. Washington's watch and made her a silver seal. The salt
spoons were in the hands of one Charles Turner in 1775; and Mrs.
Washington had a gold locket from one Philip Dawe. The punch ladle was
out of order again in 1781 and had a new handle made by "Mr. Kanat."
[Illustration: The Federal Period interpreted in iron]
About this time the Adam family of silversmiths began to attract
attention. The first of that name in Alexandria was James Adam
(1755-1798). He was working in Alexandria as early as 1771, and he who
has an original Adam piece is either one of an ancient family in the
town or a fortunate collector. The work of his son, John Adam
(1780-1843), is more frequently found, and of the best type. The Adam
grandson, William W. (1817-1877), followed the trade of his
progenitors, turning out good work certainly but in the Victorian idiom.
Charles Burnett, working in Alexandria in 1793, and probably as early as
1785, produced sauceboats, urns, tea sets, tankards, and so on. His
flatware is usually distinguished by a shell motif, and gadroon edges
finish and decorate many of his pieces. His work is very similar to his
Philadelphia contemporaries.
Adam Lynn (1775-1836) was born in Alexandria, of Alexandria parents, the
son of Colonel Adam Lynn, a Revolutionary officer and a member of the
Society of the Cincinnati. He inherited property from his father, two
lots of land on King and St. Asaph Streets. At the age of twenty-five,
in 1800, he advertised himself as:
ADAM LYNN
Jeweler, Silver and Goldsmith, Silver Tea sets may be had to any
pattern at short notice, warranted to equal any in America.
It is noted that in 1801 he "respectfully informs the public that he has
commenced the clock and watchmaking business, in addition to that of
jewelry. He has laid in a large assortment of the best materials in that
line and is determined to give general satisfaction." Lynn's work is
delicate and fine. Strangely, very little remains but what there is is
satisfactory. He frequently decorated his flatware with a refined
etching or gravure, his hollow ware with reeding. To the jewelry
business Lynn combined another. In 1810 his advertisement read:
New Hardware Store Adam Lynn & Co.
Have received by the Ship "Dumphries" from Liverpool, via Baltimore A
Large and General Assortment ... which they now offer for sale at
their store corner King and Royal Streets--late occupied by Peter
Sherron.
Lynn held several offices in the Masonic lodge and served for years as
vestryman of St. Paul's Church. He had the added distinction of being
drawn by M. de St. Mèmin.
A few spoons and ladles survive Mordecai Miller, 1790; John Duffey,
1793; George Duffey (1845-1880); James Ganet (1820-1830); William Cohen,
1833; Benjamin Barton, 1833; R.C. Acton, 1840; William A. Williams
(1787-1846). The last-named craftsmen made the famous silver cup
presented by the "grateful City Council" to the lovely Mrs. Lawrason for
entertaining La Fayette in her home. John Pittman is listed in a deed
in 1801 as a goldsmith and silversmith, while the census for 1790 gives
the names of Thomas Bird, William Galt, John Piper and John Lawrason. In
addition, from other deeds and advertisements, the names of John Short
(1784); James Galt (1801); Josiah Coryton, "late of this town" (1801)
are gleaned as watchmakers and clockmakers.
[Illustration: _Top_: Creamer, sugar and bowl by Charles Burnett.
_Center_: Sauceboat and sugar urn by Charles Burnett, creamer by I.
Adam. Owned by Mrs. John Howard Joynt. _Bottom_: Service by I. Adam.
Owned by the Misses Snowden.]
Slate roofing seems to have made its initial appearance around 1800. In
1805 Joseph Riddle's dwelling house was "covered in copper" and John
Janney's warehouse in slate, and at least one building in "composition."
At this date an insurance plat shows a tinsmith and coppersmith's shop.
The early roofs were covered in wood (_i.e._, wooden shingles).
[Illustration]
DECLINE AND RESURGENCE
With the death of George Washington in 1799, which emphasized the close
of the eighteenth century, the city whose prosperity seemed in some
mystic fashion to have developed and grown with him began a decline.
In 1803 came yellow fever, leaving desolation and mourning in its wake.
An English traveler wrote in 1807:
Alexandria was about eight years ago a very flourishing place, but
the losses sustained from the capture of American vessels by the
French in the West Indies, occasioned many failures. In the year
1803, the yellow fever, which broke out there for the first time,
carried off a number of its inhabitants. These shocks have so deeply
affected the mercantile interest, that the town has but two or three
ships in the trade with Great Britain; and there is little prospect
of its ever attaining to its former prosperity.[53]
Alexandria was further subjected to plagues. Cholera broke out in 1832,
and people dropped dead in the streets while the population shuddered.
Illness, death, and burial was the fearsome sequence of only a few
hours. There was a Board of Health and a Quarantine Officer, but
ignorance of sanitation laws and preventive medicine resulted in
appalling epidemics brought in by visiting vessels.
Fire, too, ravaged the town. There were two major conflagrations in the
early nineteenth century, one in 1810 and another in 1824, in each of
which at least fifty buildings were consumed. The fire in the latter
year all but demolished the west side of Fairfax Street between King
and Prince Streets. George Washington is credited with having founded
the first fire company and giving to the city what was then the finest
of modern hand pumpers--a magnificent affair of red paint, brass
trimmings, and leather buckets. A law of the town made it mandatory for
each householder or proprietor of a dwelling or storehouse to furnish
leather buckets of at least two-and-one-half-gallon capacity at "his or
her expense"--in quantity equal to the stories of his house; no
proprietor was expected, however, to provide more than three buckets.
The buckets were numbered and lettered with the names of the owners,
whose duty it was to send or carry them to any place where a fire broke
out, or to "throw them into the street so that they may be taken
there."[54]
The fire companies at the first alarm, in scarlet shirts, turned out on
shortest notice, at a dead run on "shanks' mare." Woe betide the member
who was late, for he was fined right heavily. Pumping by hand to put out
a fire was a laborious affair and slackers were not tolerated. Even with
the best of will and the most earnest of pumpers, the fires got out of
hand and took a terrible toll of the early buildings. While insides were
gutted, the walls often remained to contain again an interior of beauty
and dignity.
Alexandria suffered more from the War of 1812 than from the Revolution.
Before Washington fell to the British in 1814, Alexandria was forced to
capitulate and had to pay a high indemnity for physical protection. This
disaster, coupled with the failure of the canal which was to open up the
vast Ohio country, all but wrecked the best financial hopes and plans of
the city.
The opening of the Potomac River for navigation, to connect with the
Ohio, was a project close to General Washington's heart. He had
entertained this dream from the time of his first western venture in
1754. He calculated, plotted, and surveyed distances, and from 1770
onward his mind was set upon the accomplishment. In July of that year he
was in correspondence with Thomas Johnson, to whom he wrote: "Till now I
have not been able to enquire into the sentiments of any of the
Gentlemen of this side in respect to the Scheme of opening inland
navigation of the Potomac by private subscription."[55] Washington's
trips to the Ohio, in October 1770 and again in September 1784--on both
occasions accompanied by Dr. Craik--while in the interest of his western
land holdings were also to forward this canal business.
All of this resulted in the founding of the Potomac Navigation Company
in 1785, and Alexandria subscribed heavily to the bond issue. By 1829
the first steam locomotive was operating in America and the coming of
the steam engine was followed by the collapse of the canal project.
Thousands of local dollars were thus lost. When the deflation was
complete, financial stagnation followed, from which Alexandria never
entirely recovered. During these trying 1830s and 1840s many of her
younger men departed for the west hoping to better their fortunes.
Alexandrians did not take kindly to federal jurisdiction of their
affairs, and within half a century from 1800--on February 3, 1846--a
petition was presented from the citizens of the county and town of
Alexandria to the Virginia General Assembly, stating that they had
pending before Congress an application for recession to the Commonwealth
of Virginia. They asked the Assembly for a law to accept them back into
the fold should their request be granted. By act of Congress, dated July
9, 1846, it was provided that: "With the assent of the people of the
County and Town of Alexandria, that portion of the territory of the
District of Columbia ceded to the United States by the State of Virginia
... receded and forever relinquished to the State of Virginia ..."[56]
Virginia welcomed the recession as a mother would welcome home a
maltreated and divorced daughter. Alexandria County (later Arlington
County) and the City of Alexandria were accepted on March 13, 1847, just
two years short of the latter's centenary.
Fourteen years later the first blood of dreadful civil war was spilled
in Alexandria and the city found itself a pawn to arbitrament by the
sword. When General Robert E. Lee accepted the command of Confederate
forces, a host of Alexandrians followed him into battle. To the
citizenry with Southern sympathies, war meant bitter severance once
again from Virginia. For the duration of the Civil War, Alexandria,
under federal jurisdiction again, became the capital of that part of the
state (West Virginia) which refused to secede with the Richmond
government. To the old city came a governor and legislature with
Northern sympathies, making welcome any federal forces camping on the
outskirts of town. Old prints show the Union flag in the hands of
marching soldiers on King Street, and camps and cantonments, beginning
at the "Round House," extending for miles.
Even so, the best and noblest donned the gray, and Alexandria's own
marched out to become part of the 17th Virginia Infantry, C.S.A., upon
the bloody battlefields of the South.
With the close of the Civil War, prosperity departed. Fewer and fewer
ships came to anchor in the Potomac port, until finally nothing remained
to show the important part that Alexandria played for a century in the
sea commerce of the world save rotted piles that once supported wharves,
and a few grimy, scarred old warehouses whose collapsing roofs and loose
bricks threatened the very life of the pedestrian.
Other wars have come and gone and each has had a conspicuous effect upon
the town. The tragic era of 1861-65, binding our great nation into an
indissoluble union, began likewise the process of cementation which
steadfastly links Alexandria to the District of Columbia by bands that
are basically nonpolitical (maybe stronger for that same reason).
Paradoxically, Alexandria is a free city--part of Virginia, though not
characteristic of the State; allied to the District, but no part of it.
Alexandria's cultural heritage has appealed for many reasons to
Washington officialdom, and many persons prominent in national affairs
have crossed the river to settle and to restore the gracious old homes
of bygone days. George Washington's Alexandria is a city at once assured
and self-conscious. Confident in its background, its venerable
traditions, and its associations with the great in the country's
development, Alexandria ponders its destiny.
[Illustration: Adam Lynn, Silversmith. (By Saint Mèmin)]
All faithful sons and daughters, whether native or adopted, fondly hope
that this bicentennial year of the city's existence may bring closer to
fulfillment the famous toast voiced by La Fayette in 1824: "The City of
Alexandria: May her prosperity and happiness more and more realize the
fondest wishes of our venerated Washington!"
L'ENVOI
Where is the great seaport that was Alexandria? Where are the ships that
plied their trade to the four corners of the earth, built, outfitted,
loaded from this port, officered and manned by the men of this town?
Where the great shipyards down whose ways slipped vessels of any
magnitude; the ropewalks where black slaves trod the weary miles
twisting the hemp to lift the sails made in Alexandria sail lofts? Where
the great docks, wharves and warehouses that lined the water front?
Only phantom vessels, locked in the eternal secrets of the deep, float
at anchor and crowd the harbor with a pale tracery of masts and rigging.
Only the voices of sailors long silent float ashore on the breezes in a
polyglot of languages, while ghostly laughter and oaths of those held in
taverns by rum and sugar at three pence ha'penny disturbs the sobriety
of the water front.
Gone are the shipyards. Upon ways destroyed by rot will rise no more the
skeleton ribs of sloop nor barque nor brig.
Silent are the sail lofts. Long ago the last workman at day's end put
down the canvas and the thread.
Empty are the ropewalks of docile slave and pungent hemp.
Cold are the bake ovens--crumbled the last biscuit....
The worn and polished cobbles are destitute of coach and four, of
chariot and chair. Nor does the mail arrive by stage.
No more will hoops and wigs add allure to the progress of beauty--nor
peruke nor smallclothes invest the beau with grandeur.
The factor and the sea captains have departed. The weary clerk has put
up the last shutter; empty stools and blunted quills abandoned. Only the
ledgers remain, free of blot and blemish to attest the skill and
patience of the forgotten scribe.
An autumn moon lights the old town, turning to silver the tiny waves
lapping the old sea wall, shimmering on the panes of dormer windows,
silhouetting the high brick facades against the white night, outlining
trim and cornice. Lighted transoms dimly reveal the white paneled
doorways.... Let us enter....
[Illustration]
PART TWO
The Presence of George Washington 1749-1799
[Illustration]
Chapter 1
William Ramsay: Romulus of Alexandria
[Historic Ramsay House, once the home of Alexandria's first mayor and
oldest building standing in the city, miraculously escaped destruction
by fire in 1942. Later threatened by the "wheels of progress," it was
saved by heroic efforts of Alexandria antiquarians who persuaded the
city fathers to purchase the structure as a gesture to the 1949
anniversary. As this book goes to press an active campaign is under way
by Alexandria historical societies to raise funds for restoration.]
Some two hundred years ago a sturdy-bottomed little sailing ship riding
at anchor in the port of Dumfries in Scotland, and bound for the port of
Dumfries in Virginia, was boarded by a young Scotsman. No _parvenu_
voyager he, but a young man of settled background and promising future,
educated for his calling and going out to take his place in one of the
Scottish firms trading in Virginia.
Our adventurer belonged to the Ramsay family of the noble house of
Dalhousie, which goes back into Scottish history of the thirteenth
century. King Edward I, in July 1298, spent the night at Dalhousie on
his way to battle with William Wallace; and in 1400 Sir Alexander Ramsay
defended the walls of Dalhousie against Henry IV. In 1633 William,
Second Lord Ramsay, was created First Earl of Dalhousie. This young
adventurer bore the name of the Second Lord, William. He was born in
1716 in Kirkendbrightshire in the Galloway district of Scotland, and he
was destined to play no small part in his own particular sphere. He
brought the integrity and industry of his native land to the new world
shores, and was one of that band of Scotsmen of whom President Madison
said, "Their commercial edicts served the colony as substantial
legislation for many years."[57] These traits, added to vision, wisdom,
sound morality and a tender nature, formed the character of the future
first citizen of Alexandria.
The year 1744 found William Ramsay settled in business with John
Carlyle, trading under the name of Carlyle & Ramsay in the village of
Belle Haven. This little settlement lay on the banks of the upper
Potomac behind the Great Hunting Creek warehouse.
Ramsay early sensed that the large harbor of Belle Haven with its deep
water and fine approach was a better situation for a town than many then
being agitated before the Burgesses. Forming friendships with Colonel
Fairfax, Lawrence Washington, George Mason, George Johnston, and other
large planters, he impressed them with the importance of this situation
as a site of great promise for a city and a port.[58]
When this dream became an accomplished fact it was a natural conclusion
that William Ramsay was one of the seven men chosen by the Virginia
Assembly for the purpose of laying out the town at Hunting Creek
warehouse.[59]
His faith in Alexandria was supported by his pocketbook. At the first
auction of lots on July 13, 1749, he bought lots Nos. 46 and 47; and he
never lost an opportunity to invest his hard and dangerously earned
money in the soil of his begotten city.
At the outbreak of the French and Indian War he was appointed (on George
Washington's recommendation) Commissary in 1756. Many letters dealing
with commissary affairs, and more interesting, the movement of troops,
written from Rays Town are among the Washington papers.
His partnership with Carlyle was followed by one with John Dixon which
was dissolved in 1757, when Dixon returned to England and his native
Whitehaven. Ramsay incurred a large debt by buying Dixon's interests. He
wrote to Washington in July 1757, saying he had been extremely
unfortunate in all his affairs, and asking for a loan of £250, saying,
"I have made application to the monied ones--My L^d Fx, M^r Speaker, M^r
Corbin, M^r Cary and many others with^t success wch I put to the Acco^t
of my perverse fortune, not to the want of ability to serve me." These
gentlemen were among the richest and most influential men in the colony,
but George, a young colonel of militia, scraped up £80 in August and
another £70 in September, to lend his good friend and mentor.
William Ramsay had given Washington some sound advice in September 1756,
when the young Colonel was somewhat upset by criticism of militia
officers and not too happy in his official duties. Ramsay wrote, "...
Know sir, that Ev'ry Gent^n in an exalted Station raises envy & Ev'ry
person takes the Liberty of judging or rather determining (with judging)
from appearances (or information) without weighing circumstances, or the
proper causes, on wch their judgem^t ought to be founded.... Upon the
whole, S^r, triumph in your innocency, your disinterestedness, your
unwearied Application & Zeal for your country's good, determine you to
continue in its service at a time there may be the greatest call for
you, & when probably some signal Day may mark you the bravest (as
hitherto you have been) of persons ..."[60]
Ramsay served Alexandria some thirty-six years as a public servant. He
was town overseer, census taker, postmaster, member of the Committee of
Safety, colonel of the militia regiment, adjuster of weights and seals
with John Carlyle at Hunting Creek warehouse in 1754, town trustee,
mayor, and did his duty as gentleman justice for many years, beginning
that service prior to the settlement of Alexandria. Tradition has it
that he was the most beloved citizen of Alexandria, which is certainly
confirmed. In 1761 he was elected by his fellow townsmen their first and
only Lord Mayor. The enthusiastic inhabitants decorated him with a
golden chain bearing a medal. "Upon one side was represented the infant
state of Alexandria and its commodious harbour, with these words in the
legend, '_Alexandria Translate et Renate Auspice Deo_,' and in the
exerque, '_Condita Reg^o Geo. II. An. Dom. 1649_.' The reverse has this
inscription: '_Dig^mo Dom^no Guilielmo Ramsay. Romulo Alexandriae
Urbisque Patri, Consuli Primo. Bene Merenti. An. Dom. 1761_.'"[61]
The election and investment over, the _Maryland Gazette_ tells us, "the
Lord Mayor and Common Council preceded by officers of State Sword and
Mace bearers and accompanied by many gentlemen of the town and county,
wearing blue sashes under crosses, made a grand procession ... with
drums, trumpets and a band of music, colors flying." The shipping in the
harbor displayed "flags and banners while guns fired during the
afternoon." A "very elegant entertainment was prepared at the Coffee
House," where the new Lord Mayor and his entourage sat down to a
sumptuous repast. This was followed by a ball given by the Scottish
gentlemen "at which a numerous and brilliant company of ladies danced."
Ceremonies ended with fireworks, bonfires, and "other demonstrations."
Perhaps this enthusiasm may be somewhat explained by the fact that this
celebration took place on St. Andrew's Day.[62]
In 1765 Ramsay went back to Scotland, whether to see again his family or
on business is not revealed. But that he had a most remarkable reception
cannot be questioned. Dumfries and Kirkendbright conferred
extraordinary honor upon him. Yellowed by age, two pieces of engraved
parchment are treasured by his descendants. These towns each made him a
"Burgess," the most signal distinction to be conferred upon a visitor.
Besides the original lots which William Ramsay purchased on July 13,
1749 (Nos. 46 and 47 for forty-six _pistoles_), he later purchased lot
No. 34. Augustine Washington forfeited his lots, Nos. 64 and 65, for
neglecting to build within the required time, and Ramsay bought this
property. When William Seawell, the peruke-maker, lost his holdings for
indebtedness, Ramsay also acquired lot No. 61. He owned the Royal
George, a tavern of importance, and had numbers of slaves and indentured
workmen. In 1749 he paid taxes on seven blacks and seven whites. In 1782
he owned twenty-one blacks, four horses and a coach. His will, dated the
month before his death, enumerated seven slaves by name, specifying
special considerations for two, _viz_: "that they may be better cloathed
both in Winter and Summer than is common for slaves, and that they be
particularly taken good care of as a reward for their long and faithful
services."
William Ramsay married Ann McCarty, daughter of Dennis McCarty Sr. and
his wife Sarah Ball, who was a kinswoman of George Washington and sister
of Mrs. George Johnston. Ann McCarty Ramsay was one of those women of
the day who by the laws of the land lost their property and identity
with marriage. Yet, when this retiring, gentle person was called upon to
raise funds in Alexandria and Fairfax County, no modern matron working
for bond drive or Red Cross ever did a more successful work. Thomas
Jefferson, as Governor of Virginia, in a letter from Richmond written on
August 4, 1780, to General Edward Stevens, attached a list of "female
Contributions, in aid of the War, Probably in 1780." Among the thirteen
ladies who gave their watch chains, diamond drops and rings is the name
of "Mrs. Anne Ramsay (for Fairfax), one halfjoe, three guineas, three
pistareens, one bit. Do. for do. paper money, bundle No. 1, twenty
thousand dollars, No. 2, twenty-seven thousand dollars, No. 3, fifteen
thousand dollars, No. 4, thirteen thousand five hundred and eighteen
dollars and one third."[63]
This excellent wife took her Presbyterian husband into the Established
Church and we find Washington crediting him with £33 for pew No. 20 in
Alexandria (Christ) Church in January 1773. But the Presbyterian citadel
of learning was the choice over William and Mary College when time came
for the eldest son, William Jr., to prepare for a professional career.
The strict discipline of Old Nassau was more to the liking of Scottish
conservatism than the laxness reported among students and faculty at the
Williamsburg institution. At Princeton young William studied medicine
under Dr. Benjamin Rush. In 1775, after joining the General in winter
headquarters at Cambridge, Mrs. Washington wrote the family that she had
seen young Ramsay as she passed through Princeton and that "he was very
well but did not talk of comeing home soon."[64] Maybe this was a
woman's subtle way of breaking the news of young William's plans to
follow the Continental cause wherever it might lead. As surgeon in the
army, he served throughout the Revolutionary War.
Following the custom, the elder William Ramsay placed his second son in
trade with the firm of Jennifer & Hooe in Dumfries. From Alexandria, on
December 5, 1774, he sent young Dennis, then a lad of eighteen years,
the following letter brimming with sound parental advice and Scottish
business acumen:
Dear Dennis
Tho' you have been but a short time from us, I cannot help informing
you that we are all well--But as a Parent, I must say more but I hope
you are so well grounded in the principals I would inculcate, that it
need only put you in mind of the duties we owe to the supreme Being &
our fellow Men--your first duty my dear Son, is to your God, do not
by any means neglect your duty in paying your adorations &
supplications to him for a blessing on your endeavors, & your
gratefull acknowledgements for every benefit and money you receive,
which you & I every day experience--Your next duty is to your
Parents, who, I hope you will pay that respect to, you always have
done, & continue to listen to their advice with proper attention,
because you must be assured, it flows from the parental and
affectionate regard they have for you and your welfare here &
hereafter. Your next duty is to your fellow Men, more especialy to
your employer, his interest demands your justice, your diligence and
utmost attention to his business and interest, your secrets & his
relating to your affairs you must religiously keep, mind his business
only, do not intermedle with that of other peoples, and avoid
entering into any dispute with them: you may gain much observation &
society, but nothing by disputetation. Let your intimates be few and
those well chosen, for the formation of youth depends on the
companions they chuse, therefore in this be very cautious. I will not
say any more to you on this head but hope that you will conduct
yourself as hitherto you have done & shun even the Appearance of
evil. When y^o lodge by yourself be cautious in securing your Windows
and doors, and if you cou'd, as probably you may, get some agreeable
young fellow to sleep with you if not always, very often; he wou'd be
company to you, and made your time less lonesome, but your own
prudence will suggest to you these things better than I can--When
your Bed and Chest comes down, I will send Anthony down to you, he
can make your fire, clean your Shoes, fetch you water &c.... As I
mentioned to you, that what you now get from your industry shall be
your own, besides, I will help you all that I can 'till you are of
age, please God to bless me & you with the sight of that day, I will
strain every nerve to set you forward in the World, your behavior I
hope will entitle you to it, and give your Mother and me the highest
pleasure we can hope for here, that is, your doing well--If you want
a Waistcoat and Breeches you may get them in town yourself. Mr. Hooe
says that he will immediately send you some Rum & Sugar on their
Acco^t to dispose off in the Wholesale way, that you may take your
choice out of it to retain on your own Account--Be cautious and do
not trust. I do not know my dear Dennis anything I can say more to
you at this time. I expect to hear from you next Post and that you
will be particular with regard to your situation &c. Your Mother
gives her blessing to y^o, all your sisters,
I am, my dear Dennis, your most Affectionate Father,
WM RAMSAY[65]
[Illustration: Bill of Lading to William Ramsay at Bellehaven, dated
1751. (Ramsay Papers)]
When war came, Denny Ramsay, like his brother, threw his lot with the
cause of liberty and served with distinction in the army, reaching the
rank of colonel.
Dennis Ramsay closely followed in the footsteps of his father. Both
served as mayor of the town and it was the official duty of both to
address General Washington upon commemorative occasions--William in 1781
after Yorktown, and Dennis in 1789 when the General paused in Alexandria
on his way to be inaugurated as President of the new republic. Both
father and son were Freemasons and members of the Sun Fire Company.
After the death of Martha Washington's little daughter, Patsy Custis,
her empty heart sought solace in association with the young daughters of
her friends. The girls of Alexandria kept the carriage wheels rolling
to Mount Vernon, where they were joyfully received, and where they were
nearly always numerous enough to make a gay evening. The young ladies
from the houses of Carlyle, Dalton and Ramsay were near neighbors in
Alexandria and frequenters of Mount Vernon, as were the Misses Craik,
Herbert, Fitzhugh, Lee, and Fendall, whose presence brightened the
mansion house with girlish laughter and confidences. At these gatherings
none was held in more affection than the young daughter of William and
Ann McCarty Ramsay. Where could a more charming letter be found than
this written by the hand of Martha Washington one hundred and
seventy-four years ago, within the sounds of the guns of Bunker Hill, to
Mistress Betty Ramsay:
Cambridge December the 30th 1775
Dear Miss
I now set down to tell you that I arrived hear safe, and our party
all well--we were fortunate in our time of setting out as the weather
proved fine all the time we were on the road--I did not reach Phila^d
till the tuesday after I left home, we were so attended and the
gentlemen so kind, that I am lade under obligations to them that I
shall not for get soon. I dont dout but you have seen the Figuer our
arrival made in the Philadelphia paper--and I left it in as great
pomp as if I had been a very great some body.
I have waited some days to collect something to tell, but allass
there is nothing but what you will find in the papers--every person
seems to be chearfull and happy hear--some days we hear a number of
Cannon and shells from Boston and Bunkers Hill, but it does not seem
to surprise any one but me; I confess I shuder everytime I hear the
sound of a gun--I have been to dinner with two of the Generals, Lee &
Putnam and I just took a look at pore Boston--& Charlestown--from
prospect Hill Charlestown has only a few chimneys standing in it,
there seems to be a number of very fine Buildings in Boston but God
knows how long they will stand; they are pulling up all the warfs for
fire wood--to me that never see any thing of war, the preparations
are very terable indead, but I endevor to keep my fears to my self as
well as I can.
Your Friends Mr Harrison & Henly are boath very well, and I think
they are fatter than they were when they came to the Camp--and Capt.
Baylor is a lusty man to what he was when you see him. The girls may
rest satisfied on Mr. Harrisons account for he seems two fond of his
country to give his heart to any but one of his Virginia Friends,
there are but two Young Laidis in Cambridge, and a very great number
of Gentlemen so you may guess how much is made of them--but neither
of them is pritty I think.
This is a beautyfull Country, and we had a very pleasant journey
through New england, and had the pleasure to find the G[eneral] very
well--we came within the month from home to the Camp.
I see your Brother at princeton he was very well but did not talk of
comeing home soon.
Plese to give my love and good wishes to your mamma & grand mamma,
Mr. Ramsay and Family, my compliments to all enquiring Freinds, the
good gentlemen that came with me up to Baltimore, and Mrs.
Herbert--in which the general and Mr. and Mrs. Custis join, please to
remember us to Mr. and Mrs. McCarty and Family.
I am Dear miss your most affectionate Friend and Well &C
MARTHA WASHINGTON.[66]
Ramsay did not wait for death to close his eyes ere he provided for his
children. As early as 1777, and probably before, he divided his original
purchase of lots Nos. 46 and 47 among his eight children. There is a
much-worn old plat still in the hands of his descendants showing this
division; on file at Fairfax Court House there is a deed to his youngest
son, Dennis, for that part of his lot No. 47 fronting on Fairfax and
King Streets, "Beginning at the S.W. corner of said lot extending north
up Fairfax 90 feet more or less to Ramsay's Alley, then east down said
alley 75 feet more or less, then South 90 feet to King Street, and then
West with King 75 feet to the beginning with all houses warehouses
Buildings, etc."
To his eldest son and namesake he gave his dwelling house and lot lying
to the north of the alley. As the custom of primogeniture prevailed it
was but natural that William Jr. fell heir to the dwelling house of his
father. At the time of this gift in December 1784, William reserved to
himself an "absolute right and title to take away as much earth or dirt
from said ground even up to my Dwelling House, if necessary without
prejudice to the said House to be applied towards filling up my wharf
and Peers until they are finished ..."[67] After the death of his
father, William Jr., bachelor, "farm let" to his brother, the married
Dennis, for the full term of ten years from the 10th day of May last
[1785], "the rent to be fixed by Robert McCrea, John Allison, or any
other person whom they shall choose--the lot lying and being on the
north side of King Street and the east side of Fairfax, beginning upon
Fairfax Street ten feet south of the south end of the Kitchen, which
stands upon the said street belonging to William Ramsay, then running
east sixty-six feet parallel to King, then north parallel with Fairfax
twenty-five feet, then with a line parallel to King West twenty-two
feet, including a Brick Smoke House, then with a line parallel to
Fairfax north to a four-foot alley lately laid out in the said lott by
William Ramsay, Esq., deceased, then East with the line of the alley 84
feet, then south to Ramsays Alley then West parallel to King until it
reaches Fairfax Street, then with Fairfax and binding there upon to the
beginning and all Buildings, Houses, Yards, Gardens, Stables, to the
said premises belonging or in any wise pertaining. Furthermore Dennis
Ramsay may erect upon the premises a Kitchen in such part as will be
most convenient, and at the expiration of the lease Dennis Ramsay has
Liberty to remove the same from the premises."[68] Ten years later, on
July 6, 1795, William Ramsay Jr. sold this property to Guy Atkinson.
This gentleman owned the property until his death in 1835 and requested
in his will, probated July 14 of that year, that his children reside "in
my present mansion."
This is the house standing today at 113 North Fairfax Street,[Owner:
Miss Frona Matthews.] and unless other research at a later day denies
the assumption that this brick mansion was the last home of the Romulus
of Alexandria, it is so declared.
The little white frame clapboard house with the Dutch roof, standing on
the northeast corner of King and Fairfax Streets was certainly the
property of William Ramsay--probably his office or kitchen, and later
occupied by the descendants of his son, Dennis, after additions and
improvements. The architect who is restoring this ancient and quaint
house thinks that it is far older than the town of Alexandria, and that
it is not now established upon the original foundation, but has been
moved over from another location. It is interesting to think that it
might have been part of Carlyle & Ramsay's original office in Belle
Haven in 1744.
On February 12, 1795, George Washington was at Mount Vernon happily
engaged in planning his garden and planting his shrubs when he "Received
an Invitation to the Funeral of Willm. Ramsay, Esqr., of Alexandria, the
oldest Inhabitt. of the Town; and went up. Walked in a procession as a
free mason, Mr. Ramsay in his life being one, and now buried with the
ceremonies and honors due to one."[69]
A few days later the town's newspaper carried the following tribute:
MEMORIAL
On the 10th, instand departed this Life, in the 69th year of his age,
WILLIAM RAMSAY, Esq., a Gentleman generally esteemed for the humane
and generous sentiments of his heart, as well as for his uprightness
and integrity, throughout a long and active life.
This Gentleman first proposed and promoted the establishment of the
town of Alexandria, and was its first inhabitant. He was consoled on
the verge of life, with the reflection of having acted his part well,
and of having reared and leaving to represent him a numerous and
amiable family, in possession of as much happiness as generally falls
to the lot of humanity. Thus he met the lingering, but certain
approach of death with a composure and resignation of mind very
remarkable and truly exemplary.
His remains were interred on the 12th, in the Episcopal Church Yard,
and attended by a very numerous and respectable company, preceeded by
the Brotherhood of Free Masons in procession with the solemnities
usual on such occasions.[70]
Within less than two months, Washington, still at work upon his garden,
grafting cherry trees, was interrupted to go to Alexandria to "attend
the Funeral of Mrs. Ramsay who died (after a lingering illness) on
Friday last.... Dined at Mr. Muir's and after the funer^l obseques
were ended, returned home."[71] Again was spread upon the sheets of the
town paper an obituary:
MEMORIAL
On Saturday last departed this life, Mrs. ANN RAMSAY, relect of the
late WM. RAMSAY, Esq., in the 55th years of her age.
The amiable character of this lady, exemplified in her conduct as a
wife, a mother, and a neighbour, as it procured her through life the
general esteem and affection of all who knew her, will render her
loss long regretted not only by her nearer relations, but by the
inhabitants of this town, and neighbourhood of every rank and
description, to whom her benevolence and humanity displayed in
numberless good offices, and her agreeable deportment have heretofore
been a social blessing and comfort.
On Monday her remains were interred with every mark of respect,
contiguous to the grave of her late deceased husband.[72]
[Illustration: Mr. and Mrs. Dennis Ramsay]
The General had seen the "Romulus of Alexandria" to the grave. Fourteen
years later the latter's son served as honorary pallbearer for the
Father of His Country at Mount Vernon, on that fateful December 18,
1799.
[Illustration]
Chapter 2
John Carlyle and His House
[Like nearby Ramsay House, the home of John Carlyle has also been
threatened by business interests and was in danger of demolition just
before the outbreak of World War II. It was saved by Mr. Lloyd L.
Scheffer who acquired the property from the Wagar estate and continues
to maintain the residence as a historic house museum. Entrance to the
Carlyle Home is through the lobby of the Wagar apartments at 123 North
Fairfax Street.]
In an ancient will book at Fairfax Court House is the inventory of a
gentleman's estate--household fabrics, mahogany and walnut furniture,
family pictures, maps, prints, books, silverware, glassware, chinaware,
and all manner of utensils, and drawers of "Trumpery!" More personal
items imply a rich wardrobe and a man who doubtless cut a figure in
society, for the list of apparel is long, containing, "1 scarlet cloth
jacket with broad gold lace," "1 crimson velvet jacket with broad gold
lace," "1 pair scarlet breaches with gold knee bands," "1 silver tobacco
box," "1 tortoise shell ditto with silver top," "2 pair silver shoe
buckles and 1 pair gold studds," "24 silver large coat buttons and 1
stock buckle," "1 box with 4 wiggs," etc.[73]
Another entry in a more ancient tome reads:
At a court held for the County of Fairfax, 19th March, 1754. Present
John Colvill, Geo. Wm. Fairfax, John West, William Ramsay and Thomas
Colvill, Gentlemen Justices.
Mr. John Carlyle produced a commission from the Honorable the
Governor under the seal of the Colony appointing him Commissary of
provisions and stores for an expedition intended to the River Ohio
pursuant to which he took the oaths according to Law, repeated and
subscribed to the Test.... Lieutenant Col^o George Washington,
Lieutenant John West Jr. and James Townes pursuant to their military
commissions from the Honorable the Governor took the oaths according
to Law and subscribed to the Test.[74]
[Illustration: John Carlyle's Alexandria Mansion]
Military echoes are not lacking from the inventory of his possessions.
Is it possible that "1 Blue cloth coat with vellam holes"[75] related to
his military service as major of Virginia militia? Was this perchance
the coat worn by Major Carlyle in 1755 when the Redcoats of His
Britannic Majesty's forces and the Virginia Militia fought under General
Edward Braddock and met defeat at Great Meadows at the hands of the
French and Indians? Major Carlyle was quartermaster in those days, with
the mission of scouring the countryside for horses and forage. Objects
of military use more easily picked out of the list taken by his
executors include a spyglass, guns, pistols, swords, saddles,
saddlebags, holsters, a powder horn and "2 spontoons." It is a local
tradition that a store of these latter antique weapons were left behind
in Alexandria by Braddock's direction and that they constituted part of
the equipment of the town watchmen until the outbreak of the War Between
the States.
[Illustration: Mantel in the dining room]
John Carlyle was a Scotsman of gentle birth, of the Limkilns branch of
Carlyles of Torthorwald Castle. He left his home in Dumfrieshire for
Dumfries in Virginia at the age of twenty to enter one of the Scottish
shipping firms in that town in the year 1740. Foreseeing the end of that
port, he moved to the village of Belle Haven, and with John Dalton set
up in the mercantile and shipping business by 1744. This firm, under the
name of Carlyle & Dalton, was destined to become the most important one
in the new port, and John Carlyle the leading citizen. He was one of the
influential men in Fairfax County who agitated for a town at Belle
Haven, at the Hunting Creek warehouse. He was selected by the assembly
as one of the incorporators of the town of Alexandria, and as one of the
first trustees. Active in the town from the beginning, he helped build
the courthouse and market place. He was the town's first "Overseer." In
1755 he was ordered to build a warehouse at Point Lumley, a hundred feet
long, twenty feet wide, with thirteen-foot pitch, as well as to build
roads and clear streets.
[Illustration: John Carlyle's shell and silver snuffbox. Listed and
described in the inventory of his estate]
Carlyle bought the third lot put up for auction on July 13, 1749, No.
41, paying thirty _pistoles_. As the auction continued, he purchased
another lot adjoining the first for sixteen _pistoles_. Upon his two
lots he erected in 1752 the greatest private house in Alexandria for two
or more decades, and furnished it with the best his ships could carry.
The Carlyle house stands high above the river and so strong and thick
are the foundations that tradition has it they were early fortifications
against the Indians. The house of stone is oblong, being almost as long
again as it is wide and is believed originally to have had connecting
wings. Two-and-a-half stories high, large twin chimneys rise out of the
hipped roof and three dormer windows break the front and back. Double
galleries stretch across the river end, and before modern buildings
obstructed the view, the river could be viewed for miles in each
direction.
[Illustration: Portrait of John Carlyle's mother, Rachel Carlyle, which
hung always above her son's bed]
Inside, a large hall divides the house. A stairway that has neither the
appearance nor character of so old a house, and is doubtless an
"improvement," winds up to the second floor. Four rooms open into this
hall--fine rooms, too--but the blue or drawing room is the gem,
architecturally and historically. This is paneled from floor to ceiling.
There are three windows with low window seats and heavy paneled blinds
which become a part of the jambs when closed. Over the doorways are
elaborate pediments, with broken arches. The chair rail is carved in a
fret pattern and the dog-eared fireplace mold in the familiar
egg-and-dart design. In the overmantel, double dog-eared molding
outlines the center panel and two flat fluted pilasters reach from
mantelshelf to the heavy modillioned cornice which is carved in
alternating modillions and rosettes. The room is sixteen by eighteen
feet, painted a light slate blue with white or cream trim. On the second
floor five comfortable bedchambers open upon a narrow hall.
To this home Carlyle brought his first wife, Sarah Fairfax, whom he
married in 1748. She was the daughter of Colonel William Fairfax of
Belvoir, sister of Ann Fairfax Washington and George William Fairfax.
After her death in 1761, when Carlyle married Sybil West, he named their
only son for his well loved brother-in-law, George William Fairfax. When
his will was opened, it was by the side of Sarah he wished to be buried:
"As to my Body, I desire it may be interred under the Tombstone in the
enclosed ground in the Presbyterian Yard near where my first wife and
children are interred."[76]
This house was the social and political center of Alexandria. Such men
as Charles Carroll, Aaron Burr, John Paul Jones, John Marshall, Thomas
Jefferson, George Mason, George Washington, and the two Fairfaxes are
but a few of those who gathered here for good food, good wine, and
better talk. Any visitor of importance was entertained at "coffee"; the
house was often filled with music, and "balls" were common.
The "Congress of Alexandria" met here Monday, April 14, 1755, and on the
following Tuesday and Wednesday, when with Braddock and the five
colonial governors plans were made for concerted action against the
French and Indians. Here that famous letter, still in existence, was
written, urging upon the British government the necessity of taxing the
colonies. This letter set into movement a chain of events disastrous to
the mother country. It resulted in the loathed Stamp Act and led
ultimately to the Revolution of 1775.
[Illustration: Mantel in the music room. Probably a later "improvement"]
Carlyle was appointed collector of His Majesty's customs on the South
Potomac in 1758, succeeding his father-in-law, William Fairfax. In 1762
he was importing race horses into the colony. These were imported, "just
as they imported Madeira wine and other luxuries." One of the early
Maryland gazettes of July 29, 1762 carries the following advertisement:
Imported by Carlyle & Dalton in the ship _Christian_, Captain Stanly,
and for sale, three horses [Thorne's Starling: Smith's Hero, and
Leary's Old England] and three mares [the other two being the
Rock-mares Nos. 1 and 2] of full blood, viz: A _ch. m._ with a star
and two white heels behind, eight years old: Got by Wilson's Chestnut
Arabian: her dam by Slipby, brother to Snap's dam; and out of Menil
[sic] the dam of Trunnion. Menil was got by Partner: out of
Sampson's-Sister, which was got by Greyhound: her grandam by Curwen's
Bay Barb: her g. grandam by Ld. D'Arcy's Arabian: her dam by
Whiteshirt: out of a famous mare of Ld. Montagu's.
JOHN CARLYLE[77]
Alexandria, Va., July 1762.
In 1772 Carlyle took over the incompleted work on Christ Church and
carried it to completion. In 1773 he bought pew No. 19. In 1774 he built
the Presbyterian meetinghouse. In between times he was hunting at
Belvoir and Mount Vernon, dancing at Alexandria assemblies, sitting as
town trustee and gentleman justice, journeying to England and back,
laying out and planting his garden, taking part in long, hot arguments
with his family and neighbors in the ever-widening breach between the
colonies and the mother country, breeding race horses, and joining in
the frolics of the Jockey Club. Heir to a title old and honorable as it
was, he ardently espoused the cause of the colonies. Too ill for active
military service, he nevertheless served as a member of the Committee of
Safety until his death in 1780, at the age of sixty.
John Carlyle divided his lands, named after the Scottish family
holdings, Limkiln, Bridekirk, Torthorwald Taken, between his two
grandsons, Carlyle Fairfax Whiting and John Carlyle Herbert. To his
daughter, Sarah Herbert, he left thirty feet on Fairfax Street and one
hundred feet on Cameron Street, to include his dryware house. The
mansion and all other property were for a brief period the property of
his only son.
In his will he expressed the utmost concern for the education of this
boy, George William Carlyle, and urged his executors to spare no expense
and to send him to the best schools. Alas, for the plans of men! The
lad, fired by the talk of father and friends, was serving in Lee's
Legion in 1781, and ere John Carlyle was moldering in his grave this boy
of seventeen years, spirited, brave, heir to large estates, great
fortune and honorable name, and to the title of Lord Carlyle, was dead
at Eutaw Springs, led by that boy hardly older than himself "Light Horse
Harry" Lee.
Enough of serious and sad history; let us in lighter vein go once more
into the lovely paneled blue room where not only weighty conferences
occurred, but where, in lace and satin, noble figures threw aside the
cares of state and trod a measure to the tinkling of the spinet; where
games of cards were indulged in and the _pistoles_ changed hands. Let us
go into the dining room with its fine Adam mantel and its mahogany
doors, and visualize again the terrapin and the canvasback, the Madeira
and Port so abundantly provided from that great kitchen below, and the
most famous wine cellar of its day in Alexandria. Let us stroll in the
still lovely garden where the aroma of box and honeysuckle mingle, and
turn our thoughts once more to the inmates of this fine, old house.
Built in the days when Virginia was a man's world, when men who wore
satin, velvet and damask were masters of the art of fighting, riding,
drinking, eating, and wooing. When a man knew what he wanted, and got it
by God's help and his own tenacity, enjoying himself right lustily in
the getting. Perchance Major John Carlyle, clad in Saxon green laced
with silver, will be wandering up and down his box-bordered paths with
his first love, Sarah Fairfax, watching the moon light up the rigging of
Carlyle & Dalton's great ships at anchor just at the foot of the garden.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
Chapter 3
The Married Houses
[209-211 North Fairfax Street. Owner: Mrs. Herbert E. Marshburn.]
When the new town of Alexandria was laid out, John Dalton purchased, on
July 13, 1749, the first lot put up for sale (No. 36) for the sum of
nineteen _pistoles_. The lot faced the Potomac River and was bounded by
Water (now Lee) Street, Fairfax Street and lot No. 37. When the latter
lot, which lay on Cameron and Fairfax, was put up later in the day, it
was purchased by Dalton for sixteen _pistoles_.
Within three years Dalton had finished a small frame-and-brick cottage,
neatly paneled, in which he is purported to have lived and died. The
house faced on Cameron Street, standing about the middle of lot No. 37,
with an extensive garden running the depth of the premises to the river,
surrounded by outbuildings, orchards, wells, and so on, as was the
custom of the times. His will mentioned the fact that he lived on this
lot and left to his daughter, Jenny Dalton (later Mrs. Thomas Herbert),
his new brick building on the corner of Fairfax and Cameron. His will
further stated that the house must be finished out of his estate. To his
daughter, Catherine (later Mrs. William Bird), he left the remainder of
the lot which included his dwelling and another house on that same lot,
at the time occupied by John Page.
On February 27, 1750, John Dalton succeeded Richard Osborn as a trustee
of the town. His appointment was the first after the original selection
of trustees by the assembly in Williamsburg.
John Dalton was a partner of John Carlyle in the firm of Carlyle &
Dalton, which for many years acted as agent for the Mount Vernon
produce. He was a pew owner with George Washington at Christ Church,
which he served as vestryman. With his wife and daughter, he was a
frequent visitor at Mount Vernon and a later chronicler has asserted
that he barely missed becoming the General's father-in-law. A fox-hunter
and horse-lover, in a company of Alexandria gentlemen or alone, he
hunted with Washington and bred his mares to the blooded Mount Vernon
stud.
[Illustration: The old Clapboard House on the John Dalton property and
believed to have been his original house. (_Courtesy of Mr. Frank
McCarthy_)]
On January 12, 1769, Washington went up to Alexandria to "ye Monthly
Ball." He lodged with Captain Dalton and the next day being very bad he
was "confined there till afternoon by rain."[78] Sometimes when
attending court he "lodged at Captn. Dalton's."[79]
John Dalton's bequest to his daughter, Catherine, included the home
place. On April 24, 1793, Catherine and her husband, William Bird, sold
to Jonah Thompson and David Findley for £1,500 (about $7,500) the
property described as being in Fairfax Street, 60 feet to the north of
Cameron, and extending north upon Fairfax Street 119 feet 3 inches to
the line of Herbert, Potts and Wilson, thence East parallel to Cameron
to cross Water and Union Streets into the Potomac River, thence with a
line parallel to Fairfax south 119 feet 3 inches, and included houses,
buildings, streets, lanes, alleys, and so on. But the Birds reserved the
right to the "use and occupation of the dwelling House now occupied" and
the kitchen and garden, until the "1st day of October next" and also
reserved unto Lanty Crowe the house "demised unto him to the end of his
term, he paying the annual rent thereof unto the said Jonah Thompson and
David Findley."[80] Findley died within the year and Jonah Thompson
bought from Amelia Findley, the mother and heir of David Findley, equal
and undivided portion of the already described lot and paid her the sum
of £500 12_s._
[Illustration: Jonah Thompson's House purchased from John Dalton's
daughter, Catherine Bird]
Jonah Thompson was an important citizen of Alexandria. He was a shipping
merchant, banker and large property owner. He married Margaret Peyton
and they had three sons, Israel, William Edward, and James; a daughter,
Mary Ann, married a Mr. Popham, and another daughter, Eugenia, married a
Mr. Morgan.
In 1809 Jonah Thompson mortgaged this property to the Bank of Alexandria
for $13,500, which he paid within four years. In May 1850, the heirs of
Jonah Thompson sold to Benjamin Hallowell for $4,600 a lot beginning at
the south side of the alley which divided the block, running south 43
feet 7 inches. Benjamin Hallowell, in turn, sold to James S. Hallowell
for nine thousand dollars in April 1854, and from James S. Hallowell and
his wife the property passed through various hands until it became St.
Mary's Academy.
The Jonah Thompson house, part of it at least already built in 1793, is
one of the most interesting houses to be found anywhere. It is unusually
large and has two handsome arched stone entrances. One, although
similar, obviously was added, as the line of demarcation is plainly
visible between the bricks.
The house has been sadly abused with no thought given its architectural
merits and much of the woodwork has been removed. The stair is perhaps
the finest in Alexandria, with spindles and risers carved in a more
elaborate fashion than was the practice of the thrifty Scotsmen of
Alexandria. At the rear of this large house, separated only by a narrow
area, stands another house, facing the long garden and originally the
river. The front of this house boasts the loveliest bit of Georgian
architecture left in the old seaport. A pure Adam loggia, executed in
stone, runs across the garden façade. While arches are now filled in and
clothes hung to dry flap on the gallery, the outline is so chaste in its
classic form that nothing can destroy the illusion of beauty.
No search of records reveals how or why these two houses stand back to
back. Whether Jonah Thompson built the first for his bank or business
offices, or whether his family outgrew the house and he needed more room
is not known. The two are treated as one house in all the documentary
evidence, and one's curiosity, interest, and imagination are excited by
the twin or married houses. One story has it that Jonah Thompson built
the rear or twin house for his eldest son so that the two families might
be together but with separate ménages.
[Illustration: The Adam Loggia. Originally open between column and
pilaster]
Captain John Dalton forged a link between Mount Vernon, his family, and
his posterity that was stronger than he knew. It was his granddaughter
who was so deeply distressed at the ruin and desolation of the home of
Washington that she fired her daughter's imagination with an idea that
saved the spot for the nation. This great-granddaughter of John Dalton
was Ann Pamela Cunningham, whose name will ever be indissolubly
connected with Mount Vernon. In 1853 she formed the Mount Vernon Ladies'
Association, and as its first regent stirred the women of America with
her ardor and directed the entire campaign until adequate funds were
collected. In 1859 John Augustine Washington sold the Mount Vernon
estate to Miss Cunningham for two hundred thousand dollars--after the
Virginia Legislature and the federal government had both refused to
acquire it.
This sale was negotiated by the Alexandria banker, John W. Burke, who
was appointed executor and guardian of John Augustine Washington's
estate after he was killed during the Civil War while on active duty as
a member of General Robert E. Lee's staff.
When the war broke out, Alexandria was occupied by Union troops. The
Union authorities knew of the sale of Mount Vernon and repeated but
futile efforts were made to find the securities. Mr. Burke's home was
searched no less than three times. The funds were never found in their
hiding place of the soiled-clothes basket. There they reposed until Mrs.
Burke (_née_ Trist, great-granddaughter of Thomas Jefferson) and Mrs.
Upton Herbert (_née_ Tracy), both Philadelphia-born ladies, sewed the
bonds in their petticoats and with high heads carried them through the
Union lines to Washington and delivered them to George W. Riggs, who
held them for the duration of the war, when he returned them to
Alexandria--and Mr. Burke.
An interesting sequel to the story occurred only a short time ago when
the last of John Augustine Washington's children died. Mr. Taylor Burke,
grandson of John W. Burke, and president of the Burke & Herbert Bank,
administered the estate of the late Mrs. Eleanor Washington Howard, and
distributed her estate, composed of the remainder of that purchase
price, among her heirs.[81]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
Chapter 4
The Fairfaxes of Belvoir and Alexandria
Of the families in Virginia closely associated with George Washington,
none bore so intimate a relation as that of Fairfax.
William Fairfax, founder of the Virginia branch of the family, was born
in 1691 in Towlston in Yorkshire, England, the son of the Honorable
Henry Fairfax, Sheriff of Yorkshire, and grandson of the Fourth Lord
Fairfax. Educated as a member of the governing classes, he began his
career in the navy, later entering the colonial service. Before he was
twenty-six he had acted as chief justice of the Bahamas and Governor of
the Isle of Providence. Prior to 1717 he married Sarah Walker of Nassau,
daughter of Colonel Walker, by whom he had four children, George
William, Thomas, Anne, and Sarah. In 1729, Colonel Fairfax was appointed
Collector of the Port of Salem, Massachusetts, and removed to that
colony. In 1731 his wife died, and very shortly afterward he married
Deborah, widow of Francis Clarke and daughter of Colonel Bartholomew
Gedney of Salem, by whom he had three children, Bryan, William Henry,
and Hannah.
In 1734 Fairfax came to Virginia as agent for his first cousin, Thomas,
Sixth Lord Fairfax (who, by direct inheritance from a royal grant of
Charles II, had come into possession of some five million acres of
Virginia land lying between the Rappahannock and the Potomac, and
extending from Chesapeake Bay to the foothills of the Blue Ridge
Mountains, known to Virginians as the Northern Neck); and to serve as
Collector of Customs for the South Potomac. Fairfax first went to
Westmoreland, where he was associated with the Washington and Lee
families. Next he moved to King George, and lived at Falmouth. By 1741
he was representing Prince William County in the House of Burgesses.
Colonel Fairfax was elevated to "His Majesty's Council of State" three
years later. Becoming President of the Council in 1744, he continued in
that office until his death.
About this time William Fairfax completed his dwelling house, Belvoir,
situated on a high bluff overlooking the Potomac River, halfway between
Mount Vernon and Gunston Hall. It was described by Washington in an
advertisement as having "four convenient rooms and a wide Hall on the
first floor." In one of these "convenient rooms," more than two hundred
years ago on July 19, 1743, Anne, eldest daughter of Colonel Fairfax was
married to Lawrence Washington of Mount Vernon.
A few years after his marriage, Lawrence (to whom George Washington owed
his start in life) took his impecunious young half-brother into his home
at Mount Vernon, whereupon the in-laws became intimately concerned with
George's future. Young George was wise enough to realize that the way of
advancement led through this important family and he never lost an
opportunity to cultivate the President of the Council. Colonel Fairfax
became a benefactor of the young man's fortunes, an inspiration to his
ambition, and was truly and wholeheartedly attached through his
affections to the gangling youth. To the end of his life Fairfax signed
his letters to George, "Y^r very affect^e & Assur^d Friend."
In 1747 George William Fairfax, the Colonel's eldest son, returned home
from England, where he had received his education, with the promise from
Lord Fairfax of falling heir to his father's agency of the Northern
Neck.
The fifteen-year-old George took a great liking to young Fairfax, and
despite a difference in age, a friendship began which was destined to
last throughout their lives. A letter from George William Fairfax to
Lawrence Washington stated, "George has been with us, and says he will
be steady and thankfully follow your advice as his best friend. I gave
him his brother's letter to deliver with a caution not to show his."[82]
Doubtless this was the occasion when George was seriously considering
the navy. Lawrence had served under Admiral Vernon, William Fairfax was
trained for the navy, and Lord Fairfax was in Virginia to add either
persuasion or influence as needed. Mary Washington was set in her
determination that George should not become a sailor. Thus it was
decided that surveying or engineering was the best outlook for the young
man's future career, and Mount Vernon and Belvoir the seat of his
further learning. Lord Fairfax would employ the embryo engineer as soon
as he had sufficient instruction to be useful. The pupil was adept, the
instructors efficient, and we see young Washington setting out with his
new friend, George William, in March of 1748, upon his first surveying
mission in the employment of Thomas, Sixth Lord Fairfax.
On his return from this mission, serious, sober young Fairfax (he was
twenty-three at the time) offered himself as a burgess for Frederick
County and was duly elected. He followed his father to Williamsburg,
where he found attractions more absorbing than lawmaking. After "several
opportunities of visiting Miss Cary" he fell a victim to the wiles and
graces of the belle of the season. _The Virginia Gazette_ for December
1748 carried this bit of social news: "Married on the 17th inst., George
William Fairfax, Esqr., eldest son of the Honorable William Fairfax of
His Majesty's Council to Sarah, eldest daughter of Colonel Wilson Cary
of Ceelys."
Of all the colonial belles whose shades furnish theme for pæan and
lighten the pages of history, none is more colorful than Sally Cary.
This girl, only seventeen, with head of red-brown hair, great
intelligent eyes shaded by long, thick lashes, long rounded throat and
beautifully modelled hands, arms and shoulders, had an intellect which
far surpassed her husband's.
When not at Williamsburg attending the assembly, the young Fairfaxes
resided at Belvoir, where Sally acted as hostess for her widowed
father-in-law or the bachelor Lord from Greenway Court. This house,
after the Palace at Williamsburg, was the center of the social and
political life of Virginia. The Fairfaxes were of ancient, noble
lineage, with ample fortune, representing the very best in Old World
culture. William Fairfax, as President of the Council, was second only
in importance to the royal governor, serving as head of the state during
the absences of His Excellency. Naturally, his home was the gathering
place for men of eminence in the colony, as well as visitors of state.
[Illustration: Colonel George William Fairfax]
Belvoir was a rendezvous for neighborhood gaiety. Overflowing with the
young people of the family, more were attracted. George Washington was
a daily visitor--Sally, but two years older than himself, filled him
with delight. At Belvoir he met with the heads of government and gleaned
from these meetings knowledge and inspiration to carry him through
ordeals never experienced by his preceptors. Here, too, the feminine
contacts smoothed the rough edges; George learned to turn the music for
young ladies performing upon the harpsichord, to rescue times without
number skeins of silk and balls of wool as well as lacy bits of linen
continually dropped by fair hands; he was taught the latest dance step
from London and learned the most elegant of court bows. In those days
the turn of a wrist and the flip of a lace ruffle were not considered
inconsequential. It was here he acquired that never-failing interest in
the "newest taste and the latest fashion."
[Illustration: Mrs. George William Fairfax. (Sally Cary)]
Under this hospitable roof in early and formative years, associated with
the cavaliers in daily intercourse, Washington developed an ease of
manner and a dignity of deportment that became him well. In the library
of this home he became familiar with the best in literature, his love of
beauty was aroused, his knowledge of homemaking and gardening acquired,
for this household wielded a highly civilizing influence, and awakened
George Washington to the charms of culture and refinement. To appreciate
the influence of this family upon Washington, it is only necessary to
recall how brief was his schooling, how limited his prospects, how poor
his pocket when, at the age of fifteen, he came to make his home at
Mount Vernon.
At Belvoir and at Mount Vernon, George Washington first learned of the
new port to be built at Hunting Creek warehouse. Long and often the talk
was concerned with the progress being made before the assembly by
Lawrence Washington and the two Colonels Fairfax. The latter gentlemen,
being engineers, were both familiar with the construction of the towns
in Great Britain and on the Continent. To Belvoir came Colonel Carlyle
and Colonel Ramsay, as well as other gentlemen from Dumfries and the
county, occupied with the same interest, who hoped to better their
fortunes by the shipping trade which they expected the new town to
attract, and willing to gamble time and money upon the erection of
dwellings, warehouses, and docks.
These men were all purchasers of lots at the first auction on July 13,
1749, and at once began carrying out the mandate of the assembly,
_i.e._, to build within two years or forfeit their holdings.
Within six years the town, so neatly built, so strategically situated,
was "honoured with 5 Governors in Consultation; a happy presage I hope,
[wrote George Washington to William Fairfax at Williamsburg] not only of
the success of this Expedition, but for our little Town; for surely such
honours must have arisen from the Commodious and pleasant situation of
this place the best constitutional qualitys for Popularity and increase
of a (now) flourishing Trade."[83]
That Sally Fairfax was in residence in Alexandria and evidently in her
own house taking part in the festivities arranged for General Braddock
at the Carlyle house, dancing at the assembly balls, attending reviews,
is indicated by a communication from her friend, young Washington:
Fort Cumberland May 14, 1755
Dear Madam:
I have at last with great pains and difficulty discovered the Reason
why Mrs. Wardrope is a greater favorite of Gen^l Braddocks than Mrs.
Fairfax; and met with more respect at the late review in Alexandria.
The cause I shall communicate, after rallying you for neglecting the
means that introduced her to his favour which ... to say truth were
in [?] a present of delicious Cake, and potted Woodcocks; that
wrought such wonders [?] upon the Heart of the General as upon those
of the gentlemen that they became instant Admirers, not only the
charms but the Politeness of this Fair Lady.[84]
After his father's death on September 3, 1757, George William Fairfax
came a step nearer the title of Lord Fairfax. He went on a very curious
mission to England to refute in person a rumor that he was a black man,
and to show any doubting relations the hue of his skin was exactly the
same as theirs. This was especially strange, for William Fairfax had
taken Sarah Walker Fairfax, his wife and mother of George William, to
England in 1717, and certainly they must have met representatives of the
family on that visit. Nevertheless, it is to Sally that the knowledge of
this peculiar circumstance is due. In 1802, writing to her nephew in
Virginia in reference to an inheritance of her husband's she says, "He
[Henry Fairfax, William Fairfax's older brother] would have left it to
your uncle William Henry Fairfax [George William Fairfax's younger
half-brother] from an impression that my husband's Mother was a black
woman, if my Fairfax had not come over to see his Uncle and convinced
him he was not a negroe's son."[85]
While in England on this or other equally private affairs relating to
his inheritance, George William wrote his wife from London on December
12, 1757:
Dear Sally:
I am sorry to say I have not succeeded and that it is uncertain
whether I shall. But be as it may, I find it was necessary to be
here, and I should not have excused myself if I had not. Mr. Fairfax
went down to Leeds Castle yesterday and left me to push my own way,
and then to follow to spend my Xmas and to prepare for his embarking
with me in March. Therefore I beseech you'll employ Old Tom, or get
some person to put the garden in good order, and call upon Mr.
Carlyle for his assistance in getting other necessary things done
about the house in order to receive so fine a gentleman. And I must
further recommend, and desire that you'll endeavor to provide the
best provision for his nice stomach, altho I suppose he will spend
chief of his time with his brother.
However to make his and other company more agreeable I shall
endeavour to engage a butler to go over with me at least for one
year.
My Dear, I have often wished for your company to enjoy the amusements
of this Metropolis, for I can with truth say, they are not much so to
me in my present situation and that I now and then go to a play only
to kill time. But I please myself with my country visits imagining
the time there will pass more agreeable.
Permit me Sally to advise a steady and constant application to those
things directed for your welfare, which may afford me the greatest
satisfaction upon my arrival.
Your affect. and loving husband
GO. WM. FAIRFAX[86]
Back in America within the year, at a court held for Fairfax County on
August 19, 1758, George William Fairfax "presents a commission from his
honor the Governor appointing me Lt. Colonel of Militia" of the county
and at the same court he took the oaths according to law as a vestryman
for Truro Parish.[87] In 1760 he went back to England again and remained
nearly two years. On this occasion Sally accompanied him.
All the while, George William Fairfax was occupied with his English
inheritance, he was gradually losing interest in his Virginia life.
Although he is credited with being loyal to the colonial cause
(certainly he never failed in loyalty to his colonial friends) it is
more than possible that the friction between the two countries swayed
him somewhat in his determination to quit Virginia for the more settled
state of the Old Country.
On a June afternoon in 1773, George William and Sally set out from
Belvoir to Mount Vernon for the last time to take leave of George and
Martha Washington. Dr. Craik arrived in time to meet them and say
goodbye. The next day, June 9, in the afternoon, Martha and George went
to Belvoir to see these old and devoted friends "take shipping."[88] As
the breeze lifted the sails and the sturdy little ship faded out of
sight down the Potomac, it carried the Fairfaxes away from Belvoir
forever.
Until his own affairs became too involved, Washington supervised George
Fairfax's Virginia interests. In August 1774, a year after the master's
departure from Virginia, the contents of Belvoir house were sold.
Washington himself bought many things--the sideboard, card tables, and
other things. Other Fairfax furnishings came to Alexandria; Dr. Craik
became the possessor of a Wilton carpet which Washington bought for him.
George and Sally Fairfax settled in Bath in a red-brown sandstone house
at 11 Lansdown Crescent, where they became a part of the gay parties
taking the waters at the Pump Room and attending assembly balls in the
fashion of Jane Austen's most aristocratic characters. Friendly letters
went back and forth between Bath and Mount Vernon. After the Revolution,
Fairfax wrote to Washington: "I glory in being called an American,"
regretted his inability to contribute to the "glorious cause of Liberty"
and offered his "best thanks for all your exertions ... to ... the End
of the Great work ..."[89]
Washington replied from New York on July 10, 1783: "Your house at
Belvoir I am sorry to add is no more, but mine (which is enlarged since
you saw it) is most sincerely and heartily at your Service till you
could rebuild it" and expressed his pleasure at George William's
approbation of his Revolutionary actions.[90]
Fairfax, after becoming involved in lawsuit after lawsuit and dissension
with his relatives, died in 1787 before inheriting his title. Sally
lived on at Bath for twenty-five years after her husband's death. The
damp English climate crippled her joints with rheumatism, but did not
distort her slender, erect figure, and she maintained her beauty to the
end. A year before his death, Washington penned his last letter to
Sally, his affection for her undiminished, and his pride in Alexandria
growing:
Mount Vernon, 16 May, 1798
My dear Madam,
Five and twenty years have nearly passed away, since I have
considered myself as the permanent resident at this place, or have
been in a situation to indulge myself in a familiar intercourse with
my friends by letter or otherwise.
During this period, so many important events have occurred, and such
changes in men and things have taken place, as the compass of a
letter would give you but an inadequate idea of. None of which
events, however, nor all of them together, have been able to
eradicate from my mind the recollection of those happy moments, the
happiest of my life, which I have enjoyed in your company.
Worn out in a manner by the toils of my past labor, I am again seated
under my Vine and Fig-tree, and wish I could add, that there were
none to make us afraid; but those, whom we have been accustomed to
call our good friends and allies, are endeavoring, if not to make us
afraid, yet to despoil us of our property, and are provoking us to
Acts of self-defence, which may lead to war. What will be the result
of such measures, time, that faithful expositor of all things, must
disclose. My wish is to spend the remainder of my days, which cannot
be many, in Rural amusements, free from the cares from which public
responsibility is never exempt.
Before the war, and even while it existed, although I was eight years
from home at one stretch (except the en passant visits made to it on
my march to and from the siege of Yorktown) I made considerable
additions to my dwelling-house, and alterations in my offices and
gardens; but the dilapidation occasioned by time, and those neglects,
which are coextensive with the absence of Proprietors, have occupied
as much of my time the last twelve months in repairing them, as at
any former period in the same space;--and it is matter of sore
regret, when I cast my eyes towards Belvoir, which I often do, to
reflect, the former Inhabitants of it, with whom I lived in such
harmony and friendship no longer reside there; and that the ruins can
only be viewed as the memento of former pleasures; and permit me to
add, that I have wondered often, (your nearest relatives being in
this Country), and that you should not prefer spending the evening of
your life among them, rather than close the sublunary scenes in a
foreign country, numerous as your acquaintances may be, and sincere,
the friendships you may have formed.
A century hence, if this country keeps united (and it is surely its
policy and interest to do it), will produce a city--though not as
large as London--yet of a magnitude inferior to few others in Europe,
on the banks of the Potomack, where one is now establishing for the
permanent seat of Government of the United States (between Alexandria
& Georgetown, on the Maryland side of the River) a situation not
excelled, for commanding prospect, good water, salubrious air, and
safe harbour, by any in the world; & where elegant buildings are
erecting & in forwardness for the reception of Congress in the year
1800.
Alexandria, within the last seven years (since the establishment of
the General Government), has increased in buildings, in population,
in the improvement of its streets by well-executed pavements, and in
the extension of its wharves, in a manner of which you can have very
little idea. This shew of prosperity, you will readily conceive, is
owing to its commerce. The extension of that trade is occasioned, in
a great degree, by opening of the Inland navigation of the Potomac
River, now cleared to Fort Cumberland, upwards of two hundred miles,
and by a similar attempt to accomplish the like up the Shenandoah,
one hundred and eighty miles more. In a word, if this country can
steer clear of European politics, stand firm on its bottom, and be
wise and temperate in its government, it bids fair to be one of the
greatest and happiest nations in the world.
Knowing that Mrs. Washington is about to give an account of the
changes, which have happened in the neighborhood and in our own
family, I shall not trouble you with a repetition of them.
I am
G^o WASHINGTON[91]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
Chapter 5
The George William Fairfax House
[207 Prince Street. Owners: Colonel and Mrs. Charles B. Moore.]
The 200 block of Prince Street is probably the finest left in Old
Alexandria, in that it has suffered less change. No less than seven
brick eighteenth century town dwellings remain in almost pristine
condition. A small and fine Classical Revival building, and Mordecai
Miller's "double three storied wooden buildings" make for diversity,
while the old textile mill, later Green's furniture manufactory, adds
the practical Scottish note to the locality.
On the north side of the street, on lot No. 57, separated today from Lee
Street on the east by garden and the former Old Dominion Bank Building,
and flanked by John Harper's gift to his daughter Elizabeth on the west,
stands a three-storied dormer windowed town dwelling, battered by time
and the elements. It stands after nearly two hundred years, a silent
sentinel--the Fairfaxes' contribution to the erection of the town at
Hunting Creek warehouse.
The house was originally nearly square. The wing, added after the main
structure was built, was standing in 1782 at which time the house is
described as it stands today. Due to the loss of one deed, that of
father to son, it can be questioned whether the house was built by
William Fairfax before 1752 or by George William, to whom it was deeded
at that time. Like most old houses occupied by a succession of owners,
much damage has been done to these old walls. The brick is worn and
soft; paint is necessary to preserve them. The front door and stairway
were changed a hundred and fifty years ago, as well as mantels and much
of the trim and woodwork. The chimneys and dormers were blown down in
1927 and replaced in 1929. When the house was renovated at that time and
the plaster removed from the drawing-room walls, wooden blocks or stobs
were exposed in the bricks, indicating paneled walls.
The house has had some fourteen owners, each with his own idea of
"improvements." The occupants of the house for the first hundred years
are interesting as having been the founders and builders of the old
trading port. Let us begin with the original purchaser of lots Nos. 56
and 57 and learn a little of the early inmates of the premises
identified in Alexandria today as the Fairfax or the George William
Fairfax house.
William Fairfax and his son, Colonel George William Fairfax, both
purchased lots at the first auction held on July 13, 1749. The former
had purchased the lots numbered 56 and 57 for thirty-five _pistoles_,
while the latter had acquired two others across the street, lying south
and designated Nos. 62 and 63 on the plat of the town. At the meeting of
the trustees held the following day, it was ordered that deeds be made
for September 20, 1749, for all lots disposed of. George William Fairfax
retained his property until March 1750, when he sold the lots to
Willoughby Newton, Gent., for £41 18_s._ 6_d._ Newton conveyed them, on
November 10, 1752, to George Johnston for £44.
Lot No. 58, adjoining Colonel Fairfax's purchases on the west, was early
the property of Colonel Champe, but the fact that it soon passed to
Fairfax ownership can be established by two references in the minutes of
the trustees.
On May 30, 1763, it was "ordered that Robert Adam Gent^n be overseer of
the Main street [now Fairfax] from the upper part of Mrs. Chews Lott to
the lower part of her Lotts and that he make so much of the said Main
street dry and fitt for traveling for Waggon & foot people by the
first of Septem^r Next or pay for his failure twenty Shillings to the
Trustees for the use of the Town ... And that W^m Ramsay Gent. in like
manner and under the same penalty put the said main street in order from
the upper part of his own lott to the lower part thereof together with
half the next street and that William Ramsay continue his district down
to Col George Fairfaxes lott ... And that John Carlyle in like manner
and under the same penalty put the main Street in order from the corner
of Mr. Fairfaxes Lott to the lower corner of the said Fairfax's Lott and
one half of the adjacent street."[92]
[Illustration: Entrance hall and stair detail]
On December 16, 1766, it was resolved that, "Whereas deeds were granted
by William Ramsay and John Pagan two of the trustees of the town of
Alexandria bearing date of the 28th day of March Anno Domini 1752 to the
Hon Geo W^m Fairfax Esq^r for two Lotts of Land in the said Town No. 56
& 57, on the motion of Geo W^m Fairfax Esq^r it appears to us the above
mentioned Trustees that No. 56 should have been included in Lott No. 57
as one lott liable to the Conditions of improvement by act of
Assembly--and that he never having had a deed in his name or his fathers
for Lott No 58 It is now ordered that one Deed of Conveyance be made out
to the said Geo W^m Fairfax his Heirs and Assigns and that M^r W^m
Ramsay and M^r John Carlyle be appointed and are hereby authorized to
make good the said deed of Conveyance for these Lotts being improved
agreeable to the Act of Assembly for constituting and erecting the said
Town."[93]
That deed, bearing date of January 30, 1767, cited that on March 1,
1753, lots Nos. 56 and 57 were conveyed to George William Fairfax, Esq.,
and that as lot No. 56 was only part of a lot it should be holden as
parcel of the lot numbered 57 and that the purchaser hold the same
without being compelled to make any improvements other than what was by
law required on one whole and entire lot.
In 1771, when Fairfax by reason of prospective inheritances of land and
titles, was contemplating removal to England he turned to Robert Adam, a
successful businessman, for assistance in disposing of his Alexandria
property. Court records reveal that George William Fairfax and Sarah,
his wife, sold on November 25, 1771, to Robert Adam, lots Nos. 56 and 57
with all "Houses, buildings, orchards, ways, waters, water courses" for
£350 current money of Virginia.[94]
The transaction deed was witnessed by George Washington, Anthony Ramsay,
and James Adam, and it is interesting that the entry for that day in
Washington's diary reads: "went a hunting in the morning with Jacky
Custis. Returned about 12 o'clock and found Colo. Fairfax and Lady here,
Mrs. Fanny Ballendine and her nieces, Miss Sally Fairfax, and Mr. R.
Adam, Mr. Jas. Adam, and Mr. Anthy. Ramsay, all of who went away in the
afternoon, when Miss Scott came."[95] This deed was recorded at Fairfax
Court on September 23, 1772, with another deed from John Carlyle and
George William Fairfax, executors of the estate of William Fairfax, to
convey lot No. 58 with all houses, building, etc., to Robert Adam for
£125. Up to this time only one house stood on lots 56 and 57.
It may well be that Adam acted only as agent for George William Fairfax,
or that he assured title to the property for cash advanced. Within the
month he had sold half of the lots to Andrew Wales, a brewer, for £331
17_s._ 6_d._, nearly as much as he paid for the entire property. The
other portion he sold to John Hough, Gentleman, of Loudoun County,
Virginia.
Robert Adam was quite the man of affairs in Alexandria. Born in
Kilbride, Scotland, in 1731, the son of the Reverend John Adam and wife
(_née_ Janet Campbell), he came to Maryland at about twenty years of age
and was in Alexandria before 1758, associating himself with that
merchant prince of the town, John Carlyle, as early as 1760. The firm of
Carlyle & Adam acted as agents for Mount Vernon as well as Belvoir,
handling the wheat and tobacco from these plantations. Washington was
close to both men until he was outraged by treatment accorded his wheat
and bags, though he afterward did Adam the honor of dining with him.
Following Colonel William Fairfax's death, Robert Adam succeeded to his
place as a town trustee. In 1782, with others from Alexandria, he was
active in founding the Masonic lodge. At the opening of the lodge in
1783, he was elected and served as its first Worshipful Master, along
with Robert McCrea as Senior Warden, Elisha C. Dick as Junior Warden,
William Herbert as Secretary, and William Ramsay as Treasurer. The year
1785 saw the erection of the Alexandria academy and Robert Adam laying
the cornerstone.
Like Adam before him John Hough had only a passing interest in the
property of George William Fairfax. He disposed of two small lots, one
to Benjamin Shreve, a hatter, and one to George Gilpin, the
colonel-to-be. He sold the remainder of lots Nos. 56, 57 and 58,
fronting on Prince Street to John Harper, a sea captain of Philadelphia,
in June 1773 for the munificent sum of £780, with all and every
improvement and all houses, buildings, and so on.
[Illustration: The small parlor, restored. A blending of old and new]
It is possible that Harper occupied George William Fairfax's house, but
it is certain that he let it to Colonel William Lyle of Prince Georges
County, Maryland, in 1782--probably before--and also as late as 1789,
when Lyle returned to Maryland. Tax records show that Lyle was renting
from Harper on Prince Street during this time. In 1782 he was taxed for
"2 whites, 13 blacks, 2 horses, and 12 cattle."[96] He is mentioned
several times in Washington's diaries as being at Mount Vernon, and at
least once Washington came to Alexandria and dined with Colonel Lyle.
For a time Colonel Lyle was associated with Colonel John Fitzgerald in
the shipping trade under the firm name of Lyle & Fitzgerald. During the
Revolution he served on the Alexandria Committee of Safety. From 1783
until his departure to Maryland, Lyle was an active member of the Sun
Fire Company. He owned considerable property in Alexandria. At one time
he determined to build a dwelling house on part of lot No. 57 on the
corner of Prince and Water [now Lee] Streets, which he had purchased
from John Harper, but he sold the lot without fulfilling his intentions.
When peace came in 1783, Captain John Harper, whose real-estate plans
had been deferred by hostilities, began the division of his Fairfax
property into building lots. At amazing speed and increasing prices he
sold off what had formerly been gardens and orchards, and as soon as
George William Fairfax's house was vacated by Colonel Lyle, Harper
disposed of it to William Hodgson of Whitehaven, England, in 1790. Now
our story of the Hodgson tenure must leave Alexandria to combine for a
brief moment with the great house of Lee.
[Illustration: The front room: The excellent Adam mantel from the Jonah
Thompson House is an improvement to replace a later one with a Latrobe
stove]
Among the famous sons of the sire of Stratford Hall (Westmoreland
County, Virginia), Thomas Lee, and his wife Hannah Ludwell, was William
Lee, who was born in 1739. He went to England about 1766 as a Virginia
merchant selling tobacco and acting as London agent for his Virginia
clients. In London in 1769, William Lee married his cousin, Hannah
Phillipi Ludwell (daughter of Philip Ludwell and Frances Grymes of Green
Spring).
William Lee took an active interest in politics and was elected as an
alderman of London in 1774. This did not prevent him from doing all in
his power to aid the American colonists. We find him going to Paris in
April 1777 as commercial agent for the Continental Congress and working
with his brother, Arthur Lee, on various diplomatic missions. While
serving at The Hague he was ordered to the courts of Berlin and Vienna,
but his services were thought to be so valuable it was decided to leave
him in Holland. Arthur Lee was sent on to Berlin in his place, but
later William Lee was appointed to the Austrian capital.
[Illustration: 200 block of Prince Street. The Old Dominion Bank and the
houses of George William Fairfax, Dr. James Craik and Dr. Elisha Cullen
Dick]
The four children of William and Hannah Phillipi Lee were born abroad.
The first child, William Ludwell (1775-1803) was born in London; Portia
(1777-1840) either in London or at The Hague; Brutus (1778-1779) at The
Hague; and Cornelia (1780-1815) at Brussels. William Lee remained abroad
until 1783, when he returned to his plantation, Green Spring, near
Williamsburg. Peace had not then been concluded and he had such
difficulty in obtaining passage for himself and family to Virginia that
he was forced to purchase a ship for the voyage. The Lees set sail from
Ostend on June 30, arriving home September 25.[97]
While living in London William Lee was thrown into contact with William
Hodgson, formerly of Whitehaven. This gentleman was an "active friend"
of America, a "fire-eating radical," and a member of "The Honest Whigs,"
a supper club of which Benjamin Franklin was a member, and the
"presiding genius." Hodgson, also a member of the Royal Society, then
composed of the intellectuals of the day--the premier scientific society
of the English world--rendered valuable aid to the American
commissioners in Paris by correspondence with Franklin in which he
passed on much useful information.
An enthusiastically outspoken recalcitrant, Hodgson was not content with
his contribution to the American cause, but took up the cudgels for the
French, and was promptly launched into very hot water. Two years in
Newgate prison followed his hearty toast "The French Republic," and the
epithet he applied to His Majesty, George III, of "German
Hogbutcher."[98] After this experience, it is not surprising that
Hodgson removed himself beyond the seas. He turns up at dinner at Mount
Vernon in June 1788. Two years later we find him buying a house and lot
for £1,650 from John Harper on Prince Street. The evidence is that he
was already in this house as a tenant. Here he set up in the dry-goods
business, using the first floor for his store and countinghouse, and the
upper part as his dwelling.
What could be more natural than Mr. Hodgson looking up his friends, the
Lees, on his arrival in Virginia? His old friend, William, had died.
Portia, now an orphan, was a young lady of handsome estate. Mr. Hodgson
was dining rather frequently at Mount Vernon in 1798, and the General
was writing of him always as "Mr. Hodgden."[99] Twice he was in company
with Portia, the last time appearing in a diary entry of June 1799 with
his wife at dinner. Mrs. Hodgson was, of course, the former Miss Portia
Lee. Sometime this same year he brought her to his dry-goods store and
dwelling house on Prince Street. Built some forty-odd years before, this
house was doubtless in need of numerous repairs.
The Hodgsons resided for upward of twenty-five years in the old town
house of the Fairfaxes. They were the parents of eight children, so many
that Hodgson found it necessary to give over to his family the lower
floor of the house that he had been using as his store and countinghouse
and to confine his activities to his warehouse and wharf on Union and
Prince. About this time the house seems to have undergone many changes.
A new front entrance was added, the stairway changed, a fashionable arch
and reeded mantels appeared. In other words, the house was "done over"
in the newest taste and latest fashion.
In 1816 Hodgson was forced to sell his house due to his inability to
meet a trust placed on the property in 1807. It was purchased in 1816 by
John Gardner Ladd, senior partner of John Gardner Ladd & Company. Ladd
appears to have come to Alexandria from Providence, Rhode Island, late
in the eighteenth century. He is mentioned in Washington's diary as
dining at Mount Vernon on February 1, 1798. A little glimpse into his
private affairs is revealed by an old customs house record for the year
1817. Under the entry for Thursday, January 2, we discover that the ship
_America_, Captain Luckett in command, sailed for the West Indies and
that "John G. Ladd, Esq., of the house of J.G.L. & Co. goes out in this
ship, with a view of benefitting his health." His will, bearing date of
February 18, 1819, and leaving to his wife, Sarah, for her life "the
entire use and emoluments of my dwelling house and lotts on Prince and
Water Streets (formerly the property of William Hodgson)," seems to
indicate that this wish was not realized. The home remained in the Ladd
family for the better part of thirty-five years.
* * * * *
To Alexandrians of later days, 207 Prince Street was known for many
years as the home of the Honorable Lewis MacKenzie. This house had the
first bathroom and tub in Alexandria. A niece of MacKenzie has stated
that her childhood had no more enthralling experience than leaning out
of the third story window and watching the water pour into Prince Street
from a hole in the wall. It was hit or miss with the pedestrians below!
MacKenzie also had the first heated halls in Alexandria, and nearly
burned up the house in consequence. He simply bricked up a small chimney
in a corner of the hall and installed wood stoves. Despite the hazard,
the warm halls were a great luxury in those days, for before the advent
of central heating all Virginians regarded halls in the wintertime as
places to pass through as quickly as possible.
Lewis MacKenzie, who owned the Fairfax house until 1891, was one of the
eight children of Captain James MacKenzie, mariner. The unique wedding
of his father and mother had been reported by the _Times and Alexandria
Advertiser_ almost a century earlier (1798). Its nautical motif arrests
our attention and carries us to the wharves of Alexandria in the time of
George Washington:
We have to record an event of unusual interest which took place in
our harbor yesterday, on board the good ship "Lexington" which lay in
the stream opposite the town.
The "Lexington," dressed in her gayest rig, was loaded with a full
cargo of tobacco, in hogsheads, and only awaited the arrival of her
commander, Capt. James MacKenzie, before proceeding on her voyage to
Holland. The wind was fair, and the sun shone brightly. The jolly
tars had donned their holiday garb, and as the first officer walked
the deck and looked anxiously towards the town, it was evident that
an unusual event was about to occur.
The shipping in port showed the flags of all nations, and on the
British man-of-war, which lay close to the "Lexington," could be seen
the bright uniforms of the marines marshalled by their officers.
Precisely at ten o'clock several boats put off from Conway's wharf,
and on rounding under the stern of the "Lexington," the rolling of
the frigate's drums could be heard as the crew manned the yards. A
gay company passed up the gangway, led by the commander of the
"Lexington" who was accompanied by Miss Margaret Steel and a
clergyman from Maryland.
On the order of the officer on board the frigate, the marines came to
"present arms" in handsome style. It was then that Capt. MacKenzie
received his bride, the fine band of the frigate discoursing its
sweetest music as the guests departed. The order to "weigh anchor"
was then given, and the gallant captain, accompanied by his youthful
bride, "squared away" for his port of destination, with many good
wishes for his safe return.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: Gadsby's Tavern doorway comes home after four decades in
the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, as Alexandria celebrates its
200th anniversary]
[Illustration]
Chapter 6
John Gadsby and His Famous Tavern
[Gadsby's Tavern is controlled today by the Gadsby's Tavern Board, Inc.,
under the auspices of the American Legion. The patriotic organizations
of Alexandria have joined in the restoration of this building. In 1932
the Alexandria Chapter of the Colonial Dames of America, the Alexandria
Chapters of the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Washington
Society, restored the first floor, which included the famous dining
rooms of the City Hotel.
Due to the untiring efforts of the late Mrs. C.A.S. Sinclair, State
Regent of the Virginia D.A.R., and Mrs. Robert M. Reese, one of the most
worthwhile restorations in Virginia was completed in the fall of 1940 in
the replacement of the woodwork in the ballroom. Happily, the floor is
original. The inventory called for a coal grate, and in the attic the
original grate, of Adam design, was found.
In 1937-38, the Alexandria Association made a careful restoration of the
roof, cornice and dormers, enabling other much needed work to go forward
and before this book goes to press the original doorway in which
Washington stood to receive his last official tribute in Alexandria will
have been brought back from the Metropolitan Museum of Art (where it has
been for four decades) to its rightful location. This patriotic
restoration of the doorway by the Alexandria Association has been made
possible by the past president and Honorary President of the
Association, Colonel Charles B. Moore, U.S.A., Ret.]
When Alexandria was one of the three largest seaports in America, a busy
city of shipping merchants, a rendezvous for travelers, soldiers, and
people of note, it was from necessity a city of taverns and hotels.
Many are the tales, handed down from the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth century travelers, and from the advertisements of the
journals of that time, that, put together, form a very complete picture
of this early American hostelry.
The most famous tavern in Alexandria, perhaps in America, are the
buildings on the corner of Cameron and Royal Streets, generally known
and spoken of today as Gadsby's Tavern. Built in 1752, the smaller of
these buildings was known for fifty years or more as the City Tavern,
and sometimes as the Coffee House. John Wise built the large brick
addition adjoining the City Tavern in 1792. On February 20, 1793, the
_Alexandria Gazette_ carried the following announcement of Mr. Wise's
City Tavern:
SIGN OF THE BUNCH OF GRAPES
The Subscriber informs the public in General that he has removed from
the Old House where he has kept Tavern for four years past to his new
elegant three story Brick House fronting the West end of the Market
House which was built for a Tavern and has twenty commodious,
well-furnished rooms in it, where he has laid in a large stock of
good old liquors and hopes he will be able to give satisfaction to
all who may please to favor him with their custom.
* * * * *
David Rankin Barbee says that the hotel was opened on February 11 with
festivities commemorating the birthday of General Washington: "As the
guests assembled they were amazed as well they might be, at the internal
arrangements of the new Hostelry."[100]
* * * * *
In Wise's new hotel, Alexandria architecture reaches its highest
expression. For its day and time it was the ultimate in comfort and
elegance; more than that, it was in exquisite taste. A well known
architectural historian has written of the ballroom, "One can sense that
it was built as an Assembly room for Gentlefolk";[101] and gentlefolk
used it for near a century.
When the Jockey Club races were run on November 6, 1793, we find the
members dining at Wise's inn, "the dinner to be on the table at three
o'clock."[102] For the better entertainment of the guests, "Mr. Card
performed wonderful feats at the Tavern every evening during the races.
Feats in cards, slack-wire, celebrated equilibrist, ground and lofty
tumbling."[103]
And for the benefit of the ladies, November 6: "Information is hereby
given that there will be a dancing assembly this evening at Mr. Wise's,
to which are invited the ladies of Alexandria and its vicinity on both
sides of the river. Tickets for the gentlemen, without which none can be
admitted, may be had at the bar."[104] Out turned crimson velvet
breeches, green damask coats laced with silver, or cinnamon damask with
broad gold lace, while ladies in failles, lena gauzes, velvets, lace and
ribbon took their places beside the dandies. Logs and coals glowed,
candles burned, while the gossips sat against the wall and passed on the
grace of this or that gallant and his lady. When the gentry came to the
races, they remained for the dance!
High above the floor, attached to the wall, hung the musicians'
gallery[105] and to the strains of fiddle, flute, and banjo, the quality
of the neighborhood bowed and glided. Upon these boards skipped little
satin slippers and many times the heavy tread of the first citizen of
America, for this gentleman was ever fond of the dance. Here gathered
the Masons from Gunston Hall and Hollin Hall; the Lewises from
Woodlawn; the Dulanys from Shuters Hill; the Lears from Wellington; the
Ramsays, Herberts, Fairfaxes, Craiks, Browns, Roberdeaus, Lees,
Fitzhughs, Diggeses, Custises, Swifts and many other of the town's
Scottish gentry and their neighbors across the river.
[Illustration: The doorway from hall to ballroom stands invitingly open]
In 1794 an Englishman, one John Gadsby, took over the tavern under a
long lease. As fine as the tavern had been under Wise, it was to reach
new heights of public entertainment. Running the two taverns as one,
under the name of Gadsby's, he brought its culinary fame to such a state
of perfection that the odors of his dinners linger in the memory and
titillate the palate to this day.
There was always a fine stock of game, fish, oysters, terrapin, turkey
and ham; Madeira, Port and brandy on hand for the traveler. Our own
great Washington sat down to a very good dinner in his last days, if his
adopted son, George Washington Parke Custis be correct, for on being
assured of a plentiful supply of canvasback ducks about which he had
just made inquiry, he gave the following order: "Very good, sir, give us
some of them with a chaffing-dish, some hommony, and a bottle of good
Madeira, and we shall not complain."[106]
The fame of the tavern went out through the country and from Boston to
New Orleans the traveler bent his efforts to make Gadsby's. John Gadsby
established his own coach line from Alexandria to Philadelphia, and it
was necessary to be a guest in City Tavern or his associated inns to get
seat or ticket. Then he inserted the following notice in the _Gazette_:
March 1st, 1796.--John Gadsby informs the Gentlemen of Alexandria
that he has fitted up a large and convenient stable well provided
with hay, oats, etc., and an attentive hostler, and those who may
send their horses may depend on proper attention being paid to them
on moderate terms.
This was very enticing to gentlemen traveling by horseback as well as
those in the city not having private stables.
Such men as George Mason, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, George
Clinton, Benjamin Franklin, Braddock, the Byrds, Grymeses, Fitzhughs,
Lees and Washingtons are among those who came here. One fine old tale
has it that in 1777, in the old tavern courtyard, John Paul Jones met
two bewildered Frenchmen in a dreadful dilemma--strangers in a strange
land, speaking a strange tongue, unable to make themselves understood
and doubtless very cross. By his knowledge of French, our brave
privateer was enabled to smooth the way for these gentlemen, none other
than Baron de Kalb and the Marquis de la Fayette, and the tale goes on
that this assistance was so gratefully received that a friendship
lasting a lifetime resulted from the encounter. The two taverns housed
and fed most of the important persons visiting the country from 1752 for
the next hundred years.
[Illustration: Ballroom of Gadsby's Tavern, purchased and taken from
Alexandria by the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York, where it is
now on exhibit]
The Fairfax Resolves were prepared here--those resolves that eventually
grew into the Virginia Bill of Rights. In this tavern met the little
convention called by General Washington to settle the import duties upon
the Potomac River commerce which led in time to the convention in
Philadelphia which prepared the Constitution of the United States.
In 1802 Gadsby entered into a new lease with Wise for fifteen years. In
the indenture, reference is made to a three-story brick house and a
two-story brick house, a brick kitchen and several wooden houses. Gadsby
at this time was granted permission by Wise to erect at his own expense
a brick stable one hundred feet long and twenty-seven feet wide and of
a suitable height. He was also given permission to erect at his own
expense another brick house forty-five feet long and fifteen or sixteen
feet wide and two stories high, finished in a neat and decent manner so
as to be habitable, and he also agreed to extend a wall thirty feet long
and of the same height. The annual rent was to be two thousand dollars,
and Gadsby agreed to paint the three-story brick house and the two-story
house outside and inside, and he had permission to remove what wooden
buildings were necessary and to keep the remainder in good repair.
[Illustration: In the ballroom the musicians played from the balcony
suspended from the ceiling. This is the restored ballroom]
That Gadsby did not desire to keep the tavern so long is borne out seven
years later when on November 13, 1809, John Wise, N.S. Wise, and R.I.
Taylor leased the tavern to William Caton for three months and then for
nine years for two thousand dollars a year, and stated the tavern was
"formerly occupied by John Gadsby."[107] But the following year Caton
had had enough and the _Alexandria Gazette_, on March 9, 1810, carried
the following advertisement:
To the Public
The Subscriber has taken for a term of years that noted and eligible
establishment known by the name of the City Hotel, and once occupied
by Mr. Gadsby whose distinguished abilities as a Publican gave it an
éclat which the subscriber hopes to preserve by his unremitting
exertions.... James Brook.
[Illustration: Ballroom fireplace containing original grate before which
the gentry were wont to stand on winter nights]
In 1811 an Englishman traveling incognito, put up at the tavern,
formerly Gadsby's, became ill, and after it was discovered that he
belonged to the Masonic fraternity, he was nursed by the gentlemen of
the Alexandria lodge. Making a happy recovery, the gentleman departed,
and apparently that was the last of him. Four years passed. One day
there arrived by ship an enormous packing box for the lodge. It
contained twenty-five hundred pieces of cut glass, decanters of all
sizes, and glasses for any liquor distilled. The bottom of each piece
was engraved with the Masonic emblem and the initials and number of the
lodge. The enclosed card read simply: "From an English Gentleman and
Brother in appreciation for fraternal courtesies." One hundred and
seventy-five pieces remain in the Masonic Museum today, after more than
a hundred years of use, and excellent crystal it is.
One of the most romantic stories told of Gadsby's, a true one at that,
is the mysterious tale of the Female Stranger. On a day in early autumn
of 1816 a ship docked at the wharf in Alexandria, purported to have come
from the West Indies. Down the ways came a striking couple. Luxuriously
apparelled, they presented figures of great elegance. The handsome young
"milord" was all tender solicitude for the fragile beauty clinging
weakly to his arm in a state of collapse. Bystanders were considerably
intrigued and greatly impressed by the distinguished strangers.
Unquestionably they were rich, and certainly noble. It was indeed
curious that such important people had no attendants, neither manservant
nor maidservant, and the young lady sadly in need of assistance. Even
while the sailors were busy with the great ropes and anchors the
handsome stranger was making arrogant inquiries for the best tavern in
the town and demanding a carriage for transporting the lady there with
the least delay. First impressions were borne out, the gentleman was
undoubtedly English, and he was a person of importance!
[Illustration: In the Coffee House. A fine mantel and panelled chimney
breast]
[Illustration: Doorway to Coffee House or City Tavern]
Naturally the strangers were directed to the best the town afforded, and
to "Mr. Gadsby's City Hotel" the young people came looking for rooms.
The gentleman evidently took mine host into his confidence and was
provided with the most elegant accommodations. The young woman was put
to bed and a physician ordered in attendance. She was truly very ill.
Two of Alexandria's good Samaritans were informed of the pitiful little
sick girl's condition and Mrs. John S. Wise and Mrs. James Stuart took
their turns with the invalid. The husband proved himself devoted and
fairly daft with anxiety, and 'twas said rarely left the bedside. The
young woman grew rapidly worse. The skillful nursing, the constant
and faithful attendance of the physicians were all useless, and after an
illness of several weeks, the Female Stranger died. Thus she has been
remembered in Alexandria, for a very curious thing had occurred. The
doctors and volunteer nurses were asked to take an oath before ever they
entered that sick chamber, and swore never to reveal aught that they
heard, saw, or learned. That oath they kept. The young woman's name, her
destination, her former habitation, have never been revealed, and her
secrets lie buried with her.
[Illustration: The Coffee House or City Tavern which later was run as
one with Gadsby's Tavern and City Hotel. Headquarters for Washington and
the Alexandria Militia in 1754]
Many are the stories that survive. Some say the husband decamped without
paying his host, doctors, and nurses. Others that he had eloped with
this girl of good family and destroyed her reputation, and so brought
about her death. One story claims that he was a criminal and was seen in
prison by a gentleman from Alexandria, and others far more romantic
tell of his reappearance at stated intervals in Alexandria when he was
observed prostrate upon the tomb. Whatever his own story, he placed the
mortal remains of the little stranger in St. Paul's Cemetery and covered
her with a table tomb which is inscribed with the equally mysterious
inscription:
To the memory of a Female Stranger Whose mortal sufferings terminated
On the fourteenth day of October, 1816.
This stone is erected by her disconsolate Husband in whose arms she
sighed out her last breath, and who under God did his utmost to sooth
the cold, dull hour of death.
How loved, how honor'd once avails thee not,
To whom related or by whom begot.
A heap of dust remains of thee
'Tis all thou are, and all the proud shall be.
In 1808 the celebrated actress, Anne Warren, known as the "ornament of
the American stage," was acting at the new theatre, Liberty Hall, just
across from the Tavern on Cameron Street. While stopping at Gadsby's she
became ill and died. (Not all the Tavern's patrons were so afflicted.)
It is said that her interment was the last in old Christ Church yard.
On October 16, 1824, La Fayette was entertained by the Alexandrians
"amid the wildest popular demonstration of joy and affection,"[108] and
again in February 1825, he returned to Alexandria and Gadsby's for a
farewell entertainment by the Masonic lodge. The tavern at this time was
run by a Mr. Claggett.
Washington's association alone is sufficient fame for Gadsby's. In the
little tavern he recruited his first military command, when as colonel
of Virginia Militia in 1754 he set out to protect the Virginia frontier
from the French and Indians. Again in 1755, as aide to General Braddock,
he established headquarters at the City Tavern. Here, prior to the
Revolution, he celebrated the King's birthday anniversary balls, an
institution subsequently replaced by festivities of his own birthnight
anniversaries:
February 11th, 1799 [22nd, new style] went up to Alexandria to the
celebration of my
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/30747