Seaport in Virginia Part 1

Seaport in Virginia.

by Gay Montague Moore.

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 b.a.l.l.s, visiting the young ladies, drilling the militia, racing horses, launching vessels, engaging workmen, dining at this house or that, importing a.s.ses, horses, and dogs, running for office, sitting as justice; sponsoring the Friendship Fire Company, a free school, the Alexandria Ca.n.a.l, 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

PART ONE: PROLOGUE

An Account of the First Century of The Seaport of Alexandria

[Ill.u.s.tration: A typical Alexandria shipping merchant's home: Bernard Chequire, called the "count," built his dwelling and storeroom under the same roof]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

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 a.s.sembly 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 const.i.tuted 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 ill.u.s.trated 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 Pet.i.tion 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 pet.i.tions from the inhabitants of Prince William and Fairfax[6] counties, asking authority from the a.s.sembly at Williamsburg to erect towns in the county, were presented to the Burgesses. Several years pa.s.sed before any notice was taken of these requests.

At a General a.s.sembly, 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 pet.i.tion 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 pa.s.s. 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 a.s.sent 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 pa.s.sage 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 "const.i.tuted 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 a.s.sembly ... 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 a.s.sumption 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.

Advertis.e.m.e.nts 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 Middles.e.x; 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 a.s.suredly are the circ.u.mstances 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.