Seaport in Virginia Part 16

Michael Flannery

(Note: _Not all members at the same time._)

By the turn of the century, the city of Alexandria boasted three fire companies whose membership rosters included the most responsible citizens. The year 1774, marking the formation of the Sun Fire Company, also saw the organization of the better-known Friendship Fire Company, claiming Washington as honorary member. The Star Fire Company was founded in 1799.

Alexandria property owners were quick to realize the advantages of membership in the Mutual a.s.surance Society, established in December 1794 and offering protection "Against FIRE on BUILDINGS in the State of Virginia." At the Alexandria office, leading citizens enthusiastically subscribed to a plan so soundly conceived and efficiently administered that the company which pioneered it is in operation to this day. The archives of the Mutual a.s.surance Society of Virginia const.i.tute a mine of valuable information for the researcher. From General Washington's own files derives a broadside listing early subscribers throughout the state.[136] The Alexandria section includes a number of citizens whom we know to have been conscious of the ever-present danger of fire:

_Number_ _Buildings_ _Name_ _Insured_ _Value_ Wm. Hartshorne 3 7000 John Potts 4 10000 Isaac McPherson 8 17700 Rob. Hamilton 4 6000 J. B. Nickols 6 2000 Ch. Simms 4 3000 Lemuel Bent 1 400 Thomas Rogerson 2 1000 R. T. Hooe 7 23500 John Dunlap 1 2000 Wm. Hodgson 3 10000 Rob't Young & Co. 2 8000 Tho's Patten & Co. 12 14600 John R. Wheaton 2 3000 John Mandeville 10 15000 Charles Lee 2 6000 Wm. Herbert 6 16000 John Longden 3 3000 Richard Weightman 4 4000 R. Weightman for the heirs of Ray's Estate 3 1000 Wm. Summers 5 8000 Wm. Brown 3 5500 Henry Stroman 1 300 Diedrich Schekle 2 3400 E. Deneale 1 2000 Korn & Wisemiller 3 6000 Rob. Lyle 4 7300 Wm. Ramsay 2 2000 Henry McCue 3 4000 Philip Wanton 1 800 Ephriam Evans 2 1600 Dennis Foley 2 2000 Wm. Hartshorne 1 4000 Philip G. Martsteller 2 3300 Joseph Thornton 1 2000 Stump, Ricketts & Co. 3 10000 Samual Davis 1 2000 Thomas Richards 5 15000 Adam Lynn 2 2000 Mathew Robinson & Co. 2 3000 Wm. Hoye 1 1600 John Harper 4 8000 Benjamin Shreve 3 9000 John Dundas 2 7000 Henry Walker 1 800 John & Tho's Vowell 2 3000 Ricketts & Newton 2 5000 George M. Munn 2 5000 Jonah Thompson 5 14000 Adam S. Swoope 1 2000 Mordecai Miller 1 3000 Wm. Bushby 2 4500 Philip Richard Fendall 7 10000 Wm. Hepburn 9 13500 Tho's White 2 1600 Richard Conway 8 15000 Wm. M. McKnight 1 3000 Charles McKnight 1 2000 P. Marsteller 1 2000 Adam Faw 1 2000 Wm. Halley 1 3000 Jacob Schuch 3 1000 Peter Wise 3 9000 John Fitzgerald 3 6000 Thomas Forrell 1 800 Wm. Wright 3 2700 James Kennedy 2 6000 Joseph Riddle & Co. 2 3500 Guy Atkinson 1 3000 James Patton 2 6000 James Lawrason 1 1500 Shreve & Lawrason 7 12000 Geo. Hunter 5 2700 Jacob c.o.x 4 3000 Geo. Gilpin 3 6000 Isaac McPherson for N. Elliot 4 12000 George Slac.u.m 3 3000 Geo. Slac.u.m for Gabriel Slac.u.m 1 2000 Samuel Harper 1 1200 Jamieson 1 400 Chapin 2 2600

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Chapter 13

Captain John Harper and His Houses

The streets of the old port of Alexandria bear royal names. Prince is one of those streets, shown in the first map of the town as surveyed in 1749. The 100 block is still paved with cobblestones "big as beer kegs"

purportedly laid by Hessian prisoners during the Revolution.

The brick houses which sprang up in early days set the standard for the town. Many of these houses were erected prior to the Revolution and immediately after the signing of the peace in 1783. All original lots had been built upon by 1765 but there remained between these first houses empty s.p.a.ces. There was a constant effort to have all vacant s.p.a.ces of the lots built upon, so as to present an unbroken front. By 1790 the 100 and 200 blocks of Prince Street stood, very much as they stand today, the visible expression of the Scottish and English towns that our ancestors had left behind them.

These houses were nearly all built by Captain John Harper, and when not built by him, built on his land at a stipulated ground rent. The north side of the 100 block was part of lot No. 56 and until after 1771 no houses stood there. The ground rose here in a high bank above the Potomac, and the original lot contained less ground than a quarter of an acre. Bought by the Honorable William Fairfax at the first auction in 1749, in 1766 he was released from building thereon, as it was stated the improvement on his lot No. 57 was adequate for the two lots and "such was the true intent and meaning of the Trustees."[137]

The Honorable William Fairfax deeded this property to his son, Colonel George William Fairfax, who sold it on November 25, 1771, to Robert Adam. Adam in turn sold to John Hough of Loudoun County on December 11 and 12, 1771; and Hough, after disposing of several parts of the Fairfax lots, sold in June 1772, the remaining parts of lots Nos. 56, 57 and 58, fronting on Prince Street, to Captain John Harper of Philadelphia.

This is our first introduction to John Harper in the records of Alexandria. Apparently he must have made this purchase through someone else, for nearly a year later Washington received the following letter:

Philadelphia, May 5th 1773

Esteemed Friend Colonel Washington

From the little acquaintance I had with thee formerly, I take the liberty of recommending the bearer Cap^t John Harper who is in partnership with William Hartshorne--John Harper comes down in order to see the country, if he likes, they propose to come down and settle with you; they are Men that have a verry pretty Interest--W^m Hartshorne lived with me some Time--They are Industrious, careful, Sober men; if Cap^t Harper should want to draw on this place for Five hundred Pounds, I will engage his Bills shall be paid--Any Civilitys shewn him will be returned by

Thy Friend

REESE MEREDITH[138]

Harper did nothing with these newly purchased lots until after the Revolution, when he began to sell and to build at astonishing speed. The number of deeds in the clerk's office in Fairfax and in Alexandria of property transferred to or from him fill page after page in the records.

A book on John Harper's activities would be a good history of early town housing. Twice married, he had twenty-nine children--and to every one he left a house and lot.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 211 Prince Street was John Harper's gift to his daughter, Peggy Harper Vowell, April 10, 1793. Here Dr. d.i.c.k lived from 1796 to 1804. As he was here in 1815 it is safe to a.s.sume that he occupied this house for nineteen years. He paid John Harper 70 a year rent.]

John Harper's property housed many of Alexandria's important citizens.

Two of Washington's physicians occupied adjoining houses built by him on Prince Street, though not at the same time. Dr. Craik lived at least three years and probably five at 209 Prince Street--from 1790 to 1793, and doubtless until 1796, when he moved to the house he purchased on Duke Street. Dr. d.i.c.k lived at 211 Prince Street from 1798 certainly until 1804, and then again at the same house in 1815. Surely it is safe here to domicile the restless Doctor, for these ten undoc.u.mented years between 1805 and 1815. The Doctor paid for this house 70 per annum.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Harper-Vowell Houses or the Sea Captains' Row]

The early Harper houses which fill lower Prince Street are known in Alexandria today as "the Sea Captains' Houses" or "Captains' Row" and in truth they were either owned or occupied by captains or masters of vessels. After weathering the storms of a hundred and fifty years or better, their sea legs, or foundations, are well established in the soil of Alexandria, and they present one of the attractive sights of the town. The street slopes at a steep angle from the top of the hill, at Lee Street to the river, and the quaint old houses go stair-step down toward the Potomac in an unbroken line; sometimes a roof or a chimney sags with age, or a front facade waves a bit. The first house in the block on the northwest corner of Prince and Union was our stout Captain's warehouse and his wharf jutted out into the Potomac across the street from his place of business. A few years ago a great oil tank buried in the ground forced its way to the surface, bringing with it the enormous beams of John Harper's wharf and part of an old ship rotting in the earth. Real estate was only a side issue with the Captain. His main interest was the sea, his ships, and their cargoes.

On February 23, 1795 Harper sold to John Crips Vowell and Thomas Vowell, Jr., for 150, that part of lot No. 56 fronting on Prince Street, 24 feet 6 inches, 88 feet 3-1/2 inches in depth, which begins on the "North side of Prince, fifty feet to the Eastward of Water Street, upon ye Eastern Line of a ten-foot alley, and all houses, buildings, streets, lanes, alleys, etc...." The Vowells agreed to lay off and keep open forever an alley upon the northern back line of the premises, nine feet wide "Extending from the aforesaid ten-foot alley to the line of ...

William Wright."[139] This described property was one of those houses built by Harper. The two Vowells were his sons-in-law and both gentlemen in the shipping trade.

By this circuitous route we arrive at 123 Prince Street,[Owner: Miss Margaret Frazer.] the house with a pure _Directoire_ tent room, practically a duplicate of that at Malmaison, and another room with a magnificent painted Renaissance ceiling. How such work became a part of the st.u.r.dy two-story "Sea Captains' Houses" is one of Alexandria's mysteries. It is true that both rooms were in a deplorable state of repair, and it was necessary to trace the work on paper, repair the plaster and then continue the interrupted design. Naturally, the colors were freshened. It was exciting to watch this discovery unveiled, when sheets of shabby paper were pulled from the walls, and the artist repaired and restored the work of some itinerant master whose name has vanished with his dust these hundred years or better.

John Harper, a Quaker, was born in Philadelphia in 1728, and he was living in Alexandria in 1773, if not before. By his first wife, Sarah Wells of Pennsylvania, he had twenty children. He married at her death Mrs. Mary Cunningham, a widow, the daughter of John Reynolds of Winchester. By this lady he had nine children. In 1795 he was living at his residence on Prince Street, for William Hodgson's property was described in his insurance record as being next door to John Harper on the west. Captain Harper's house is now known as 209 Prince Street and today bears, erroneously, a plaque to the memory of Dr. d.i.c.k. This is the house in which Dr. Craik was living in 1790-93. Incidentally, no record viewed in a search of hundreds mentions Dr. d.i.c.k as occupying 209 Prince Street. On the contrary, Dr. d.i.c.k in 1796 was paying insurance on his dwelling on Duke Street.

In his old age Captain John Harper built two brick houses on the east side of Washington Street, south of Prince. In one of these he died in 1804, aged seventy-six years. Dr. d.i.c.k attended John Harper in his last illness and was paid sixty-five dollars by the executors for this service. Wine for the funeral was eleven dollars, the coffin and case cost twenty-six dollars, and the bellman received one dollar for crying property to be sold. Captain John Harper lies buried in the cemetery of the old Presbyterian meetinghouse near two of his daughters, Mrs. John C. Vowell and Mrs. Thomas Vowell.

Captain Harper was an ancestor of Mrs. Mary G. Powell, author of _The History of Old Alexandria_. She tells of his patriotic action in procuring ammunition from Philadelphia for the independent companies of Prince William and Fairfax Counties: "Eight casks of powder, drums and colors for three companies."[140] His religion prohibited his taking part in combat, but his sympathy was manifested in a very practical fashion. John Harper was a member of the first city council in 1780 and of the congregation of the old Presbyterian meetinghouse. He was one of General Washington's Alexandria agents for Mount Vernon produce, doing an extensive business with the General in the matter of "Herring." At Washington's death he took part in the Masonic ceremonies at the funeral, and his son, Captain William Harper, commanded the artillery company on that eventful day. This son took an active part in the Revolution at the battles of Princeton, Monmouth, Brandywine, and Valley Forge, and crossed the Delaware with Washington. He succeeded to the business at Prince and Union. John Harper's third son, Robert, was a lawyer and married a daughter of John W. Washington, of Westmoreland County. John Harper, Jr., married Margaret West of West Grove, daughter of John West, and while acting as foreign agent for the Harper firm in the West Indies, was drowned in 1805.

Alexandria's Malmaison, or the Harper-Vowell house, listed as 123 Prince Street, was the residence of the eminent architect, Ward Brown, until his death in 1946.

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Chapter 14

Dr. Elisha C. d.i.c.k and The Fawcett House

[507 Prince Street. Owners: The Fawcett Family.]

The dashing Dr. d.i.c.k first appeared in Alexandria fresh from the tutelage of Drs. Benjamin Rush and William Shippen of Philadelphia. He was just twenty-one and of a figure to set feminine hearts aflutter; five feet ten inches, of commanding presence, very handsome, "playing with much skill upon several musical instruments" and singing in a sweet voice of great power; skilled and learned in his profession, "a strong and cultivated intellect," a genial spirit, witty and charming.[141]

The son of Major Archibald d.i.c.k (Deputy Quartermaster General in the Revolutionary Army in 1779) and his wife, Mary Barnard, Elisha Cullen d.i.c.k was born on March 15, 1762, at his father's estate near Marcus Hook, in Chester County, Pennsylvania.

His primary education was gained at the Philadelphia Academy, in the home of the Rev. Robert Smith, D.D., at Pegnea, and in his father's home, tutored by the Rev. Samuel Armor. In 1780 he began the study of medicine, graduating on March 21, 1782. Two days later he lost his father and came into his inheritance of half the estate. A year later he disposed of his Pennsylvania interest to Isaac Dutton and started for Charleston, South Carolina, with the expectation of settling there.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Floor plan of house]

Armed with letters of introduction to General Washington, Colonel Fitzgerald, and Colonel Lyles, he stopped en route in Alexandria "to call upon a female relative" and to present his letters. He got no farther. "Influential persons" caused him to abandon his plans and remain in Alexandria, where the recent death of old Dr. Rumney left an opening which Dr. d.i.c.k filled for better than forty years. Alas, for the belles of Alexandria! In October 1783, Dr. d.i.c.k married Miss Hannah Harmon, the daughter of Jacob and Sarah Harmon of Darby in Chester County, Pennsylvania.

Two years after beginning his professional life in Alexandria, he pulled a tooth for one of the Mount Vernon house servants, and the following entry taken from Washington's diary for February 6, 1785, tells the results which do not seem to have been entirely satisfactory:

Sunday, 6th, Doctr. Brown was sent for to Frank (Waiter in the house), who had been seized in the night with a bleeding of the mouth from an orifice made by a Doctr. d.i.c.k, who some days before attempted in vain to extract a broken tooth, and coming about 11 o'clock stayed to Dinner and returned afterwards.[142]

So far as Washington's diaries show, Dr. d.i.c.k never crossed the threshold of Mount Vernon again until fourteen years later on a raw, cold day in December when the snow lay thick on the ground, he was sent for by Dr. Craik to attend Washington in his last illness. It was Dr.

d.i.c.k who advised against additional bleeding and it was he, who, when Washington's last breath escaped, walked to the mantel and stopped the hands of the clock. This clock, with arrested hands, stands today in the George Washington National Masonic Memorial in Alexandria.