Seaport in Virginia Part 19

Into the town at dead of night Forlorn and weary, half dead with fright, Into the town the company came, Draggled and straggling, half dead with shame, That they should have marched and tramped about At a lunatic's whim, now in, now out, The livelong night, through garden and hall, Would they ever forget Ben Dulany's ball!

Mrs. Dulany in grief had pa.s.sed The rest of the night on the vinegar cask.

Trembling the servants unlocked the door, And the wrathful lady stood before Her ... lord, but never a word Between them pa.s.sed, or afterward was heard.

He ordered his horse and from that day, As I have heard the old people say, He rode unceasing, nor ever still, Was Ben Dulany of Shooter's Hill.[152]

[Ill.u.s.tration: The front bedroom, Dulany House]

On August 5, 1779, the executor of John Alexander, William Thornton Alexander, granted by deed to David Arrell the tract of land located at the northwest corner of Duke and St. Asaph Streets, which held an annual ground rent of 14 10_s._ On September 6, 1783, David Arrell of Alexandria and Fairfax County in the Dominion of Virginia, sold this same lot on Duke and St. Asaph Streets for 50 to Benjamin Dulany of the same place, charged with an annual ground rent of 14 10_s._, payable on the fifth of August forever. Very shortly thereafter the house now known as 601 Duke Street was completed for a town residence. During some recent repairs letters and bills for purchases made by Mrs. Dulany were found under a part.i.tion, bearing dates from 1785 to 1796. Two of these are quoted:[153]

Mrs. Delasia Balto. 24 Feby 1793 For Mrs. Dulaney Bo^t of George Wily 1 pair of sattin shoes 16/8 16. 8 1 p^c Roses 22d 1. 1. 18 ---------- Rec^d payment 1. 18. 6

Benjamin Dulany Esq. * * * GEORGE WILY Bo^t of Bennett & Watts 1 pr Slippers 9/--3-1/2 yds Lute string @ 10/ 2. 4.

Alex^a May 25^th 1796

Probably the best example of Georgian architecture in Alexandria, the plan of the house is common to this town. Two-storied, dormer-windowed, detached brick, the house faces south with a large garden to the left taking up half a square.

A hall runs the length of the house. Two large parlors, one behind the other, on the right, open into the hall. The dining room, in an ell at the rear, is entered from the hall by a small flight of steps leading to a lower level. The long, narrow, low-pitched room has an off-center fireplace and is papered at both ends in old wallpaper of Chinese design. When seen from the front doorway, the room presents an unexpected and charming view. This wing was added after 1800, probably 1810. A very nice tradition exists about the building of this wing.

Robert I. Taylor bought the house from the Dulanys in 1810. He was a vestryman of St. Paul's Church and very much interested in its construction. Benjamin H. Latrobe was the architect for the church and it is believed that he designed the wing connecting the kitchen with the big house. The story is more than plausible since the high, narrow arches and pilasters are characteristic of his work.

The woodwork in the two parlors is ma.s.sive. The heavy cornice is similar to that in the blue room at the Carlyle house. A thick dentil cornice is surmounted by modillions, and they in turn are surmounted by a heavy molding. The drawing room mantels, capped by the traditional broken arch, dominate these rooms. All openings are dog-eared, as well as the panels of the chimney b.r.e.a.s.t.s. The hall arches, wainscoting, handrails, and stairways are n.o.ble examples of early craftsmanship. Upstairs the woodwork is equally good, though more delicate, while the paneled mantels lack the broken arch.

It is a satisfaction to see these old rooms, graced by fine furniture, draperies, portraits, and silver of local origin, restored again to the dignity and graciousness of days long past.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Chapter 16

Dr. James Craik and His Dwelling

[210 Duke Street. Owner: Mr. Merle Colby.]

Of the many quaint, historical figures whose memories haunt the old streets and houses of Alexandria, none is more interesting than Dr.

Craik.

He is remembered as a "stout, hale, cheery old man, perfectly erect, fond of company and children, and amusing himself with gardening work."

But this was when the sands were running out. The good Doctor had pa.s.sed fourscore years, and his share of history-making was over. Let us turn back some two hundred years and begin.

There is a little village near Dumfries in Scotland called Arbigland or Obigland. In the year 1730 on a cold December day a baby boy began an eventful life. He was destined to bring to the New World the skill to heal and succor the wounded, to ease the dying, to administer the primitive hospitals of the American Revolution, and to move for a span of forty-five years as the close and intimate friend of George Washington.

The names of his parents have been lost in the Scottish fogs. A story that his father employed a gardener by the name of John Paul, sire of another young Scotsman who distinguished himself in our naval history under the patronymic of John Paul Jones, is all we can glean of our Craik's paternal parent.[154]

The Scottish baby, christened James Craik, grew to young manhood in his native country, going in proper time to the University of Edinburgh and there was educated in medicine for service in the British Army. After leaving the university he set sail for the West Indies; from there he came to Virginia in 1750 and settled in or near Winchester.

We pick up his trail four years later on an April morning in the town of Alexandria. The occasion is both historic and dramatic. The market square was filled with "two companies of foot," a hundred and twenty soldiers; a drummer wielding his sticks fiercely; two wagons, loaded with provisions, and well guarded by officers and soldiers; a captain, a lieutenant, five subalterns and a "Swedish Gentleman" going along as a volunteer, and one _surgeon_. This military a.s.sembly under the command of Lieutenant Colonel George Washington was marching out of Alexandria for points west "to the Ohio" to fight the Indians and the French, to build forts, and to defend the possessions of His Majesty. The commander of the purposeful outfit was twenty-two years old, and the surgeon, Dr.

James Craik, twenty-four.

Did the two meet in the City Tavern, in the market square, or upon that first day's march of six miles when the troops bivouacked for the night?

Wherever the acquaintance was made, the beginning of a friendship that was to last the lives of both men was cemented on this expedition. From the battles of Great Meadows and Fort Necessity, our warriors returned to accompany Braddock to the Monongahela and Fort DuQuesne where Dr.

Craik nursed Washington through an illness and was with Braddock from the time he was wounded until his death.

In August 1755 Dr. Craik was back from two unsuccessful expeditions. He was one of a group of officers addressing the august a.s.sembly sitting at Williamsburg, by letter, who informed the Burgesses that they had lost horses, furniture, tents, marquees, clothes, linens--in short, all their field equipage--and asking that body to compensate in some measure for their misfortunes, reminding the House that it was customary among British troops by way of a contingent bill, and suggesting that the colonial troops were equally deserving. The letter was ordered tabled, but later 30 was voted as compensation.

After this second disastrous campaign, Dr. Craik was lured into domesticity by Miss Marianne Ewell, whom he married in 1760. This young lady drew the ties closer to Mount Vernon. Her mother, first cousin to George Washington, was Sarah Ball Conway, who married Charles Ewell.

After his marriage, Dr. Craik moved across the Potomac to Port Tobacco, Maryland, where he built a house and proceeded to raise a family of six sons and three daughters.

In 1754 Governor Dinwiddie offered as bait to officers who would enlist for service in the French and Indian Wars, two hundred thousand acres of land in the Ohio country. Sixteen years later this land had not been distributed. Washington was selected as agent to represent the officers of the First Virginia Regiment, and at their request, he left early in October 1770 to inspect and locate lands to be patented in their names.

He was accompanied by Dr. Craik. The two set off on horseback with three Negro servants, two of the General's and one of Dr. Craik's, and a pack horse, spending two months in surveying and plotting these wild lands.

Despite bad weather, cold, and early snow, it was a journey enjoyed by both men.

The route was charged with memories of Fry and Braddock's campaign.

Washington wished to retrace these rivers and streams. The possibility of connecting the Potomac with the west by ca.n.a.ls, opening up the country for settlement and trade had come to the engineer even while the soldier was fighting. As they rode he dreamed of tilled fields and settled communities in the path of his horse and used his instruments to measure distances and to plumb the depth of streams. That he revealed his plans to this congenial friend of his travels seems certain.

Fourteen years later, in 1784, he took Dr. Craik over the same terrain when these dreams appeared to attain realization in the contemplated ca.n.a.l to connect the Potomac with the Ohio.

During his entire life, Dr. Craik was a steady visitor at Mount Vernon, on social occasions or on professional calls. He could be counted on for a visit at least once a month; sometimes he remained four or five days at a time, but more frequently he only pa.s.sed the night. It is rather strange that the good Doctor is never mentioned as a companion of Washington's favorite sport. That he was an able horseman, covering the roughest terrain in arduous campaigns, a seasoned sportsman, a hardened athlete but no fox-hunter, seems borne out by the fact that he is never mentioned as sharing in the chase, although the gentleman to whom it meant so much noted almost every hunt and rider in his daily journals.

Politically the two friends were united. When Virginians were becoming dissatisfied and impatient with England, Dr. Craik and Washington thought alike, attending county meetings and councils, acting together.

When the colony was disrupted by revolt and Washington appointed commander in chief of the Continental forces, he at once had Dr. Craik appointed Surgeon-General in the Continental Army. In 1777 he was made a.s.sistant Director General of the Hospital of the Middle Department of the Army. Throughout the war he was part of Washington's military family.

At Cornwallis' surrender, Dr. Craik was in command of the hospital corps at Yorktown and present on that occasion. It was his painful duty to attend the fatally injured Hugh Mercer at Princeton, to dress the wounds of La Fayette at Brandywine, to nurse during his last hours young Jacky Custis, only surviving child of Martha Washington. It was Dr. Craik who learned of the Conway Cabal in 1777 and warned Washington of the conspiracy to remove him from command. To him we also owe the Indian legend of Washington's immortality. When Braddock was defeated and killed at Monongahela, Washington, with four bullets through his coat and two horses shot from under him, the chosen target of the Indian chief and his braves, was unharmed, and the Indians believed him immune to poisoned arrow or blunderbuss.

It is said that Washington persuaded Dr. Craik to move to Alexandria after the Revolution. We find him renting a house on Fairfax Street from one Robert Lyles in 1788 for 45. In 1789 he rented a house on Prince Street from John Harper for 25, and in 1790 one on the same street for 35. He rented and occupied a house belonging to John Harper from 1793 to, or through, 1795, for 60, a residence which has been so closely a.s.sociated with Dr. d.i.c.k that it bears a memorial tablet in his memory.

In October 1795, Dr. Craik bought the property on Duke and Water (now Lee) Street, which he occupied for several years, and owned until 1810.

Tradition, in this case false, says the house was built by George Coryell, and the story of how he came to Alexandria as a builder is a very interesting anecdote. On one of Washington's trips to Philadelphia after the Revolution, the story goes, he admired a well designed and constructed gate at the house of Benjamin Franklin, and inquired the name of the artisan. It was the work of one George Coryell of Coryell's Ferry. The young man's father, Cornelius Coryell, had acted as guide during the New Jersey campaign and the family had rowed Washington across the Delaware in that surprise attack upon the Hessians on Christmas Night, 1776. The General, interested in building, and something of an architect himself, with an eye to securing competent workmen near home, is said to have persuaded George Coryell to move to Alexandria. Here Coryell bought a lot on Duke Street in 1794 where he lived for many years. That Coryell set up in the building and lumber business and was very active is better doc.u.mented, for this advertis.e.m.e.nt appeared in the _Gazette_ for October 23, 1793:

George Coryell Has for Sale At His Board Yard on Mr. Mease's Wharf and at his Dwelling House on Duke Street Two-inch, Inch, and Half-Inch and etc. Plank. House frames of different sizes, Cypress shingles Locust and Red Cedar Post Scantling

Many houses in the town are perhaps his handiwork, but the statement that he built Dr. Craik's house or the frame cottage next door, which tradition says was his Alexandria home, is open to grave doubt. Recorded deeds at Fairfax Court House testify that the house and lot east of Dr.

Craik were owned by Joseph Robinson, a sailmaker, in 1783, and used descriptively in a deed dated 1795. Coryell's lot was two doors below Dr. Craik's house (the lot now in possession of General Carl Spaatz) which Coryell purchased from William and Sarah Lyles of Prince Georges County, Maryland.

Coryell served for a time as clerk of the market and sealer of weights and measures. He did some repair jobs on Washington's town house. At the General's funeral, when Lieutenant Moss was unable to carry the heavy weight of the casket, George Coryell took his place as one of the pallbearers. He remained in Alexandria some fifty-odd years, returning to Coryell's Ferry a few years previous to his death in 1850, at the advanced age of ninety-one.

At the first auction of lots in Alexandria town in 1749, the lots numbered 80 and 81 were sold to Anne West. The trustees upset this sale in 1754, reselling lot No. 80 to George Mercer for 9 13_s._ 10_d._ and lot No. 81 going to Daniel Wilson for 10 10_s._ By devious transactions these parcels of land were divided and sold. The property of Dr. Craik was in the ownership of John Short, a watchmaker, in 1783. Due to inability to repay John Harper money advanced, Short, then of the borough of Norfolk, sold his house and lot at auction on November 30, 1789 to John Murry for 234. This same property was sold by John B.

Murry and Patty, his wife, of the city and state of New York on October 26, 1795, along with another lot belonging to Murry, to Dr. James Craik for 1,500. Allowing for the additional lot, for which Murry had paid 71 10_s._ 1_d._ in 1787, and on which Dr. Craik's stable stood, for inflation and increase in value of property in Alexandria following the Revolution, this price of approximately $7,500 indicates beyond question that John Murry made very substantial improvements upon this property.

It was subject to a ground rent of 11 forever, and it is only within the last few years that the present owners have satisfied this rent.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Rear of house and courtyard built by John B. Murray and bought by Dr. James Craik. The leanto at right replaces the frame building of Joseph Robinson, sailmaker]

The house is a typical Alexandria town mansion. With three stories, dormer widows, of salmon brick, laid in Flemish bond, it faces the street as st.u.r.dily as when first built.

All the chimneys in Dr. Craik's house are handsomely paneled, as well as the window frames. Cornices, chair rails, stairway, six-panel doors, old pine floors, H&L hinges are part of its attractions. It is believed that Dr. Craik used the front rooms on the first floor of his house as his office. Washington was a visitor in this house. He frequently mentions in his journal dining or supping with his friend. The last time seems to have been in July 1798, when he "went up to Alexa. with Mrs. W. and Miss Cus[tis] dined at Doct^r Craik's, ret^d in y^e aft^n."

One of the Craik boys was named after George Washington. In September 1785, Washington makes this entry in his diary: "Wed. 31st.... This day I told Dr. Craik that I would contribute one hundred dollars pr. ann. as long as it was necessary towards the education of his son, George Washington, either in this country or in Scotland."