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.
Gadsby's Tavern doorway comes home after four decades in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, as Alexandria celebrates its 200th anniversary
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
In the Coffee House. A fine mantel and panelled chimney breast
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.
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 birthday. Many manoeuvres were performed by the Uniform Corps, and an elegant Ball and Supper at Night.[109]
At Gadsby's he was entertained right royally by proud and patriotic citizens on his way to New York to be inaugurated as President, and on his return to Mount Vernon and private life. Throughout his life he attended the assembly balls, and from the steps of the new building he gave his last military order and took his last military review.
John Gadsby left Alexandria for greater fields—his hotels in Baltimore and Washington were in time more important than the City Hotel. He had a positive talent for Presidents, and knew them all from Washington to Polk. On the least provocation, it was said, he could put on an entertainment that would furnish food for gossip for a week.
In 1836 Gadsby bought the Decatur house in Washington, and proceeded to entertain the élite of the town with the finest his kitchen and wine cellar could produce. President and Mrs. Polk often attended these functions. Again to quote Barbee: "The Chevalier Adolph Bacourt, Minister from France, attended one of these functions."[110] The gentleman was not very happy about it, and denouncing Gadsby, he wrote of him:
He is an old wretch who has made a fortune in the slave trade, which does not prevent Washington Society from rushing to his house, and I should make myself very unpopular if I refused to associate with this kind of people. This gentleman's house is the most beautiful in the city, and perfect in the distribution of the rooms; but what society, my God![111]
Gadsby died in the Decatur house in Washington in his seventy-fourth year, leaving his widow (a beautiful third wife!) to reign in this mansion some years after his death. He is buried in the Congressional Cemetery, surrounded by his children and grandchildren.
Chapter 7
[210 Prince Street. Owners: Mr. and Mrs. Hugh B. Cox.]
There is an ancient house in Alexandria whose rusty rose brick façade and beautifully hand-carved eighteenth century doorway add ornament and distinction to the 200 block of Prince Street.
Not many years ago Mrs. Alexander Murray (the daughter of a former owner) who had spent her girlhood in this old house remarked to the author, "You know, the house has a ghost. There is a story that an American Revolutionary spy who was executed by the British haunts the place." Every proper old mansion should have a ghost—and what could be nicer than an American patriot—blue coat and cocked hat?
Time passed. Mrs. Murray's story remained to be written, when about 1930 General Dalton came into possession of 210 Prince Street. Hearing that his house had been broken into, he requested his friend, Mrs. Sheen, the wife of Colonel Sheen, to examine the house and have the lock repaired. Mrs. Sheen with her son, Gordon, and a Negro went to General Dalton's empty house to repair the door and to lock the mansion. While the Negro was working on the lock, he said, "I certainly does feel funny. There's something strange about this house. Let's hurry and get out o' here." Whereupon Gordon Sheen pooh-poohed the idea, standing by the Negro to reassure him. Suddenly he saw (or said he saw) in the doorway at the end of the hall a soldier in Revolutionary uniform walking toward him. When the apparition reached the music room or library, it turned sharply to the right into the room and disappeared.
Doorway to Colonel Michael Swope's House
Some time after this Mrs. Sheen was showing General Dalton's house to friends who had been living abroad and wanted a home. The two ladies had been through the lower floors and started to the third story. At the top of the steps the visitor said, "I can't go farther. Something is pushing me back." Mrs. Sheen at once descended the stairs, thinking her friend ill. When they reached the first floor the lady from abroad said, "A force was pushing me backward. I am quite psychic, you know, and the ghost who inhabits this house would make it impossible for me to live here. I love the house and should like to own it, but I should not be permitted to do so."
At the second auction of lots held on July 14, 1749, Augustine Washington, brother of Lawrence Washington and half-brother of George, bought lots Nos. 64 and 65 for fifteen pistoles. At a meeting of the trustees on June 15, 1754, lots Nos. 64 and 65, the property of Augustine Washington, along with other lots were ordered to "be sold to the highest bidder at a Public Vendue, the several Proprietors thereof having failed to build thereon according to the directions of the Act of Assembly in that case made and provided and it is further ordered that the Clerk do give Public Notice that the sale of the said lotts will be at the Town aforesaid on the first day of August next."[112] In the minutes of the trustees for September 9, 1754, lots Nos. 64 and 65 were entered as sold to William Ramsay for 39½ pistoles, or £37 1s. 9d.
The next document in regard to these lots is an indenture made July 21, 1757, between William Ramsay, of the County of Fairfax and the Colony of Virginia, merchant, and Anne, his wife, of the one part, and John Dixon of the County of Cumberland in the Kingdom of England, merchant, of the other part, whereby William Ramsay in consideration of the sum of £810 7s. sterling money of Great Britain to him in hand paid by John Dixon releases, grants, confirms, etc. to John Dixon certain lands described fully (1,261 acres) and "also the following lotts or half acres of land situate lying and being in the town of Alexandria in the County of Fairfax to wit Lott number thirty-four, forty, forty-six, forty-seven, and the lotts number sixty-four, sixty-five [author's emphasis] as the same are numbered in the plan and survey of the said Town originally made by John West Junr., as also the following Negro and mulatto slaves with their increase (to wit) Peter the joyner, Jacob, Sophia, Whitehaven, Moll, Sall, Peter, Imanuel, Winnifrid and her child, Zilla, Phillis, and Clarisa, all which said lands and tenements lotts of land and slaves are now in the actual possession of the said John Dixon by virtue of one indenture bearing date the day before the date of these presents and by force of the statute for transferring uses into possessions to have and to hold the said lands tenements and all and singular other premises with them and every of their appurtenances together with the aforesaid slaves unto the said John Dixon, his heirs and assigns forever,"[113] provided always that if William Ramsay shall pay or cause paid to John Dixon of the town of White Haven, England, the just sum of £810 7s. with interest at five per cent per annum on the first day of July next, he will again come into possession of this vast property.
The Great Room
In the following August, Dixon appointed Harry Piper of Alexandria his true and lawful attorney to collect and receive for him all sums of money or tobacco which might become due, "and furthermore for as much as I have taken a Deed of Mortgage from Mr. William Ramsay of the town of Alexandria in the Colony of Virginia, Merchant, for sundrie lotts or half acres of land in the town of Alexandria with ye houses, gardens and other improvements thereon, together with sundrie slaves as also one tract or parcel of land...."[114]
In 1757 by a letter of attorney, dated August 8, John Dixon, merchant, of the town of White Haven in the Kingdom of Great Britain, authorized and empowered his attorney, Harry Piper of Alexandria, to take all legal means of foreclosure to receive the sum of £810 from William Ramsay who had mortgaged certain part of lots Nos. 64 and 65 with sundry slaves to secure that amount.
John Dixon in turn sold this property to the Scottish firm of shipping merchants, Robert McCrea, Robert Mease, & John Boyd in 1774, and in 1778 Boyd released his part of the property to McCrea and Mease for the sum of £253, with all houses, alleys, profits, commodities, and so on.
That William Ramsay built at least a part of this house seems almost indisputable. First, Augustine Washington had forfeited the property by not complying with the law to build thereon, and it seems hardly possible that Ramsay should have owned the property from 1754 to 1757 without complying with this act of the assembly. Furthermore, in the appointment of Piper as Dixon's attorney on August 16, 1757, the property is referred to as consisting of houses, gardens, and other improvements thereon. Dixon disposed of the property in 1774 to McCrea, Mease & Boyd, and four years later Boyd released his part for £253, with all houses, alleys, and so on. Little construction was done in Alexandria from 1775 to 1783, for this was the period of the Revolutionary War and no capital was going begging in the colonies at this date. Besides this evidence, the house has every appearance of a colonial building and the woodwork is all mid-eighteenth century in design. William Ramsay was an original trustee, appointed by the assembly for laying out the town. For a time he was successful and prosperous, owning much property, until overtaken by great misfortunes and compound interest!
All of which brings us to Michael Swope of York, Pennsylvania, a worthy gentleman of ancient lineage, patriotic inclinations, and distinguished service. The family Bible attests the fact that he held many offices of trust—judge of the Orphans' Court; justice of the peace; member of the assembly; Colonel, First Battalion, First Brigade, Pennsylvania Flying Camp Regiment, being but some of them. He was captured at Fort Washington and kept a prisoner of war for a number of years, suffering great hardship and privation.
Stairway and kitchen at Colonel Michael Swope's
When the Revolutionary War was over, Colonel Swope's health was undermined and he found the severe Pennsylvania winters unbearable. With his wife and family he moved south to Alexandria, where he set up in the ship chandlery business with his sons. He purchased from Robert and Ann McCrea and Robert Mease the property already described as a residence in 1783. In a later deed of June 29, 1809, it is recited that Michael Swope erected a large three-story brick building on these premises in 1784.
This house at 210 Prince Street is a fitting memorial to this officer. The doorway to the dignified old town mansion is one of the best examples of Georgian woodwork in Alexandria, and remains, save for one small patch and a new fanlight, in its original state.
The back drawing room is splendidly proportioned. The paneled mantel flanked by fluted pilasters is in keeping with the other woodwork which is good throughout the house. Some of the best, a cupboard, was found on the third floor and brought down to replace one missing in the great room. Since it fitted perfectly, it is quite possible that it has only been returned to its original place. The rear wing of the house seems older and more worn than the front, giving the feeling of earlier construction.
During Colonel Swope's occupancy fine furniture filled these rooms. In the Alexandria clerk's office an inventory of Colonel Swope's possessions, taken in 1786, fills several pages of legal paper when copied in its entirety. Such things were listed as "one clock and case, one mahogany dining table and eight chairs, one spinnett, one large looking glass, four small ones, one dressing table, one desk and drawers, five beds with all their furniture and linen belonging to them and bedsteads, two Franklin stoves, one riding chair and harness, sundry china and Queensware, eight decanters, 75 pounds of pewter, sundry silver furniture, to wit, two cream pots, five tablespoons, six teaspoons, two soup laddles, one tankard, and also one Negro woman and her child named Jude."[115] These are but a few of the Colonel's possessions, scattered these many years among his descendants.
Michael Swope and his sons were successful in the thriving seaport of Alexandria, and when Adam Walter, the second son, was married he moved to Philadelphia, where he set up in the shipping business as a partner of his father. His father built for him a home at 31 Catherine Street and 'tis said that the architecture very much resembles the Prince Street house.
Michael Swope died in 1809, aged eighty-four years. The body of the old hero was taken by boat from the port of Alexandria to the port of Philadelphia where he was interred in the Swope family vault in Union Cemetery at Sixth and Federal Streets. About 1858, during the yellow fever epidemic, the city board of health issued orders to have this vault cleaned out. It is said that the metal casket containing the earthly remains of Michael Swope was then in good condition. Perhaps, after all, Colonel Swope is the ghost that haunts this old house and chooses its inmates.
Chapter 8
Dr. William Brown and His Dwelling
[212 South Fairfax Street. Owners: Honorable and Mrs. Howard R. Tolley.]
Between George Mason's house, Gunston Hall, and Mount Vernon, on Highway 1, about seventeen miles south of Alexandria, stands the colonial church of Pohick. There is an old cemetery behind a brick wall, beginning at the very door of the church and rambling over an acre or so of the yard. Among the tombs is that of one man peculiarly and intimately connected with the town of Alexandria.
He was one of the forty-odd officers of the Revolution to go from here, one of the twelve or more charter members of the Society of the Cincinnati, prominent for his contribution to his profession, and remembered for his friendship and association with Washington. His tomb was not originally placed at Pohick. It stood for many years in the private graveyard at Preston, now the site of the Potomac railroad yards, and was removed when that vandal of our port, "Progress" claimed the site.
Let us trace the worn letters on the old stone:
In Memory of/William Brown, M.D./(Formerly Physician General to the Hospital of the United States)/who died on the 11th day of Jan'y 1792/in the 44th year of his age;/This Tablet is inscribed/by/his affectionate & afflicted widow/His zeal & fidelity as a Patriot/His patience, diligence & skill as a Physician/His benevolence, curtesy & integrity as a Man/Secured him/the applause of his country/the honor & emoluments of his Profession/the respect of the Wealthy/and/the veneration of the Poor/Let/the grateful witness of his virtues in domestic life/add/that as a Husband, Father & Master he was tender, instructive & humane/that he lived without guile/and died without reproach.
Dr. Brown's grandfather was Dr. Gustavus Brown who emigrated to Maryland in 1708 and in 1710 married Frances, the daughter of Colonel Gerard Fawke. Their son, Richard Brown, returned to England to prepare himself for the church. Richard's son, William, was born in Scotland in 1748; was educated at the University of Edinburgh, graduated in 1770, and came to America. This is Alexandria's Dr. Brown.
This young Scotsman, gentle born, learned, traveled, handsome, came to Virginia at the age of twenty-two. He began to explore the south side of the Potomac, and his path often led to Dumfries and to the homes of his relations there, the Reverend James Scott's family, at the rectory, and the Blackburns at Rippon Lodge. Sometimes the carriage was brought out, or the horses saddled, or even the barge manned, and off to Mount Vernon the family would go.
It was always pleasant at Mount Vernon for young people. Never the week went by but some of them gathered for dinner or to spend the night, and often both. When Washington returned from Alexandria, where he was attending court on May 19, 1772, he found his guests included Colonel Blackburn and lady, from Rippon Lodge, Miss Scott, Mrs. Blackburn's sister (both were daughters of James Scott, rector of the Church at Dumfries), Miss Brown and young Dr. Brown. "This company spent the night and went away the next morning."[116]
Whether this was the beginning or the culmination of the romance, none now can tell, but by 1774 Miss Scott was already Mrs. Brown, and the mother of two very small sons, William Jr. being born that year. The young family was doubtless residing in General Washington's town house, and for this there is the authority of the General himself. In a letter to his nephew, Bushrod, dated November 1788, he writes, "If you could accomodate yourself to my small house in Town (where Doctr. Brown formerly lived) you shall be very welcome to the use of it rent free."[117]
Previous to this, in 1785, Lund Washington's ledger reveals that he had received £40 from Dr. Brown on account of Genl Washington for "Rent of House in Alexandria."[118] In the General's own account ledger he refers to Dr. Brown's rent as having been fixed by "Mr Ld Washington at £60 a year for My House," and the sum is cancelled due to advances made by Dr. Brown and for professional services.[119]
In July 1783, Dr. Brown purchased from John Mills the white clapboard house that has been identified as his Alexandria home. He purchased twenty-six additional feet south on Fairfax Street adjoining his dwelling house, from Robert Townshend Hooe and Richard Harrison, merchants, on July 10, 1790. This property became his garden.
Dr. William Brown's clapboard residence
An Alexandria tradition and the Brown family belief is that the house was built by him prior to the Revolution. It is, indeed, very old and probably dates between 1757, when the property was mortgaged by William Ramsay to John Dixon of White Haven, England, and 1783, when the property was sold to Dr. William Brown by John Mills, for the sum of £280, indicating a substantial structure. There was at least one house on lot No. 65, and Dr. Brown's house is the only one standing on that lot today at all indicative of a pre-Revolutionary dwelling. If the house was not built by Ramsay, the probability is that it was built by Mills between 1777 and 1783, which is doubtful, as building during the Revolution was so difficult as to make it almost impossible.
The home of the young Browns was the gathering place for the élite of Alexandria and the countryside. The Washingtons dined and passed the evening frequently. The Blackburns came often from Rippon Lodge, the Brown cousins from Port Tobacco, and of course Dr. Craik from around the corner. Colonel Fitzgerald, Colonel Swope, and Colonel Lyles were all near neighbors.
The Doctor was a man of fine attainments. Active in the church, he served as vestryman at Christ Church; public spirited, he was the moving force in the founding of the Sun Fire Company; and the Alexandria academy was largely his idea. It was in great part due to his efforts that Washington was aroused to take an active part in this project, to contribute £50 annually, and at his death to will £1,000 to this institution.
At the outbreak of the war with England, Washington showed his confidence by appointing Dr. Brown Physician-General and Director of Hospitals of the Continental Army. He served throughout the Revolution. Brown wrote and published the first American Pharmacopoeia in 1778, "For the sake of expedition and accuracy in performing the Practice, and also to introduce a degree of uniformity therein throughout the several hospitals," the title pages read.
It was due to hardships suffered at Valley Forge that he died in 1792 at the age of forty-four years. The following notice appeared in the Virginia Gazette and Alexandria Advertiser for Thursday, January 19, 1792:
On Friday, last, after a tedious and excrutiating illness, the iron hand of relentless Death arrested and hurried that amiable citizen, DR. WILLIAM BROWN, to the World of Spirits, "from whence no Traveller returns!" All the love we bore him could not add one "supernumerary gasp." He long felt the approaches of vital dissolution—no vain laments—but sustained it with religious intrepidity, such as marks the dignity of a Christian Hero.
He felt the force of Republican Principles early in life, and stept forth, in the infancy of the American war, to oppose the British King.—How often have I heard him, with the ardour of a Patriot, expatiate on the firmness and virtues of a Hampden and a Sidney! Viewing with horror the piteous situation of our virtuous and wounded Soldiery—the derangement of the hospitals and medical department—he relinquished his domestic ease and lucrative employment, and offered his services to the Continental Congress. They were accepted—How he conducted the interesting and important charge, the testimony of that respectable body and his grateful country have long declared. Having arranged and reformed the constitution of the army allocated to his care, and reduced the wild and extravagant practice to system and order, he left the service, and resumed his vocation in this Town; in which he discovered the most exemplary tenderness, and unusual depth of professional knowledge. He was sagacious by nature, inquisitive and comprehensive, improved by study, and refined by sentiment. He was equalled by few in the social and domestic virtues of politeness and benevolence. He was the accomplished Gentleman, and finished Scholar—the best of Husbands, and the best of Parents. The Poor and needy ever experienced the humanity of his tender and sympathetic soul. He was a man to hear "Afflicktion's cry." The loss of so much charity, friendship and beneficence but claims the tributary tear; But, temper your grief, ye pensive Relatives, and afflicted Friends—
"The toils of life and pangs of death are O'er;
And care, and pain, and sickness are no more."
He is gone, we fondly hope, to chant anthems of praise to an approving God! Though the struggles of nature are agonizing and prevailing, yet disturb not his gentle shade by impassioned woe!—"The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord."
Hall and stairway in Dr. Brown's House
There are not many reminders left of the good Doctor. In the Library of Congress a few bills rendered to Colonel John Fitzgerald for outfitting ships' medicine boxes and attending sick sailors; a letter from one Thomas Bond of Philadelphia written in April 1784 to Colonel Fitzgerald stating that his brother "goes to Virginia to study Physic under Dr. Brown." In the Virginia State Library is a tax report showing that for the year 1784 he owned eight slaves and one cattle, and that in 1789 the Doctor had three blacks and two horses. The minutes he wrote as clerk and treasurer of the Sun Fire Company are preserved and, of course, a few copies of his Pharmacopoeia.
The Dr. William Brown house stands today much as it stood during his lifetime. Architecturally and historically it is one of the most interesting in Alexandria. No great house, this modest home built of white clapboard over brick and sitting close to the ground, rises two and one-half stories, hiding behind its stout doorway some of the best and certainly the most original woodwork in the old town.
One enters a spacious hall, the wide board floors of which are worn with the passing of many years, and colored by use and time a deep amber. Running around the hall is paneled wainscoting in alternating vertical and horizontal panels. The stairway rises from about the middle of the hall in easy steps to the second floor, the spindles are rather primitive and the entire stairway has a provincial air. The white baluster rail is matched by a handrail and supported by half a matching newel post; wherever the cornice breaks, it turns against itself. An amusing feature, one found sometimes in old houses, is an inside window opening from the back drawing room into the hallway.
If the stair is simple, certainly the woodwork in the upstairs front room is most ambitious. Mantel, overmantel and matching cupboards cover one entire wall, the chimney end of the room. The mantel is flanked by two fluted pilasters, reaching from floor to denticulated cornice. Above the shelf is a rectangular dog-eared panel, in each of the four ears of which is a rosette. Under the shelf, oblong panels carry out the same design, divided by a carved half urn. The shelf is supported by consoles and decorated by a fret that returns around the urn. The cupboards on each side of the mantel have, at the top, circular glass doors, surmounted by an arch and keystone. The bottom doors are wood paneled. The remainder of the woodwork is conventional, plain chair rail, baseboard and trim.
Dr. Brown's upstairs parlor
The kitchen with its Dutch oven in the great brick chimney; the large fireplace where the old crane still hangs sturdily enough to support Mrs. Brown's best dinner, are in an excellent state of preservation. One is intrigued by some very ancient and peculiar waterworks that formed a part of the sanitary equipment in the culinary department and which function to this day. There is a heavy hand-hewn stone sink and a copper caldron with its own firebox and ashpit. Formerly a large oaken bathtub stood in the back room off the kitchen and the water heated in the copper caldron was available to both rooms. An old brass spigot that served the bathtub remains.
At Dr. Brown's death the house passed to his widow. She left it in trust for her daughter, Sarah Maynadier, and the Maynadier grandchildren at her death in 1813. The house remained in the Maynadier family until April 26, 1842, when the property was purchased by James Green for seventeen hundred dollars. In 1940, the present owners, the Honorable and Mrs. H.R. Tolley, acquired the property.
Dr. Brown's home has fallen into sympathetic hands. Today Queen Anne chairs and piecrust tables grace the parlor. From the hall comes the vibrating tick-tock of a fine old clock. Logs blaze cheerfully in open fireplaces, the flames reflected in old and polished silver. The hall window frames Catherine Brown's garden, which is divided into three sections, one shut off from the other by wall or fence, making private living areas of each. Old trees, brick walks, ivy and flowering shrubs add their attractions. A tall brick smokehouse stands sentinel, all that remains of a number of outbuildings which clustered, village fashion, about the dwelling.
Dr. William Brown. From a miniature.
(Courtesy Mrs. Bessie Wilmarth Gahn)
Chapter 9
[405 Prince Street. Owners: The Moore Family.]
This house is completely surprising. Many years ago the owners put on a new pressed-brick front and changed the sash from the usual small lights to two single lights of large dimensions. The transition from this 1890 front to an eighteenth century interior in a perfect state of preservation, produces upon one crossing the threshold the sensation of walking straight through the looking glass. And whither does the looking glass lead? Right into the parlors of Mr. William Sewell!
The stairway rises on the far side of a fine arch in the entrance hall. Halfway up, it becomes obscured from view, leaving one gazing at a paneled ceiling, as it makes an abrupt about-face. The rooms on the second floor are quaint. Low-pitched, sloping ceilings, off-center mantels with odd panels and chimney closets and six-paneled doors with H&L hinges, are amusing as well as charming.
Two parlors on the ground floor, opening off the hall, are formal and elegant. Fine paneled chimney breasts dominate these rooms. Dentils and fret trim cornices and mantels. Chair rails, six-panel doors, wide board pine floors, and double doors opening flat against the walls, making the two rooms into one, are found here. In the front room the interesting feature is a Franklin stove set in the fireplace—quite the last word in comfort in the 1780s.
On July 14, 1749 the Reverend John Moncure bought lot No. 61 for £5 9s. On March 28, 1752, the deed for this property was filed at Fairfax Court House and described as lot No. 61, a half acre of land on Royal and Prince Streets, as surveyed and platted by John West. Two years later, June 15, 1754, the Reverend John Moncure, along with other gentlemen of prominence in the colony, lost his lot for having failed to comply with the directions of the assembly to build thereon within three years. The following September there took place an auction of these forfeited lots, and No. 61 passed to William Sewell for £5 7s. 6d.
At a court held at Fairfax, on April 18, 1759, with five gentlemen justices presiding; to wit, John Carlyle, John West Jun., John Hunter, Robert Adam, and William Bronaugh: