E-text prepared by Mark C. Orton, Graeme Mackreth,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
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SEAPORT IN VIRGINIA
GEORGE WASHINGTON
By Dr. Elisha Cullen Dick. A painting in oil after a pastel by JamesSharples.
(Courtesy Mount Vernon Ladies' Association)
Seaport in Virginia
George Washington's Alexandria
By
GAY MONTAGUE MOORE
DRAWINGS BY WORTH BAILEY
PHOTOGRAPHS BY WALTER WILCOX
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF VIRGINIA
CHARLOTTESVILLE
The University Press of Virginia
Copyright © 1949 by The Rector and the Visitors of
the University of Virginia
Second printing 1972
SBN: 0-8139-0183-9
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 73-188711
Printed in the United States of America
TO MY HUSBAND
CHARLES BEATTY MOORE
TOGETHER WE HAVE DELVED INTO WHAT RECORDS
WE COULD FIND THAT MIGHT THROW UPON THE
SCREEN SOME SHADOW OF THOSE WHO BUILT
AND LIVED IN THE OLD HOUSES IN
ALEXANDRIA
PREFACE
[Pg vii]Twenty years ago on a hot and sultry July afternoon, my husband and Istarted to Mount Vernon to spend the day. On our return to Washington,we lazily drove through the old and historic town of Alexandria—andbought a house!
The town at once became of vital interest to us. We spent months andyears going through every vacant building into which we could force anentrance. Our setter dogs could point an empty doorway as well as acovey of quail, and seemed as curious about the interiors as we wereourselves. I became obsessed with a desire to know the age of thesebuildings and something of those early Alexandrians who had lived inthem.
Old maps and records littered my desk. Out of the past appeared clerkson high stools wielding quill pens and inscribing beautiful script forme to transpose into the story of one of America's most romantic andhistoric towns. It has been impossible to write about every house inAlexandria—even about every historic house. I tried to recall the oldtown 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 andactors, began to fill my empty houses. Ships, sail lofts, ropewalks,horses, pigs, and fire engines took their proper places, and the townlived again as of yore—in my imagination.
Everywhere I turned I found General Washington: as a little boy on hisbrother Lawrence's barge bringing Mount Vernon tobacco to the HuntingCreek warehouse; on horseback riding to the village of Belle Haven; asan embryo surveyor carrying the chain to plot the streets and lots. Hewas dancing at the balls, visiting the young ladies, drilling themilitia, racing horses, launching vessels, engaging workmen, dining atthis house or that, importing asses, horses, and dogs, running foroffice, sitting as justice; sponsoring the Friendship Fire Company, afree school, the Alexandria Canal, or other