Seaport in Virginia George Washington's Alexandria

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 par...

[Historic Ramsay House, once the home of Alexandria's first mayor and oldest building standing in the city, miraculously escaped destruction by fire in 1942. Later threatened by...

Hening, William Waller, comp., _The Statutes at Large Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia, from the First Session of the Legislature in the Year 1619_. Richmond, 1810...

William Fairfax, founder of the Virginia branch of the family, was born in 1691 in Towlston in Yorkshire, England, the son of the Honorable Henry Fairfax, Sheriff of Yorkshire,...

The dashing Dr. Dick 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 se...

The 200 block of Prince Street is probably the finest left in Old Alexandria, in that it has suffered less change. No less than seven brick eighteenth century town dwellings rem...

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 run...

[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...

[In 1928 the church was restored as a shrine and the cemetery put in order by a group of persons, many of whom were descendants of the original society members. In 1940 the Alex...

In the eighteenth century calamities visited Alexandria, and of these nothing was more feared than fire. To prevent and control such catastrophes the gentlemen of the town forme...

Earliest parish records shed little light upon the spiritual life of the infant settlement of Alexandria. First mention of services held in the town turns up in the old Truro Pa...

On February 15, 1773, George Washington wrote to a friend, "Our celebrated Fortune Miss French, whom half the world was in pursuit of, bestowed her hand on Wednesday last, being...

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 ceme...

On the corner of Pitt and Prince Streets stand two little frame houses that possess the distinction of being the only buildings in Alexandria built on George Washington's lots a...

[Like nearby Ramsay House, the home of John Carlyle has also been threatened by business interests and was in danger of demolition just before the outbreak of World War II. It w...

This large, almost square house, rises three stories in a stately pile of soft red brick, flanked by two ancient tulip trees towering twenty-five feet above the pavilion roof, w...

Another fine example of late eighteenth century federal architecture in Alexandria is the residence at 607 Oronoco Street,[Owners: Mr. and Mrs. Robert C. Goodale.] commonly spok...

The presence of La Fayette was nothing new to Alexandria, yet his official visit in 1824, as the nation's guest, created a turmoil in the town. As soon as the news was received...

The stranger arriving in Alexandria by ship, coach, or horse could be sure of a welcome. The old port was noted for her taverns. They were numerous and good. At the taverns the...

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...

Benjamin Hallowell came to Alexandria in 1824 to open a school for boys. He was then twenty-five, with no fortune, a large debt, a dependent mother, a new and young bride.

Many of the citizens of this community bore the greatest names in the Commonwealth. Henry Cabot Lodge's description of Virginia society in the eighteenth century might aptly be...

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...

An able propagandist, Hallowell set himself to interest his friends in founding a lyceum. This was accomplished in 1834, just ten years after his entrance as a schoolmaster. Nat...

William Yeaton was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1766, and migrated to Alexandria to enter the shipping business when a young man. In the early nineteenth century he lau...

When the new town of Alexandria was laid out, John Dalton purchased, on July 13, 1749, the first lot put up for sale (No. 36) for the sum of nineteen _pistoles_. The lot faced t...

Alexandria was never a large town. The thrifty merchants of this Scottish trading center built well, and their dwellings abound in architectural interest, but really great house...

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 di...

Presently the residence of Mr. Justice and Mrs. Hugo L. Black, this house has been known in Alexandria for about a hundred years as the Snowden home; and so it was from 1842 to...

[Footnote 6: Fairfax County was formed from Prince William in 1742 (_Journals of the House of Burgesses, Virginia_, 1742-47, 70; and Hening, V, 207-8) after numerous petitions t...

[With the settlement of the Leadbeater estate in 1933, these two adjoining buildings were acquired by the Landmarks Society of Alexandria and the contents purchased by the Ameri...

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....

[Footnote 59: _Ibid._, 663. Alexandria, 1749. Record Hening, I, 214, C.O. 5, 1895, No. 20. Description: "60 Acres ... parcel of the land of Philip Alexander, John Alexander, and...

[Footnote 105: A number of years ago the Metropolitan Museum acquired by purchase the woodwork of the great ballroom, where so many of Alexandria's social events had taken place...

[Footnote 185: Information contributed by Mr. Worth Bailey. The author is indebted to the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association for permission to quote Yeaton's letter which follows...