Part 7 (1/2)

This house was the social and political center of Alexandria. Such men as Charles Carroll, Aaron Burr, John Paul Jones, John Marshall, Thomas Jefferson, George Mason, George Was.h.i.+ngton, and the two Fairfaxes are but a few of those who gathered here for good food, good wine, and better talk. Any visitor of importance was entertained at ”coffee”; the house was often filled with music, and ”b.a.l.l.s” were common.

The ”Congress of Alexandria” met here Monday, April 14, 1755, and on the following Tuesday and Wednesday, when with Braddock and the five colonial governors plans were made for concerted action against the French and Indians. Here that famous letter, still in existence, was written, urging upon the British government the necessity of taxing the colonies. This letter set into movement a chain of events disastrous to the mother country. It resulted in the loathed Stamp Act and led ultimately to the Revolution of 1775.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Mantel in the music room. Probably a later ”improvement”]

Carlyle was appointed collector of His Majesty's customs on the South Potomac in 1758, succeeding his father-in-law, William Fairfax. In 1762 he was importing race horses into the colony. These were imported, ”just as they imported Madeira wine and other luxuries.” One of the early Maryland gazettes of July 29, 1762 carries the following advertis.e.m.e.nt:

Imported by Carlyle & Dalton in the s.h.i.+p _Christian_, Captain Stanly, and for sale, three horses [Thorne's Starling: Smith's Hero, and Leary's Old England] and three mares [the other two being the Rock-mares Nos. 1 and 2] of full blood, viz: A _ch. m._ with a star and two white heels behind, eight years old: Got by Wilson's Chestnut Arabian: her dam by Slipby, brother to Snap's dam; and out of Menil [sic] the dam of Trunnion. Menil was got by Partner: out of Sampson's-Sister, which was got by Greyhound: her grandam by Curwen's Bay Barb: her g. grandam by Ld. D'Arcy's Arabian: her dam by Whites.h.i.+rt: out of a famous mare of Ld. Montagu's.

JOHN CARLYLE[77]

Alexandria, Va., July 1762.

In 1772 Carlyle took over the incompleted work on Christ Church and carried it to completion. In 1773 he bought pew No. 19. In 1774 he built the Presbyterian meetinghouse. In between times he was hunting at Belvoir and Mount Vernon, dancing at Alexandria a.s.semblies, sitting as town trustee and gentleman justice, journeying to England and back, laying out and planting his garden, taking part in long, hot arguments with his family and neighbors in the ever-widening breach between the colonies and the mother country, breeding race horses, and joining in the frolics of the Jockey Club. Heir to a t.i.tle old and honorable as it was, he ardently espoused the cause of the colonies. Too ill for active military service, he nevertheless served as a member of the Committee of Safety until his death in 1780, at the age of sixty.

John Carlyle divided his lands, named after the Scottish family holdings, Limkiln, Bridekirk, Torthorwald Taken, between his two grandsons, Carlyle Fairfax Whiting and John Carlyle Herbert. To his daughter, Sarah Herbert, he left thirty feet on Fairfax Street and one hundred feet on Cameron Street, to include his dryware house. The mansion and all other property were for a brief period the property of his only son.

In his will he expressed the utmost concern for the education of this boy, George William Carlyle, and urged his executors to spare no expense and to send him to the best schools. Alas, for the plans of men! The lad, fired by the talk of father and friends, was serving in Lee's Legion in 1781, and ere John Carlyle was moldering in his grave this boy of seventeen years, spirited, brave, heir to large estates, great fortune and honorable name, and to the t.i.tle of Lord Carlyle, was dead at Eutaw Springs, led by that boy hardly older than himself ”Light Horse Harry” Lee.

Enough of serious and sad history; let us in lighter vein go once more into the lovely paneled blue room where not only weighty conferences occurred, but where, in lace and satin, n.o.ble figures threw aside the cares of state and trod a measure to the tinkling of the spinet; where games of cards were indulged in and the _pistoles_ changed hands. Let us go into the dining room with its fine Adam mantel and its mahogany doors, and visualize again the terrapin and the canvasback, the Madeira and Port so abundantly provided from that great kitchen below, and the most famous wine cellar of its day in Alexandria. Let us stroll in the still lovely garden where the aroma of box and honeysuckle mingle, and turn our thoughts once more to the inmates of this fine, old house.

Built in the days when Virginia was a man's world, when men who wore satin, velvet and damask were masters of the art of fighting, riding, drinking, eating, and wooing. When a man knew what he wanted, and got it by G.o.d's help and his own tenacity, enjoying himself right l.u.s.tily in the getting. Perchance Major John Carlyle, clad in Saxon green laced with silver, will be wandering up and down his box-bordered paths with his first love, Sarah Fairfax, watching the moon light up the rigging of Carlyle & Dalton's great s.h.i.+ps at anchor just at the foot of the garden.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Chapter 3

The Married Houses

[209-211 North Fairfax Street. Owner: Mrs. Herbert E. Marshburn.]

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 the Potomac River and was bounded by Water (now Lee) Street, Fairfax Street and lot No. 37. When the latter lot, which lay on Cameron and Fairfax, was put up later in the day, it was purchased by Dalton for sixteen _pistoles_.

Within three years Dalton had finished a small frame-and-brick cottage, neatly paneled, in which he is purported to have lived and died. The house faced on Cameron Street, standing about the middle of lot No. 37, with an extensive garden running the depth of the premises to the river, surrounded by outbuildings, orchards, wells, and so on, as was the custom of the times. His will mentioned the fact that he lived on this lot and left to his daughter, Jenny Dalton (later Mrs. Thomas Herbert), his new brick building on the corner of Fairfax and Cameron. His will further stated that the house must be finished out of his estate. To his daughter, Catherine (later Mrs. William Bird), he left the remainder of the lot which included his dwelling and another house on that same lot, at the time occupied by John Page.

On February 27, 1750, John Dalton succeeded Richard Osborn as a trustee of the town. His appointment was the first after the original selection of trustees by the a.s.sembly in Williamsburg.

John Dalton was a partner of John Carlyle in the firm of Carlyle & Dalton, which for many years acted as agent for the Mount Vernon produce. He was a pew owner with George Was.h.i.+ngton at Christ Church, which he served as vestryman. With his wife and daughter, he was a frequent visitor at Mount Vernon and a later chronicler has a.s.serted that he barely missed becoming the General's father-in-law. A fox-hunter and horse-lover, in a company of Alexandria gentlemen or alone, he hunted with Was.h.i.+ngton and bred his mares to the blooded Mount Vernon stud.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The old Clapboard House on the John Dalton property and believed to have been his original house. (_Courtesy of Mr. Frank McCarthy_)]

On January 12, 1769, Was.h.i.+ngton went up to Alexandria to ”ye Monthly Ball.” He lodged with Captain Dalton and the next day being very bad he was ”confined there till afternoon by rain.”[78] Sometimes when attending court he ”lodged at Captn. Dalton's.”[79]

John Dalton's bequest to his daughter, Catherine, included the home place. On April 24, 1793, Catherine and her husband, William Bird, sold to Jonah Thompson and David Findley for 1,500 (about $7,500) the property described as being in Fairfax Street, 60 feet to the north of Cameron, and extending north upon Fairfax Street 119 feet 3 inches to the line of Herbert, Potts and Wilson, thence East parallel to Cameron to cross Water and Union Streets into the Potomac River, thence with a line parallel to Fairfax south 119 feet 3 inches, and included houses, buildings, streets, lanes, alleys, and so on. But the Birds reserved the right to the ”use and occupation of the dwelling House now occupied” and the kitchen and garden, until the ”1st day of October next” and also reserved unto Lanty Crowe the house ”demised unto him to the end of his term, he paying the annual rent thereof unto the said Jonah Thompson and David Findley.”[80] Findley died within the year and Jonah Thompson bought from Amelia Findley, the mother and heir of David Findley, equal and undivided portion of the already described lot and paid her the sum of 500 12_s._

[Ill.u.s.tration: Jonah Thompson's House purchased from John Dalton's daughter, Catherine Bird]