Part 7 (2/2)
Jonah Thompson was an important citizen of Alexandria. He was a s.h.i.+pping merchant, banker and large property owner. He married Margaret Peyton and they had three sons, Israel, William Edward, and James; a daughter, Mary Ann, married a Mr. Popham, and another daughter, Eugenia, married a Mr. Morgan.
In 1809 Jonah Thompson mortgaged this property to the Bank of Alexandria for $13,500, which he paid within four years. In May 1850, the heirs of Jonah Thompson sold to Benjamin Hallowell for $4,600 a lot beginning at the south side of the alley which divided the block, running south 43 feet 7 inches. Benjamin Hallowell, in turn, sold to James S. Hallowell for nine thousand dollars in April 1854, and from James S. Hallowell and his wife the property pa.s.sed through various hands until it became St.
Mary's Academy.
The Jonah Thompson house, part of it at least already built in 1793, is one of the most interesting houses to be found anywhere. It is unusually large and has two handsome arched stone entrances. One, although similar, obviously was added, as the line of demarcation is plainly visible between the bricks.
The house has been sadly abused with no thought given its architectural merits and much of the woodwork has been removed. The stair is perhaps the finest in Alexandria, with spindles and risers carved in a more elaborate fas.h.i.+on than was the practice of the thrifty Scotsmen of Alexandria. At the rear of this large house, separated only by a narrow area, stands another house, facing the long garden and originally the river. The front of this house boasts the loveliest bit of Georgian architecture left in the old seaport. A pure Adam loggia, executed in stone, runs across the garden facade. While arches are now filled in and clothes hung to dry flap on the gallery, the outline is so chaste in its cla.s.sic form that nothing can destroy the illusion of beauty.
No search of records reveals how or why these two houses stand back to back. Whether Jonah Thompson built the first for his bank or business offices, or whether his family outgrew the house and he needed more room is not known. The two are treated as one house in all the doc.u.mentary evidence, and one's curiosity, interest, and imagination are excited by the twin or married houses. One story has it that Jonah Thompson built the rear or twin house for his eldest son so that the two families might be together but with separate menages.
[Ill.u.s.tration: The Adam Loggia. Originally open between column and pilaster]
Captain John Dalton forged a link between Mount Vernon, his family, and his posterity that was stronger than he knew. It was his granddaughter who was so deeply distressed at the ruin and desolation of the home of Was.h.i.+ngton that she fired her daughter's imagination with an idea that saved the spot for the nation. This great-granddaughter of John Dalton was Ann Pamela Cunningham, whose name will ever be indissolubly connected with Mount Vernon. In 1853 she formed the Mount Vernon Ladies'
a.s.sociation, and as its first regent stirred the women of America with her ardor and directed the entire campaign until adequate funds were collected. In 1859 John Augustine Was.h.i.+ngton sold the Mount Vernon estate to Miss Cunningham for two hundred thousand dollars--after the Virginia Legislature and the federal government had both refused to acquire it.
This sale was negotiated by the Alexandria banker, John W. Burke, who was appointed executor and guardian of John Augustine Was.h.i.+ngton's estate after he was killed during the Civil War while on active duty as a member of General Robert E. Lee's staff.
When the war broke out, Alexandria was occupied by Union troops. The Union authorities knew of the sale of Mount Vernon and repeated but futile efforts were made to find the securities. Mr. Burke's home was searched no less than three times. The funds were never found in their hiding place of the soiled-clothes basket. There they reposed until Mrs.
Burke (_nee_ Trist, great-granddaughter of Thomas Jefferson) and Mrs.
Upton Herbert (_nee_ Tracy), both Philadelphia-born ladies, sewed the bonds in their petticoats and with high heads carried them through the Union lines to Was.h.i.+ngton and delivered them to George W. Riggs, who held them for the duration of the war, when he returned them to Alexandria--and Mr. Burke.
An interesting sequel to the story occurred only a short time ago when the last of John Augustine Was.h.i.+ngton's children died. Mr. Taylor Burke, grandson of John W. Burke, and president of the Burke & Herbert Bank, administered the estate of the late Mrs. Eleanor Was.h.i.+ngton Howard, and distributed her estate, composed of the remainder of that purchase price, among her heirs.[81]
[Ill.u.s.tration]
[Ill.u.s.tration]
Chapter 4
The Fairfaxes of Belvoir and Alexandria
Of the families in Virginia closely a.s.sociated with George Was.h.i.+ngton, none bore so intimate a relation as that of Fairfax.
William Fairfax, founder of the Virginia branch of the family, was born in 1691 in Towlston in Yorks.h.i.+re, England, the son of the Honorable Henry Fairfax, Sheriff of Yorks.h.i.+re, and grandson of the Fourth Lord Fairfax. Educated as a member of the governing cla.s.ses, he began his career in the navy, later entering the colonial service. Before he was twenty-six he had acted as chief justice of the Bahamas and Governor of the Isle of Providence. Prior to 1717 he married Sarah Walker of Na.s.sau, daughter of Colonel Walker, by whom he had four children, George William, Thomas, Anne, and Sarah. In 1729, Colonel Fairfax was appointed Collector of the Port of Salem, Ma.s.sachusetts, and removed to that colony. In 1731 his wife died, and very shortly afterward he married Deborah, widow of Francis Clarke and daughter of Colonel Bartholomew Gedney of Salem, by whom he had three children, Bryan, William Henry, and Hannah.
In 1734 Fairfax came to Virginia as agent for his first cousin, Thomas, Sixth Lord Fairfax (who, by direct inheritance from a royal grant of Charles II, had come into possession of some five million acres of Virginia land lying between the Rappahannock and the Potomac, and extending from Chesapeake Bay to the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, known to Virginians as the Northern Neck); and to serve as Collector of Customs for the South Potomac. Fairfax first went to Westmoreland, where he was a.s.sociated with the Was.h.i.+ngton and Lee families. Next he moved to King George, and lived at Falmouth. By 1741 he was representing Prince William County in the House of Burgesses.
Colonel Fairfax was elevated to ”His Majesty's Council of State” three years later. Becoming President of the Council in 1744, he continued in that office until his death.
About this time William Fairfax completed his dwelling house, Belvoir, situated on a high bluff overlooking the Potomac River, halfway between Mount Vernon and Gunston Hall. It was described by Was.h.i.+ngton in an advertis.e.m.e.nt as having ”four convenient rooms and a wide Hall on the first floor.” In one of these ”convenient rooms,” more than two hundred years ago on July 19, 1743, Anne, eldest daughter of Colonel Fairfax was married to Lawrence Was.h.i.+ngton of Mount Vernon.
A few years after his marriage, Lawrence (to whom George Was.h.i.+ngton owed his start in life) took his impecunious young half-brother into his home at Mount Vernon, whereupon the in-laws became intimately concerned with George's future. Young George was wise enough to realize that the way of advancement led through this important family and he never lost an opportunity to cultivate the President of the Council. Colonel Fairfax became a benefactor of the young man's fortunes, an inspiration to his ambition, and was truly and wholeheartedly attached through his affections to the gangling youth. To the end of his life Fairfax signed his letters to George, ”Y^r very affect^e & a.s.sur^d Friend.”
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