History of Alexandria, Virginia
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The history of Alexandria, Virginia, begins with the first European settlement in 1695. Over the next century, the town became a significant port. In 1801, much of
Colonial era
On October 21, 1669 a patent granted 6,000 acres (24 km2) to Robert Howsing for transporting 120 people to the
In 1745, the colony lost a 10-year dispute with Lord Fairfax over the western boundary of the Northern Neck Proprietary. After the Privy Council in London found in favor of Lord Fairfax's expanded claim, some of the Fairfax County gentry banded together to form the Ohio Company of Virginia. Their intent was to establish trade into the interior of America and for this they required an entrepot close to the head of navigation on the Potomac. The Hunting Creek tobacco warehouse offered the best location for a trading port which could accommodate sailing ships. However, many of the local tobacco planters wanted a new town to be sited up Hunting Creek, away from the "played out" tobacco fields along the river.[3]
Around 1746, Captain
Since the river site was amidst his estate, Philip opposed the idea and strongly favored a site at the head of Hunting Creek (also known as Great Hunting Creek). It has been said that in order to avoid a predicament the petitioners offered to name the new town Alexandria, in honor of Philip's family. As a result, Philip and his cousin Captain John Alexander (1711–1763) gave land to assist in the development of Alexandria, and are thus listed as the founders. This John was the son of Robert Alexander II (1688–1735). On May 2, 1749, the House of Burgesses approved the river location and ordered "Mr. Washington do go up with a Message to the Council and acquaint them that this House have agreed to the Amendments titled An Act for erecting a Town at Hunting Creek Warehouse, in the County of Fairfax."[5] A "Public Vendue" (auction) was advertised for July, and the county surveyor laid out street lanes and town lots. The auction was conducted on July 13–14, 1749. Almost immediately upon establishment, the town founders called the new town "Belhaven", believed to be in honor of a Scottish patriot, John Hamilton, 2nd Lord Belhaven and Stenton, the Northern Neck tobacco trade being then dominated by Scots. The name Belhaven was used in official lotteries to raise money for a Church and Market House, but it was never approved by the legislature and fell out of favor in the mid-1750s.[6] The town of Alexandria did not become incorporated until 1779.
In 1755, General
In March 1785, commissioners from Virginia and Maryland met in Alexandria to discuss the commercial relations of the two states, finishing their business at Mount Vernon. The Mount Vernon Conference concluded on March 28 with an agreement for freedom of trade and freedom of navigation of the Potomac River. The Maryland legislature, in ratifying this agreement on November 22, proposed a conference among representatives from all the states to consider the adoption of definite commercial regulations. This led to the calling of the Annapolis Convention of 1786, which in turn led to the calling of the Federal Convention of 1787.
District of Columbia
In 1791, Alexandria was included in the area chosen by
In 1814, during the War of 1812, a British fleet launched a successful Raid on Alexandria, which surrendered without a fight. As agreed in the terms of surrender the British looted stores and warehouses of mainly flour, tobacco, cotton, wine, and sugar.[7]
From 1828 to 1836,
Return to Virginia
Over time, a movement grew to separate Alexandria from the District of Columbia. As competition grew with the port of
Alexandria was also an important port and market in the
After a referendum, voters petitioned Congress and Virginia to return the area to Virginia. Congress retroceded the area to Virginia on July 9, 1846.[11] Ultimately, the City of Alexandria became independent of
American Civil War
The first fatalities of the North and South in the
Colonel Ellsworth was from Illinois and was a frequent visitor to the White House, where his death was much lamented. The incident generated excitement in both the Union and the Confederacy, where those loyal to each hailed Ellsworth or Jackson as a martyr to their respective cause.[12][13]
Alexandria remained under military occupation until the end of the Civil War. One of the ring of forts built during the war by the Union army for the defense of Washington, D.C., Fort Ward, is located within the boundaries of modern Alexandria.[14] After the establishment of the state of West Virginia in 1863 and until the close of the war, Alexandria was the seat of the Restored Government of Virginia also known as the "Alexandria Government."
During the Union occupation, a recurring point of contention between the Alexandria citizenry and the military occupiers was the military's periodic insistence that church services include prayers for the President of the United States. Because the Episcopal Church used a written prayer book service that made distinct mention of both the executive and the legislative departments of the government, Episcopal clergy were exposed to particular embarrassment whenever any part of the territory of the Confederate States was occupied by Union forces.[15]
Alexandria's St. Paul's Episcopal Church was the site of an early and particularly notorious incident. The interim minister at St. Paul's Church, the Rev. Dr. K. J. Stewart, was arrested in the sanctuary on February 9, 1862, by Union troops who had attended with the stated purpose of provoking an incident.[16] During the Litany, Dr. Stewart was ordered by an attending Union officer to say the Prayer for the President of the United States that Dr. Stewart had omitted without saying any other prayer in its place. Dr. Stewart proceeded without paying any attention to the interruption; but a captain and six of his soldiers, who were present in the congregation with intent to provoke an incident, drew their swords and pistols, strode into the chancel, seized the clergyman while he was still kneeling, held pistols to his head, and forced him out of the church, and through the streets, just as he was, in his surplice and stole, and committed him to the guard-house of the 8th Illinois Cavalry. Dr. Stewart was soon released, but was not allowed to continue to officiate at services.[17]
The day after the Alexandria Gazette reported the incident in detail, its offices were set afire.[18] The St. Paul's sanctuary was thereafter closed for the duration of the war and its vestry records also were destroyed by a fire. For the duration of the war, the St. Paul's sanctuary was used by the Union army as a hospital for the wounded.[19]
Buildings at Virginia Theological Seminary and at Episcopal High School also served as hospitals for union troops. Bullets, belt clips, and other artifacts from the Civil War have been found in those areas well into the 20th century. Christ Church, because of its association with George Washington, was not closed, but came under the control of army chaplains for the duration of the war.[20]
For
Because the escaped slaves were still legally property until the abolition of slavery, they were labeled as contrabands to prevent their being returned to their masters. Contrabands took positions with the army as construction workers, nurses and hospital stewards, longshoremen, painters, wood cutters, teamsters, laundresses, cooks, gravediggers, personal servants, and ultimately as soldiers and sailors. According to one statistic, the population of Alexandria had exploded to 18,000 by the fall of 1863 – an increase of 10,000 people in 16 months.[21]
As of ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment, Alexandria County's black population was more than 8,700, or about half the total number of residents in the County. This newly enfranchised constituency provided the support necessary to elect the first black Alexandrians to the City Council and the Virginia Legislature.[22]
The population of contrabands flooding into Alexandria during the Union occupation included many who were destitute, malnourished and in poor health. Once in Alexandria, the contrabands were housed in barracks and hastily assembled shantytowns. In the close quarters with poor sanitation, smallpox and typhoid outbreaks were prevalent and death was common. In February 1864, after hundreds of contrabands and freedmen had perished, the commander of the Alexandria military district, General John P. Slough, seized a parcel of undeveloped land at the corner of South Washington and Church Streets from a pro-Confederate owner to be used as a cemetery specifically for burial of contrabands. Burials started in March that year.[23]
The cemetery operated under General Slough's command. Its oversight was supervised by Alexandria's Superintendent of Contrabands, the Rev. Albert Gladwin, who made arrangements for burials. Each grave was identified with a whitewashed, wooden grave marker.
Beginning in 1987, when memory of the cemetery was revived, the City of Alexandria began the process of saving the cemetery to create a memorial park. During 2008, submissions in a design competition for the memorial were received from 20 countries, and a design for the memorial was selected. As of late 2008, construction of the memorial was underway.[24] As Contrabands and Freedmen Cemetery, the cemetery was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in August, 2012.
20th century
At the turn of the 20th century, the most common production in the city was glass, fertilizer, beer and leather. The glass often went into beer bottles. Much of the Virginia Glass Company effort went to supply the demands of the Robert Portner Brewing Company, until fire destroyed the St. Asaph Street plant on February 18, 1905. The Old Dominion Glass Company also had a glass works fall to fire, then built a new one. The Belle Pre Bottle Company held a monopoly on a milk bottle that they patented, yet that organization only lasted 10 years.[25] Most businesses were smaller where the business occupied the first floor of a building and the owner and family lived above.[26]: 50 Prohibition closed Portner Brewing in 1916.[26]: 50 Work towards women's suffrage was contributed to by a Women's Citizens League in the city.[27]
President
In 1955, then-congressman and future president
In March 1959, Lieutenant Colonel William Henry Whalen, the "highest-ranking American ever recruited as a mole by the Russian Intelligence Service," provided Colonel Sergei A. Edemski three classified Army manuals in exchange for $3,500 at a shopping center parking lot within the city.[34] Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation later arrested Whalen on July 12, 1966 at his home in the city.[35]: p1 In 1961, the Woodrow Wilson Bridge opened.[36]
In 1965, the city integrated schools.
21st century
The 2011 Foo Fighters album Wasting Light featured the track "Arlandria" named for a section of the city where Grohl once lived. In 2014, legislation was introduced in the city council to repeal the 1963 law that requires new north–south streets to carry the name of a Confederate military leader.[42]
In November 2020, the school board announced that T. C. Williams High School was going to be renamed after a number attempts due to T. C. Williams' pro-segregationist views and in 2021 it was renamed to Alexandria City High School.[43]
See also
References
- ^ a b Brockett, Franklin Longdon; Rock, George W. (1883). A Concise History of the City of Alexandria, Va: From 1669 to 1883, with a Directory of Reliable Business Houses in the City. Gazette Book and Job office. p. 140.
- ^ "Economic Aspects of Tobacco during the Colonial Period 1612–1776". Tobacco.org. Archived from the original on 2012-02-22. Retrieved 2012-01-29.
- ^ "Discovering the Decades: 1740s | Historic Alexandria | City of Alexandria, VA". Alexandriava.gov. 2011-01-05. Retrieved 2012-01-29.
- ^ Library of Congress: George Washington: Surveyor and Mapmaker: "Washington As Public Land Surveyor: Culpeper, the Frontier and Alexandria." http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/gwmaps.html
- ^ Virginia. General Assembly. House of Burgesses (1909). Journals of the House of Burgesses of Virginia, 1742–1747, 1748–1749. Colonial Press, E. Waddey Company.
- ^ The Scheme of a Lottery, at Belhaven, in Fairfax County: January 24, 1750/51; Virginia Gazette extracts; The William and Mary Quarterly, Vol.12 No.2 (October 1903) http://files.usgwarchives.net/va/richmondcity/newspapers/gazette5.txt
- ^ "Discovering the Decades: 1810s". Alexandria Archaeology Museum.
- ^ "Self-Guided Walking Tour Black Historic Sites". Alexandria Black History Museum.
- ^ Jim Barnett and H. Clark Burkett (2004). "The Forks of the Road Slave Market at Natchez". Mississippi History Now. Archived from the original on 2008-09-26.
- ^ "Photographs of African Americans During the Civil War: A List of Images in the Civil War Photograph Collection". Library of Congress. May 20, 2004.
- ^ "Get to know D.C. - Frequently Asked Questions About Washington, D.C." History Society of Washington, D.C. Archived from the original on 2007-02-06.
- ^ a b (1) "The Murder of Colonel Ellsworth". Harper's Weekly. 5 (232): 357–358. 1861-06-08. Retrieved 2019-01-28 – via Internet Archive.
(2) "The Murder of Ellsworth". Harper's Weekly. 5 (233): 369. 1861-06-15. Retrieved 2019-01-28 – via Internet Archive.
(3) "Wayfinding: Marshall House". City of Alexandria, Virginia. 2018-03-28. Archived from the original on 2019-01-26. Retrieved 2019-01-26. - ^ Pfingsten, Bill (ed.). ""The Marshall House" marker". HMdb: The Historical Marker Database. Archived from the original on 2019-01-26. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
- ^ Fort Ward Museum, City of Alexandria
- ^ Cheshire, Joseph Blount, The Church in the Confederate States, New York, NY: 1912 ch. 6.
- ^ Kaye, Ruth Lincoln, History of St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Alexandria, Virginia, Springfield, Va.: Goetz Printing Co, 1984 pp. 47, 53–54;Cheshire 1912 ch. 6
- ^ Cheshire 1912 ch. 6; Kaye 1984 pp. 46–52.
- ^ Kaye 1984 p. 52–53.
- ^ Kaye 1984 p. 52.
- ^ Dashiell, Thomas Grayson, A Digest of the Proceedings of the Conventions and Councils in the Diocese of Virginia, Richmond, Va.: William E. Jones 1883, pp. 289–90.
- ^ a b "Office of Historic Alexandria, Alexandria Freedmen's Cemetery: Historical Overview, April 2007, p. 2" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-03-24. Retrieved 2012-01-29.
- ^ a b Freed People and Freedmen's Cemetery – Alexandria, Virginia.[dead link]
- ^ a b "Office of Historic Alexandria, Alexandria Freedmen's Cemetery: Historical Overview, April 2007, p. 3" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-03-24. Retrieved 2012-01-29.
- ^ Design Competition Winners.
- ^ Commerce: Cox, Al; Cressey, Pamela J.; Dennee, Timothy J.; Miller, T. Michael; Smith, Peter (Dec 13, 2015). "Discovering the Decades: 1900s". City of Alexandria. Retrieved 20 March 2017.Pulliam, Ted (2011). Historic Alexandria: An Illustrated History. HPN. p. 96.: 49
- ^ a b c d e Pulliam, Ted (2011). Historic Alexandria: An Illustrated History. HPN. p. 96.
- ^ No. 2, United States Congress House Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee (1945). Amend the Constitution Relative to Equal Rights for Men and Women: Statements Presented to Subcommittee No. 2 of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, Seventy-ninth Congress, First Session on H.J. Res. 1, H.J. Res. 5, H.J. Res. 30, H.J. Res. 42, H.J. Res. 49, H.J. Res. 66, H.J. Res. 71, H.J. Res. 80, H.J. Res. 82, and H.J. Res. 96, Proposing an Amendment to the Constitution of the United States Relative to Equal Rights for Men and Women ... U.S. Government Printing Office. p. 15.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ "Movie Theaters in Alexandria, VA". CinemaTreasures.org. Los Angeles: Cinema Treasures LLC. Retrieved May 21, 2015.
- ^ Alexandria Library Sit-In: Combs, George K.; Anderson, Leslie; Downie, Julia M. (2012). Alexandria. Arcadia. p. 127.: 39"America's First Sit-Down Strike: The 1939 Alexandria Library Sit-In". City of Alexandria. Retrieved 2009-08-21."1939 Alexandria Library Sit-in". City of Alexandria. Retrieved 2010-09-04.
- ^ Robinson Library: Alexandria Historic Timeline, Virginia: Visit Alexandria, archived from the original on May 21, 2015, retrieved May 21, 2015Vernon Theatre:"Movie Theaters in Alexandria, VA". CinemaTreasures.org. Los Angeles: Cinema Treasures LLC. Retrieved May 21, 2015.
- ^ a b c Alexandria Historic Timeline, Virginia: Visit Alexandria, archived from the original on May 21, 2015, retrieved May 21, 2015
- ^ Mieczkowski, Yanek (April 22, 2005). Gerald Ford and the Challenges of the 1970s. University Press of Kentucky. p. 480.
- ^ a b "Gerald Ford in Alexandria". www.alexandriava.gov. Retrieved 2017-10-23.
- ^ Manuals: Richelson, Jeffery T. (Jul 17, 1997). A Century of Spies: Intelligence in the Twentieth Century. Oxford University Press. p. 544.: 280Highest-ranking:Epstein, Edward Jay. "Question of the Day". Retrieved 20 March 2017.$3,500:
highest-ranking American ever recruited as a mole by the Russian Intelligence Service
Associated Press (March 1, 1967). "Yank Gets 20 Years for Helping Soviets". Amarillo Globe-Times.: p1 - ^ "Ex-Army Officer Accused Of Spying For Russians". Toledo Blade. July 13, 1966.
- ^ a b "Timeline of Alexandria History". Alexandria in the 20th Century. City of Alexandria, VA. Retrieved May 21, 2015.
- ^ a b Shapiro, Len; Pollin, Andy (Dec 16, 2008). The Great Book of Washington DC Sports Lists. Running. p. 304.
- ^ 1971 T. C. Williams High School football team season: Fleming, Monika S. (2013). Legendary Locals of Edgecombe and Nash Counties, North Carolina. Arcadia. p. 127.: 117Ellington, Scott A. (Sep 1, 2008). Risking Truth: Reshaping the World through Prayers of Lament. Wipf and Stock. p. 214.: 23Shapiro, Len; Pollin, Andy (Dec 16, 2008). The Great Book of Washington DC Sports Lists. Running. p. 304.: 69
- ^ Nunley, Debbie; Elliott, Karen Jane (2004). A Taste of Virginia History: A Guide to Historic Eateries and Their Recipes. John F. Blair. p. 294.
- ^ Pluralism Project. "Alexandria VA". Directory of Religious Centers. Harvard University. Retrieved May 21, 2015.
- ^ How the Foo Fighters Recorded Their First Grammy-Winning Album in a Basement In Alexandria, Virginia https://medium.com/@Glen_R_Hines/how-the-foo-fighters-recorded-their-first-grammy-winning-album-in-a-basement-in-alexandria-51c6d0983964/
- ^ Alexandria law requiring Confederate street names questioned. Washington Times, January 14, 2014. Retrieved January 19, 2014 http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jan/14/alexandria-law-requiring-confederate-street-names-/
- ^ "School Board Votes to Change the Name of T.C. Williams High School". Alexandria Living. November 23, 2020. Retrieved November 23, 2020.
Further reading
- R.H. Long (1863), "Alexandria", Hunt's Gazetteer of the Border and Southern States, Pittsburgh: John P. Hunt
- F. L. Brockett and Geo. W. Rock (1883). Concise History of the City of Alexandria, Va., from 1669 to 1883, with a directory of reliable business houses in the city. Alexandria, Va.
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: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
External links
- Digital Public Library of America. Items related to Alexandria, various dates