I’ve always enjoyed the walks sponsored by the Coalition for Smarter Growth in the Washington region. More than any one else, they carry the torch of progressive planning and keep the public informed about development and its pro and cons. An unheralded aspect of their work is protection of streams and other environmental concerns.
And so it was again on a steamy late summer afternoon in Alexandria, when about 50 folks gathered at the edge of Founders Park to hear the latest on the unfolding of the Waterfront Plan.
Al Cox, City Architect Historian, did an excellent job with providing some historical context.
I got to know Cox earlier this year when we were trying to figure out the build date for River Farm. Ever gracious with his time, he has rescued me more than once from windless waters.
Founders Park, the football-field shaped, riverside park that stretches for two blocks south of the Robinson Terminal North (the foot of Oronoco Street), is a popular spot in Old Town. The park does have its peak periods of activity, but it can also be pleasantly quiet.
Walking along the shore, the group proceeded through the park, and stopped at its southern edge near the foot of Queen Street. As we were standing there, someone asked Cox, What was here before?
Cox looked straight at me and said, “Do you know?”
It's amazing just how quickly the mind can recover from a surprise question like that, find and process the needed information, and gauge what should be the appropriate length of the reply.
Stunned, I spit out — “a lot of ugly things.”
My heart started beating again when I heard a chorus of chuckles. On the other hand, part of me felt bad for not being more specific, and giving what might be perceived as a glib answer.
Driving home after the walk, I was reminded once again that ignorance is one of the best motivators. I knew enough about this part of the waterfront to say what I did, but feeling the need to know more, I set out on the search.
So here’s a brief rundown on what came before Founders Park (founded in 1978). Our main sources are the Historic Waterfront Plan, the Alexandria Gazette, The Washington Post, Sanborn Fire Insurance maps and historic aerials. A big thank you to Donald Shomette for his terrific coverage of the waterfront, and others as noted.
Photos:
Please note the aerial photo you see is published with permission from Historic Aerials, meaning I purchased it. Same for the historic photos, used with permission from the Alexandria Library, Special Collections. I took the one of the park.
18th Century
Before it was recently taken down, a brown-colored wooden sign at the foot of Oronoco marked the site of West’s Point. The Robinson Terminal North Warehouse, which will be demolished for redevelopment, stands steps away.
With no historical marking there, the story of West's Point remains a hidden history. This silence is a great paradox. In the decade before Alexandria was founded in 1749, Hugh West owned the land. In 1731, West had a tobacco house built near the tip of land. A map sketched out by George Washington shows it as the only built thing between Great Hunting Creek and Four Mile Run.
Jim Bish, an expert on the history of the West family, summarizes West’s Point the best by saying —
In reality the town had already existed since the mid-1730s and people were coming to the Hunting Creek warehouses on a good road to get their tobacco inspected and warehoused and while there they could also get back and forth to Maryland. The chartering of this already commercial activity as now a town was an important event and Hugh West took the leading role, assisted by members of his family.
Note: West’s warehouses were about a mile north of Great Hunting Creek, which, before the founding of Alexandria, was the closest known place identifier.
After its founding in 1749, Alexandria took off as a growing seaport. Where other entrepots such as Dumfries and Colchester failed to live up to their expectations due to silting, Alexandria benefitted by its riverside location. Some silting was a problem, and shoaling would eventually help put an end to its shipping days. But by not being located on an inlet, Alexandria avoided the fate of the other two.
A visitor to Alexandria in its early days would have seen plenty of action along the waterfront. Four blocks south of West's Point shipping activity took place at the wharf extending from John Carlyle’s Georgian mansion. Further south stood the public wharf at what would become the foot of Duke. Another block down one could heard the hammering of pegs at John Hunter's shipyard.
Perhaps the activity at West’s Point was overshadowed this way. Nevertheless, its wharfs saw activity and Shomette tells us there might have been shipbuilding there, too.
Histories of Alexandria that cover the horrible slave trade focus on the internal selling that took place from the 1830s to 1861 at the Franklin and Armfeld’s pen on Duke Street. A wood cut from 1845 shows what appears to be enslaved humans along the wharfs at the foot of Duke.
Sadly, these stories of enslavement began in Alexandria even sooner. The Maryland Gazette of April 3, 1760 and September 9, 1762 advertised “a parcel of very healthy Gambia slaves,” to be sold at Alexandria. The Alexandria Waterfront Plan indicates these sales took place at the future site of Founders Park. Perhaps they chose this spot for its more inconspicuous nature.
Another indication of the growth of the seaport were the four wharfs built by 1775. One of them extended from the foot of Princess Street, which ends at the edge of Founders Park. At that time, the banking out process (1780s) that created the waterfront land we walk on today had not yet taken place.
A lot of activity took place along these wharfs. By the 1780s, wheat and grain were overtaking tobacco as the main crops shipped out on the tall ships. On their return, the ships brought in rum, sugar, and household goods crafted by the merchants in London.
Alexandria’s crescent shaped bay was beautiful, but it was also a pain in the neck for the stevedores. In the 1780s and 1790s, the city filled in the bay with a process known as “banking out." Due to this re-shaping of the small cliffs east of Fairfax Street, the 200 blocks of Prince, King, Cameron, Queen, and Princess are less steep than they originally were.
This feat of engineering was the city’s first redevelopment action and made the logistics of shipping easier in the growing seaport. It created the land from Founders Park down to the foot of Wolfe.
A historical marker at Ford’s Landing sums up this action:
By 1790, merchants had filled in the river flats for as much as 400 feet beyond the original shoreline to create “superb wharves and vast warehouses. In 1795, Alexandria was the seventh-busiest port in the United States with 1,000 vessels entering the port annually.
19th Century
Alexandria’s Golden Age as a seaport ended after the turn of the century. George Washington and many of the town’s founding fathers were gone. So, too were the initial prosperous times.
During the antebellum period, Alexandria went through ups and downs in terms of its economy. Embargoes, the War of 1812, fires and floods were no friends to the businessmen and citizens of the town, whose population stagnated in the eight thousands.
Throughout much of the century, one source of steady income and stories for the newspapers was Fishtown. A seasonal community, it was located right where Founders Park lies today, between the foot of Oronoco and down to what would be the foot of Princess.
The native Americans had certainly known a lot about fishing along the Potomac. As a marker at Jones Point Park tells us:
For more than 9,000 years, people have been attracted to the rich fisheries of the Potomac River near Jones Point. Archeological evidence indicates that indigenous people set up seasonal fishing camps on the Point to take advantage of herring, shad, eel, striped bass and sturgeon runs.
Shad and sturgeon were the most prized catch for both natives and Europeans. These species are anadromous – they hatch upriver, swim out to sea, and once full-grown, ascend the river to their birthplace to spawn.
George Washington owned as many as three fisheries near Mount Vernon. Founders Online tells us the fish were sold in large barrels to local planters for their enslaved humans, and shipped abroad often to the West Indies. Washington made great profits shipping salted fish to the West Indies and elsewhere.
The story of fishing on the Potomac in the nineteenth century belongs to Fishtown. Every year from mid-March to sometime in May, this part of the seaport came alive with the arrival of the boats at the Public Fishing Wharf (on a line with Princess) and the unloading and shipping of shad and herring. African Americans, many of them women, gutted, cleaned, salted and packed the Potomac hauls.
Better than anyone else, Ted Pulliam describes Fishtown as, “a shambling collection of smelly shacks.”
Cleaning fish at a vigorous pace requires a certain kind of skill with the cutting knife. The fish cutters at Fishtown were the masters of this craft.
Of their work, a visiting writer wrote in the Gazette (April 14, 1852):
“the women were covered head to heels with scales… they performed their tasks with wonderful alacrity and skill.”
No one has covered the important history of Fishtown better than Shomette (Maritime Alexandria). Alexandrians, he tells us, who owned the majority of landings and valuable fisheries on the upper Potomac, continued to thrive during the otherwise declining years of the city’s maritime history.
It’s hard to know a year by year accounting of the hauls brought in to Fishtown, but according to Mary G. Powell:
in 1880, 3,000 shad and 200,000 herring arrived and sold for $7 and $8 per 100 and $2 and $3 respectively.
An 1832 article in the Edinburgh Encyclopedia said the “quantities of shad and herring taken may appear almost incredible. The number of shad frequently obtained at a haul is 40,000 and upwards and of herring vastly more. The shad and herring are transported all over the country and shipped to various ports in the US and West Indies.”
Shomette tells us 1871 was typical. 250,000 herring and shad were brought in. Also caught were rockfish, perch and catfish.
As one can imagine, Fishtown was not a place for a gentleman to take a lady, nor a place for a field day for the schools. Needless to day, it was fodder for the local writers. The Alexandria Gazette certainly gave Fishtown a good amount of ink every spring.
It’s also hard to know when Fishtown was first in use. The Alexandria Gazette of 1843 used the term. It wasn’t too long after that Fishtown’s seedy side emerged.
An article in the Gazette (April 25, 1851), tells us:
“occupants at the Fish Wharves, who by their outrageous conduct, have been a constant source of trouble to strangers and others.” The police said, “some young men who have long been suspected of living by a means not recognized by law.”
An article by a Washington Star reporter, reprinted in the Alexandria Gazette (April 7, 1857) gave his impressions.
The police were there every year to deal with “ungodly company, known for their propensity for execrable whiskey and taste for rowing and rioting.”
Much to the pleasure of Alexandria’s leaders and its citizens, the reporter said very few of these rowdies were from Alexandria.
The booze certainly did flow at Fishtown. In 1859, police busted six whites and four “colored” and charged them with selling liquor without a license. On occasion, rowdies were arrested for fighting and disturbing the peace.
Fishtown also produced some interesting architecture. As noted by Virginia Foundation for the Humanities (“Fishtown Business”):
Throngs of fishmongers rented wood to build shacks along the wharves, dismantling them at the end of the season in order to return the wood. Since "hired" wood could not be cut, windows were created by leaving out a plank, resulting in windows that were 15 feet long and 1 foot tall.
Not much is known about Fishtown during the Civil War. We do know with the outbreak of war in the spring of 1861, the Union turned the seaport into a supply base. Materiel such as horses, wagons, tents, guns and ammunition were unloaded, stored and issued out.
Charles Magnus's "View of Alexandria" (1863) shows wharfs extending from Princess and mid block below. Where the planked-built shanties would have been during the fish season, one sees about half-dozen smaller structures that could be his depiction of them. Beside them are more permanent buildings that look like warehouses. On Magnus’ map, one sees a boat there loaded with bales of hay, as well as railroad tracks along Union Street.
The nomination form for Parker Gray Historic District adds to our knowledge of Fishtown.
During the Civil War, when the City’s African American population began to grow again, two new neighborhoods cropped up north of Princess Street and east of Washington, known as the Berg and Cross Canal. The Berg traced its name from a group of African Americans who had moved up from Petersburg.
It’s likely that the names of the workers at Fishtown has been lost to history. We can guess, however, that some were from “Contraband” families. They poured into Alexandria in 1862 and 1863.
It’s highly likely some lived at the Berg. An 1885 Sanborn Insurance map shows “Negro Shanties” located within the block of N. Fairfax, Oronoco, N. Lee and Princess. These homes were part of the Berg neighborhood, adjacent to Fishtown, and built during the Civil War. Its possible descendants of these families live in the nearby Samuel Madden Homes, named for the first African-American pastor of the Alfred Street Baptist Church.
Fishtown had a long run, but it came to an end some time after the turn of the century. A report in The Washington Post (1892) noted the glory days of dealers from Philadelphia and Baltimore buying up batches were gone. Newspaper coverage fell off after 1910.Shad catches fell off dramatically in the first part of the century. Causes for the decline were over-fishing, pollution and loss of spawning habitat, primarily due to dams.
Shomette tells the end of the fishing industry was Alexandria’s last formidable waterfront mainstay.
20th Century
With a parade down King Street, and other events, Alexandria celebrated its 150th birthday in high-style 1899. Perhaps the parade helped heal some of the wounds from the 1897 fire which had destroyed the landmark Pioneer Mill, the Old Dominion Boat Club, a fertilizing mill, and other structures along the waterfront and the Strand between Prince and Duke.
After the turn of the century, Alexandria found prosperity in manufacturing. As noted by the Alexandria Archaeology website, “Alexandria experienced astonishing growth as a manufacturing center from 1899 to 1915, leading every city in Virginia except Lynchburg in the increased production of goods.”
During this time, a lot of Southerners chugged the Tivoli (“I love it” backwards) beer brewed at Robert Portner’s large facility on the north side (the blocks surrounding modern day Trader Joe’s). For teetotallers, the north side also held a large plant for making milk bottles (Belle Pre Bottle Company and then the Old Dominion Glass Company). Paff’s Shoe Company turned out 1,200 pairs each week.
William A. Smoot (1878-1941) made a name for himself in this part of the waterfront. The Smoot family name was legendary in Alexandria. As Harold Hurst points out, the antebellum business activities of the Smoot brothers laid the foundation for what was to become the most powerful commercial and industrial dynasty in the city’s history.
Sales must have been brisk for Smoot’s coal and lumber yard. He lived at Colross and then the Lloyd House, two of city’s most fashionable addresses. Smoot also served as mayor and one of the first council members under the new form in 1921.
In addition to the big bruisers, there were sundry outfits on or near the future site of Founders Park, such as the Globe Mill (later known as the Ladd’s Mill), Old Dominion Stone Company, which made soapstone, Prices’s Salt Fish Warehouse, Samuel Reeds Fish and Salt Warehouse, and the Lawrence Mill Company.
By far, the biggest presence at the future site of Founders Park was the Alexandria Fertilizer and Chemical Company. Headed up by John P. Robinson, its charter was granted in 1889. The company became one of the South’s largest such factories.
Up until the 1960s, their operation consisting of two large structures. The production plant, which contained a Sulphuric Acid Chamber, stood where the Robinson Terminal North is located today. A six-inch pipe ran to the storage facility, which fronted the west side of Union between Oronoco and Princess. Outside storage there held 12,000 tons.
A tramway with a traveling crane ran from the corner of Prince and Union to the wharf. Some sources call this a “Trestle Wharf.” The operation was one of the largest in the south. The company’s wharf was at the foot of Princess. Incoming ships brought in phosphate pebble stones and sulfur.
In 1946, the City Council ordered the American Agricultural Chemical Company to stop discharge of gas and acid fumes from its fertilizer plant. This signaled the start of civic complaints concerning pollution and were a harbinger of Old Town home owners fed up with the deleterious nature of this part of the city.
A photograph of the waterfront taken in 1930 shows a waterfront scene that would have shocked previous generations. You had to look hard to find any boats or shipping activity. As Shomette tells us, "Alexandria’s long and frequently maritime history was already becoming a forgotten relic of the past."
Yet a kid could still feel the thrill of the arrival of a big ship. In his 1983 memoir, “Reminiscences,” Clarence J. Robinson gives us a first hand account of how his company, Robinson Terminal, got started with a conversation along the waterfront. A handshake later came a contract to unload and store the large rolls of newspapers for the Washington Post.
Robinson even expanded in the 1960s. This was when Robinson Terminal North was built, the corrugated steel counterpart to his warehouse at the foot of Duke and Wolfe. He continued to bring in product as did the American Agricultural Chemical plant, but the big ship fans had long waits in between.
A constant in Alexandria along N. Union Street was the railroad. For the longest time, the tracks ran all the way down to Wilkes Street, where it turned westward and ran through the tunnel there. Oral histories tells us how the railcars created a barrier with the waterfront and the rest of the neighborhood.
By the 1940s, those tracks were pulled up, but still went as far south as the foot of Princess Street. Two spurs ran through modern day Founders Park, as part of the chemical plant operations.
Overlooking the Potomac River in Washington below Georgetown lies a high-rise set of residential units overlooking the Potomac River. Infamy walked in there on the night of June 17, 1972. Six men were arrested for breaking into the headquarters of the Democratic Party. The Watergate scandal grew out of the botched break-in.
A few months before the break-in, a mini-scandal erupted in Alexandria involving a proposal by the Watergate Improvements, Inc.
As summarized by Ted Pulliam, in December 1971, the Watergate Improvements Inc., proposed to build a set of four 20-story towers where Founders Park stands today. Girded by the Alexandria Board of Trade, the plans were approved by the City Council. Needless to say, a number of citizens opposed it.
In an oral history, Robert L. Montague III recalled the effort against the proposal he helped lead. They filed suit against the development in June 1972.
Montague:
The property turned out not to belong to the developer. It was owned by the federal government, and we brought to the attention of City Council the fact that they didn’t own the land as well as the fact that they were trying to do something very inappropriate there.
The City eventually swapped the site of the Ficklen School to the developer to build townhouses and we acquired Founders waterfront park.
Montague also gives a lot of credit to the Alexandria Waterfront Park system and the Northern Virginia Conservation Council. According to the Library of Virginia they formed in 1965 and filed several lawsuits to preserve public open space including the Alexandria waterfront in the 1970s. They were responsible for provoking the federal government into bringing quiet title actions for all of the parcels of land on the Alexandria waterfront
Ellen Pickering played a key role during this time. In a business and governmental world ran mostly by men, she was an Alexandria City councilwoman and a champion for preservation. Pickering also steered or helped lead many committees and commissions, and had a big hand in building the Mount Vernon Trial between Alexandria and Washington.
In Alexandria’s first two hundred years, economic and business interests usually prevailed more anything else. In the 1940s, some of Alexandria’s citizens became interested in preservation. Among them were Gay Montague Moore and Polly Hulfish. They sailed on the wings of earlier activities such as Sarah Carlyle Herbert Hooft. Citizen involvement began to shape the future of the city.
In the late 1960s the Alexandria Fertilizer and Chemical Plant ended its fifty plus years run. Seaport activity was coming to an end but the Robinson Terminal was doing a brisk business between the foot of Duke and Wolfe.
In his memoir, Clarence J. Robinson picks up the story. He purchased the lot east of S. Union and between the foot of Oronoco and Pendleton. The chemical plant’s facility there was torn down in 1963, and Robinson Terminal North was erected in 1964. This corrugated steel warehouse was best known for holding the paper rolls for the Post, but Robinson tells us a variety of products were unloaded there, including steel, cars, and bottled beer.
Going back to the early years of Alexandria, the most popular place to live with a view of the waterfront was south of King. Anything beyond Queen was less desirable for those who could afford a nicer home. This rule of thumb lasted until the 1970s. To the west of where Fishtown had stood, townhouses were built, a remarkable change.
Emboldened by the defeat of the plans for eighteen stories condominium complex there, Alexandria city planners, nudged along by the activists, proposed a new plan for the waterfront. This time the focus was on creating parks and encouraging construction of townhouses and apartments that would be set back from the waterfront.
A new day was dawning. During the 1960s, Urban Renewal plans had created political firestorms in City Hall. Although some citizens lamented the loss of historic buildings on the 300 to 500 block of King and some nearby, others were saved.
Back along the waterfront, Alexandria celebrated its 225th birthday in July 1974. The city hosted ceremonies for the dedication of Founders Park. In her memoir, “On Target, Stories of the Torpedo Factory Center’s First 25 Years,” Marian Van Landingham tells us she suggested the park’s name because “the city started with tobacco warehouses at the water’s edge where Oronoco ended."
At the foot of Oronoco, where Hugh West had started it all, Founders Park was dedicated. That evening, the Torpedo Factory was christened. In between, the Alexandria Bicentennial Bagpipe Band marched from the foot of Oronoco to the Torpedo Factory. Van Landingham described the walk along a vast gravel and stubble field.
In 1979, the famed undersea explorer Jacques Cousteau thrilled the throng gathered at Founders Park. The occasion was National Oceans Week. Cousteau was quoted as saying, "We must carefully weight the consequences of our actions. We cannot fish only for today. We must think about tomorrow.”
Several months later, Founders Park and the area around it was back in the news. The owners of about 150 townhouses on the west side of N. Union voiced their concerns about not being able to gain clear title to their property. The Justice Department had filed suit against the city and six landowners along the waterfront.
The dispute centered over who owned the waterfront parcels that were part of the landfill. The saga had begun in the seventeenth century when King James II's charter for Virginia and King Charles I charter for Maryland both included the Potomac River. The colony of Maryland, led by Cecilius Calvert, Lord Baltimore, pointed out their grant included the Potomac River to the ‘further bank of the said river.”
In 1791, Maryland gave the title to the newly formed District of Columbia, the new seat of the Federal Government. The diamond shaped capital included Alexandria and part of northern Virginia. The high water mark along Alexandria’s shore was part of the title, and remained so even after Alexandria retroceded to the District of Columbia. The Feds put the boundary beyond Lee Street, which was the original shoreline and high water mark.
Citing the 1791 high water mark, the Federal Government had claimed the land. The original suit claiming federal title was filed by the Interior Department in 1973. The 1979 filing claimed the 1791 line went further inland. The future of the waterfront hung in the balance.
In 1981, the Alexandria City Council approved an agreement with the Federal Government over ownership of the waterfront. Alexandria gained title to 15 acres of waterfront land, leaving it as park space. The Feds agreed to drop its 135 year claim of ownership and gave the city control over waterfront development, with the stipulation that it must abide by the land-use plan drawn up in consultation with the National Park Service.
With the dispute finally laid to rest, Alexandria planners went to work. In the 1980s and 1990s, the city opened Tide Lock Park, Rivergate Park, Waterfront Park, and Shipyard Park.
Founders Park today remains a popular gathering place for both local and visitor. Incorporated in 1979, just one year after the park’s founding, the Founders Park Community Association holds monthly clean-ups and get togethers. On a typical day, black steel benches provide a place for reading a book, relaxing or watching boats glide past on the river. Autumn moods are currently on display.
In a few months, King Street Park will open at the foot of Alexandria's Main Street, leaving the Robinson Terminal North site, the place where it all started, as the final part of the waterfront to be redeveloped.
Al, thank you for the question.
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