Every July, Alexandria celebrates the anniversary of its founding in 1749. The city also has a pre-history. One of the best accounts of it can be found in “Alexandria’s Forgotten Legacy,” a series of articles written by historian William Carne in the Alexandria Gazette and reprinted by T. Michael Miller.
We pick up the story in the late seventeenth century when the northward movement of the planters and settlers along and near the Potomac began to reach what became Fairfax County in 1742 and Alexandria in 1749. We offer this condensed and annotated version of Carne’s Chapter III, “Civilization Crosses Great Hunting Creek.”
1690. When the last decade of the seventeenth century was reached, the tide of population was steady above the Occoquan…
The Occoquan River became the southern boundary of Fairfax County in 1742.The land above it was Stafford County from 1664 to 1730 and Prince William from 1730 to 1742. Fairfax County initially included what became Alexandra, Arlington and Falls Church.
Image: Virginia and Maryland as it is planted and inhabited this present year 1670, Herrman, Augustine, 1621 or 1622-1686. Published, [London] : Augustine Herman and Thomas Withinbrook, 1673.
… the land embraced with Howson’s Patent became capable of being made the permanent abode of civilization.
In 1669, Captain Robert Howson emigrated from England.He brought with him about 120 people to live in the colony.Governor William Berkeley granted to Howson, 6,000 acres of land “upon the freshes of Potomac River…”
Image: Alexandria portion of the Howson Tract.
It has been narrated in former chapters that John Alexander, the purchaser of the Howson patent land…
Shortly after Howson gained the tract, John Alexander (1603-1677) acquired it from him for 6,000 pounds of tobacco. A native of Scotland, he had emigrated from England in 1653. Alexander was the founder of Alexander family in Northern Virginia and a planter and merchant in Stafford County. It is believed the town was named for him and/or the family.
… gave his land to his sons, Philip and Robert Alexander.
Philip inherited the lower portion (south of Four Mile Run).Robert (1633-1704) inherited the upper part (north of Four Mile Run.In 1741, one of their descendants, Captain Philip Alexander, owned the majority of the land that would become Alexandria. The Mitchell map shows ownership in 1760.
Image: Beth Mitchell's interpretive map of 1760.
As the lands now grew to be of considerable value, the first actual survey with chain and compass was made sometime about 1692 by Theodorick Bland, one of the most celebrated land surveyors of his time.
Bland (1663-1700) also surveyed Williamsburg in 1699.
The lines fixed by him began at a hickory tree on the marsh ground lying on the side of the marsh into which Hoff’s Run now empties, which was called at that time West's Pocoson, and within more modern times, "Pompey Gales Marsh."
Comparing the Bland/Jennings survey with the modern day map, a guess of the site of the hickory tree is just south of the Carlyle Mill Apartments on Mill Road. Before it silted up, Great Hunting Creek was wider than it is now. Tall ships could reach the village of Cameron, whose site is believed to be near this point and near the Eisenhower Metro Station. Note: For some odd reason, Hooff's Run is labeled Four Mile Run on Google maps.
Bland ran his line in a direction generally north until he reached the mouth of the “Wankapin” Run; nearly opposite the southern point of Analostan Island…
Most of the land west of this line is hilly, today’s neighborhoods such as North Ridge, Aurora Hills, and Arlington Ridge and Arlington National Cemetery.
Oxford Dictionary gives the origin of Wankapin as — Mid 19th century; earliest use found in John P. Kennedy (1795–1870), novelist and politician.
Wankapin Run is marked on Beth Mitchell’s Map of 1760. It probably ran just south of Netherlands Carillon.
Analostan Island, currently known as Theodore Roosevelt Island, is located just south of Georgetown and east of Rosslyn. Other names through the years were My Lord’s Island and Mason’s Island.
... and thence came by the river shore to Piper's Island (Jones Point) and thence went up Hunting Creek to the beginning.
Jones Point was shaped like a dog leg until landfill in the 1930s. Some of the river side land that was Howson’s Tract also changed during dredging and landfill.
This survey completed, the land was, it seems, divided between Robert and Philip Alexander, the former taking the upper portion near Four Mile Run, and the latter, that on which the city now stands, and near Hunting Creek.
No copy of the Bland survey had been found. Daniel Jennings resurveyed the Howson Patent in 1746. It is this map that is available and used.
Alexander family members owned portions of the land north of Alexandria for many years, including the Abingdon plantation (site National Airport). An interpretive panel in Potomac Yard tells some of their story. Four Mile Run serves as the border between Alexandria and Arlington.
A portion of this land was leased to Thomas Pearson, the son-in-law of Philip Alexander…
Pearson's Island can be seen in the Mitchell map.
Thomas Pearson (c.1663 - c.1710) married Sarah Alexander (c.1667 - c.1705), the daughter of John Alexander (1603-1677). Research by Jim Bish tells us the Pearson family, along with the Alexander, West and Harrison families, was prominent and influential in the area. By marriage, the children of Simon Pearson (probably the son of Thomas Pearson) became related and “tightly bound” to George Washington and his family members. Simon Pearson owned more than 4,000 acres at one point. Simon (d. 1733) inherited some of these lands from his father Thomas.
A portion of these Pearson lands would be acquired by the West family, including the foot of Oronoco Street (West’s Point) that would become a tobacco shipping point in the 1730s and 1740s and then the northern most part of Alexandria in 1749.
… and in 1696, by the date of this lease we may fix the 15th of February 1696, as the day on which was begun the permanent settlement beyond Hunting Creek.
Archaeology has shown that Native Americans had hunted and fished in these lands for many years.
He (Thomas Pearson) probably cleared the river side lands from Hunting Creek to a considerable distance northward and left his name on the island now called Daingerfield’s, but which all the old maps and charters designated as Pearson’s Island. This was probably the first permanent settlement in Alexandria county.
Pearson’s Island is now known as Daingerfield Island. It lies just south of National Airport. It is not an island now, in that its western portion just east of the George Washington Parkway is land. Earlier maps shows this as wetlands. This jutting land is occupied by a sailing marina and small National Park Service offices.
Thus in 1696, civilization stepped across Hunting Creek and commenced to clear off the primitive forest and make way for the pleasant old town of Alexandria.
As others did and still do, Carne sometimes shortened Great Hunting Creek to Hunting Creek. Great Hunting Creek today forms a natural boundary between Alexandria and Fairfax County. Its mouth was once wider than now. Hunting Creek flows into the Potomac near Mount Vernon.
The population of the Potomac region at this time had grown sufficiently numerous to require what in modern days are called mail facilities and accordingly when a public post was established in 1695 throughout a portion of the colonies the route was made from Potomac through Annapolis to Philadelphia. By this conveyance letters could be sent northward — eight times a year.
In his article, “The Colonial Post-Office,” (The American Historical Review, Jan, 1916, JSTOR) William Smith writes that prior to the establishment of the colonial mail service in Virginia, the colony had arranged that “all letters superscribed for the public service should be conveyed from plantation to plantation to the place and person named.” There was no systematic service for private letters.
That same year, Maryland plantations having more than kept pace with those upon the Virginia side of the river, the upper portion of Charles County was cut off and erected into a separate shire under the now familiar name of Prince George’s County.
Maryland was also a planter society using enslaved humans. The most prominent plantation across the river from what became Alexandria was the Addison plantation. John Addison built a brick manor home there on Oxon Hill in about 1705. The landmark dwelling burned down in the 1890s. Its site is the MGM Resort at National Harbor. A number of interpretive panels tell some of the story.
1699. At that time, the Indians had all been driven out. All that remained this side of the Blue Ridge were more like the docile Africans, then being brought by shiploads into the colony. It is more than probable that the remnant of the Dogue Indians, on the westward trail that formerly roamed here, passed through “Indian Thoroughfare” as Thoroughfare Gap was then named in 1676. There is no recognizable trace of them after that year.
There are a number of gaps in the mountains west of Alexandria, including Thoroughfare Gap (I-66, Bull Run Mountains), Snickersville Gap (Route 7 near Bluemont), Ashby’s Gap (Route 50) and Keyes Gap (Route 9).
Conclusion
The land that would become Fairfax County in 1742 experienced a land boom from 1720 to 1732, with patents doubling to 163. Tenant farmers and enslaved humans made up some of the population of an estimated 4,000 in 1742. This included today’s Alexandria, Arlington and Falls Church.
Around the first part of the 1730s, a tobacco warehouse was built at the foot of what became Oronoco Street. Enslaved humans picked the leaf, stuffed it into hogsheads, and rolled them down primitive roads to what we today call West’s Point at the foot of Oronoco Street. Planters and prominent men such as John Carlyle, Laurence Washington, Thomas, Sixth Lord Fairfax, William Ramsey, and Hugh West helped found the town in 1749.
This July, the city of Alexandria will celebrate and commemorate its 272nd anniversary. As we have seen, stories took place during the prior decades.
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