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Early Fishing Camp

The shoreline of the Potomac River where Alexandria is located today has been a useful and popular spot for centuries, long before the modern community was founded. Just upriver from Alexandria, the river tumbles over a series of cataracts known as Great Falls, its last obstacle to the Chesapeake Bay. These falls form a barrier to fish traveling upstream to spawn each year, which in turn makes the area just downstream a good fishing ground for local people.

Native American artifacts that have been found in various places around Alexandria can be dated as early as 8,000 B.C. and as late as 1600 A.D., during which time various groups used the area as a fishing camp. Exploring the Chesapeake Bay in 1608, John Smith sailed up the Potomac River and contacted many different people along both banks. When Smith neared this point, he met at least two groups that we now refer to as the Tauxenents and the Nacotchtanks, both part of a larger affiliation known as the Conoy chiefdom. These people made up just a small percentage of the thousands of Native Americans who inhabited the region and enjoyed its rich resources of fish and game. After Smith's visit, it would be many years before white settlement would expand into this part of tidewater Virginia.

During the first few decades of the 18th century, plantations were gradually established along both sides of the Potomac River and settlement began to spread further into northern Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley. When Fredericksburg was founded in 1728, it was the northernmost town in Virginia but was still located in the tidewater, where tobacco production was profitable. By the time Fairfax County was established further north in 1742, many of the county's residents lived several miles inland, away from the river and from commercial ties to the outside world. Many of them found that grains like wheat and corn could be raised more profitably than tobacco in this upland area, but they desperately needed a trading place where they could gather their crops for export and could buy manufactured merchandise from abroad. Just to the north of the spot where Great Hunting Creek entered the Potomac River, a tobacco warehouse and some other small buildings had stood for some time on steep bluffs overlooking a small but deep bay. Philip and John Alexander farmed much of the surrounding land and Hugh West oversaw the warehouse along with a ferry and tavern. In 1748, these men joined with merchants John Carlyle, William Ramsay, John Pagan and others to petition the General Assembly for the creation of a new market town. By July of 1749, the community was laid out, named "Alexandria" in honor of the Alexander family.

A Major Trading Place

Alexandria thrived for the next few decades. During the mid-1750s, the town was a staging area for British troops involved in the French and Indian War. In 1763, another land sale was held greatly increasing the size of the community. A few years later, more new land was created by filling in part of the Potomac shoreline. Lots all over town were subdivided repeatedly by their owners who rented space to dozens of different types of skilled artisans, grocers and small merchants, tavern keepers and other tradesmen. The population included many slaves as well as free blacks who lived primarily in neighborhoods called "the Bottoms" and "Hayti." By the end of the 18th century, Alexandria was among the ten busiest ports in America and had been designated an official port of entry, allowing foreign shipping to land and unload without registering somewhere else first. In 1789, the town was included in the large section of northern Virginia that became part of the new District of Columbia.

Despite increasing competition from Baltimore, which gradually replaced Alexandria as the main shipping point for the upper Chesapeake region, the town remained a bustling center for the export of grain and bread products, fish, a variety of small manufactures and rail transportation. Alexandria also was a center of the slave trade during the early nineteenth century, from which thousands of blacks were transported to Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and other areas in the deep South where cotton production demanded more and more labor. New gas and water works and many new homes were constructed in town during this period and Alexandria's population almost doubled in the decade before 1860.

War Clouds and a New Beginning

Within days of Virginia's secession from the Union in the spring of 1861, Federal troops arrived in Alexandria to take possession of the city. Due to its excellent rail and water connections, the city became a major supply center for the Union Army and was included within the ring of fortifications protecting Washington. Many of the largest buildings in town, including The Lyceum, were confiscated for use as hospitals and for other official purposes and many new warehouses were constructed along the waterfront. By the end of the Civil War, Alexandria's economy was in shambles but the city itself had been spared the destruction witnessed by many other places in Virginia such as Richmond and Fredericksburg.

In the wake of the war, Alexandrians struggled to rebuild their city's commerce and prosperity. City Hall burned in 1871 but was replaced the following year. Electricity and telephone service arrived in the 1880s and new neighborhoods sprang up around the outskirts of the city by the turn of the century. Local industries included the Robert Portner Brewing Company, the Old Dominion glass works, the Virginia Marine Railway and Shipbuilding Company, and Potomac Yard, one of the largest rail facilities in the country. A Ford Motor Company plant and a factory that made torpedoes were also located along Alexandria's old waterfront.

By the 1920s, Alexandria was a quiet little southern town, but one with an especially rich heritage. Seeking to capitalize on this history and tap into the stream of tourists who traveled through Alexandria regularly on their way to Mount Vernon, local American Legion Post 24 purchased the old City Hotel as their headquarters and museum. The building had once been known as Gadsby's Tavern and had served a distinguished clientele including George Washington, the Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson. Fired by the same spirit that was guiding the restorations at Colonial Williamsburg, Gadsby's Tavern reopened to the public with a colonial costume ball in 1932, the bicentennial of Washington's birth. The American Legion's purchase and restoration of Gadsby's Tavern was part of the fledgling preservation movement beginning to take hold in Alexandria that later blossomed in the face of urban renewal in the 1960s.

Into the Modern Era

The Second World War brought tremendous growth and change to the Washington area and to northern Virginia. National Airport was constructed at the beginning of the war on Alexandria's northern edge, the former site of Abingdon plantation. Thousands of people from all over the country poured into the region as the government expanded and Alexandria became one of many "bedroom communities" serving the capital city. This growth set the tone for the post-war period, as well, which has seen even greater development of Alexandria and her surrounding communities.

During the mid-1960s, the City's leadership began to remake the old colonial port into a modern city as many of the oldest parts of town were redeveloped. Market Square, where public markets were held since the town's founding, was cleared of 18th- and 19th-century buildings except for the 1872 City Hall, and the block was excavated to hide a parking garage under the new Square. Across South Royal Street, most of the block was similarly demolished and excavated for a series of boutiques and retail stores named Tavern Square (the development being adjacent to Gadsby's Tavern.) As the wrecking balls swung, Alexandria's preservation movement grew, forcing city government to protect some of the community's landmarks. Among the buildings saved and restored during this period were The Torpedo Factory Art Center, The Lyceum and the Carlyle House, which joined Gadsby's Tavern in undergoing extensive renovations in time for the nation's Bicentennial in 1976.

Today, Alexandria still retains much of its historic character. Many late 18th- and early 19th-century townhouses and warehouses remain in the "Old Town" section of the city, along the west bank of the Potomac River. While still a residential area for many Federal employees, Alexandria is also home to many national associations, corporations, restaurants, shops and other businesses. Many old landmarks have become museums, historic sites and art galleries. Public parks line the waterfront and the river is actively used by fishermen and recreational boaters. Visitors to the National Capitol area find that Alexandria serves as a quaint change of pace from the hectic hustle of downtown Washington, a place to relax and discover what the region was like many years ago.

Additional History Links:

Historic House Sleuthing in Alexandria, Virginia
Resources for Historic Research in Alexandria, Virginia
Discovering the Decades
Themes from the Past