By T. Michael Miller
Alexandria, Virginia with its 18th and 19th century charm is certainly fertile ground for those interested in historic research. Today's brick-lined streets and cobblestone alleys provide an old world ambiance.
The old seaport town and surrounding suburbs have been the home to authors, diplomats, presidents, leading American labor leaders and industrialists. Few American communities can boast of having so many distinguished individuals residing in their midst. These are just a handful of notables who have called Alexandria their home during the past 250 years:
- Presidents of the United States: George Washington and Gerald Ford
- Supreme Court Justice: Hugo Black
- Secretary of the Treasury: Henry Fowler
- Virginia Governors: Light Horse Harry Lee, Francis Pierpoint, Colgate Darden and Charles Robb
- U.S. Congressmen: C.C. Carlin, William E. Miller, Jerry Voorhis, Howard Worth Smith and Frank Korell
- Diplomats: George Kennan and Hodding Carter
- Novelists: James Strange French, Frances Parkinson Keyes, Richard Halliburton, Dumas Malone and Ilka Dickman
- Military Leaders: Admiral William J., Crowe, General Robert E. Lee, General Andrew J. Goodpaster, General Carl A. Spatz and General Montgomery Corse
- Industrialist: Andrew Carnegie
- Labor Leader: John L. Lewis
- Poets: Daniel Bryan and Jean Elliot
What makes this town so exciting is the number of fascinating personalities who have walked its streets, frequented its taverns and celebrated life here. Have you ever wondered who slept in your home 50, 100 or 200 years ago? Perhaps a sea captain, a merchant, a free black artisan, a potter's apprentice, a blacksmith or cooper. If so, you should join the increasing ranks of those who have become historic house sleuths.
To help you begin your search, this web page attempts to describe a series of archival source materials which would be useful in developing a house history.
After compiling a list of owners and occupants of a house, it is sometimes possible to flesh out the people who resided there. An annotated list of biographical and genealogical Resources for Historic Research in Alexandria, Virginia will be useful for this phase of your research. Also, there are several finding aids at the Alexandria Library which will be helpful. Historic house research can be fun and mentally stimulating. Happy Sleuthing!
Ethelyn Cox's book, Street by Street, continues to be an excellent resource to consult. Mrs. Cox donated her extensive collection of background notes on homes she had researched during the past twenty years. This is a fine source of information on 18th and 19th century properties. Her research into land records is also supplemented by many citations from the Alexandria Gazette such as real estate advertisements and biographical sketches of occupants.
If your home is situated within the original confines of 1762 Alexandria (North-South: Oronoco to Wolfe Street; East-West: the Potomac River to Pitt Street), it may be advantageous to review Title Search by T. Michael Miller and James Woolls. This unpublished monograph is useful for determining the chain of title to many early properties in Alexandria. The volume is illustrated with maps which graphically portray the changing boundary lines of the early lots. By knowing the property lot number, the original price, owner and date of sale may be ascertained.
Connie Ring, archivist for Fairfax County, in Title Search II has compiled the chain of title to 130 early Alexandria lots. Although there are no cartographic references, she has covered more territory than Title Search I by Miller and Woolls, and makes good use of many newly-discovered deeds which have been found in the Fairfax County Courthouse attic.
In 1979, Penny Morrill, formerly of the Carlyle House Historic Park, published an excellent article on Alexandria builders and architects and the houses they constructed. This book, entitled Who Built Alexandria--Architects in Alexandria 1750-1900, is extremely well researched. It contains numerous drawings and architectural sketches of Alexandria houses and public buildings. A compilation of the names and buildings mentioned in the text, plus the page numbers on which they appear is incorporated in Miller's Guide for easy reference. If, after consulting these resources, you find no mention of your home, it may be necessary to visit the Alexandria and Fairfax County Courthouses. The Record Room of the Alexandria Courthouse, situated on the 3rd floor of 520 King Street, contains several archival sources essential for a successful search. First, there are the indices to deeds -- 1783 to the present -- and the deed books themselves. Before visiting the courthouse, it is imperative you know an owner of the real estate in question. It doesn't matter if it is not the first owner. For most properties the owner's surname entry may be found in the deed book index. The index will also fumish the number and page of the volume to be consulted. For example: Carlyle, John. First turn to the "C" section of the index and then look for the page on which appear the "C's" with a first initial or name page beginning with "J". Within each alphabetical section the names are alphabetized by the first name of the owner. Thus, all first names beginning with "J" will appear in the same page. In this case there might be: Carlyle, John; Craig, James; Cogan, John. Other last names which begin with "C" but have different first names will be grouped on another page. For instance: the name Nathaniel Chapman would also be in the "C" section of the index, but will be grouped with all other first names beginning with the letter "N". After finding the owner, copy the deed book number and page. Usually, an individual owned more than one piece of real estate; so all the references should be checked. If the date when the property was purchased is not known, consult all the references under the owner's name until the one which matches the geographic coordinates of the real estate is located. The deed will usually specify the following: when the property was sold; who was the grantor; who was the grantee; how much the property sold for; a metes and bounds description of the tract; when the deed was recorded; a list of those persons who witnessed the deed; other special provisions such as mortgages and trusts. Upon finishing one transaction, continue the same process with the next owner of the house. If you don't know an owner's name, you can find this information by visiting the Alexandria tax assessment office (City Hall, Room 2600). In addition, the name of the occupant or owner may also be located by consulting the 1936 crisscross section of the Alexandria city directory. This reference provides a street by street listing of the city's residents.
Another useful resource is a computerized compilation of water company records. Prepared by Philip Erickson of Alexandria Archaeology, this report documents by street the first one thousand citizens who were connected to the water company system from 1852 to 1897.
In abstracting deeds, it is easier to work from the most recent name backward rather than vice versa. Many times the deed will include information on earlier transactions and refer to earlier deed books. This makes the task much simpler than having to check every parcel of property an individual may have owned in town. On occasion, the title to a lot may disappear or be difficult to trace. If the name of the owner is not present, check the will books. A father in certain instances would devise property to his daughter who, if she married, might have an entirely different surname. When abstracting deeds, be sure to record pertinent pieces of information such as deed book number, date, persons involved, price, conditions, etc.
Many early deeds will not mention that there was a house on the lot. They indicate only that the land was sold and include such standard legal phraseology as "all lands, chattels, and tenements which may lie upon said property." The main purpose of doing a title search is to construct a list of names of the property owners. Ownership of a property does not mean, however, that the owners themselves actually resided there. In order to find out who resided on a particular lot, the land and personal property tax records should be consulted.
Tax records provide the name of the proprietor, the occupier of the lot, its assessed value, the number of male tithables, and the number of horses, dogs, cows, riding chairs, four wheeled carriages and clocks. The Alexandria Library, Special Collections has microfilm copies of Alexandria tax records dating from 1787-1899. There are a few loose records for the 1870's and a complete run of items from 1895 to 1930. It is extremely difficult to deten-nine whether a house was built prior to this period, since documentary evidence is scarce. Data which might substantiate that a house was built prior to 1785 would include:
- architectural evidence -- analysis of nails, latches, hinges
- archival material such as letters, diaries and account books
Many people have been under the impression that there was a requirement to build a house on a lot after the property was purchased from the town trustees in 1749.
Several of those who held town lots seemed content with the mere fact of ownership. Their refusal to build conflicted with the requirement that a house be erected on each lot within two years. The law eventually became a nuisance that plagued the citizenry. In 1752 the trustees and a number of towns-people petitioned the burgesses requesting that the building clause be revoked. The government acceded to their wishes later in the year. The same process was repeated in 1764 when a similar clause in the 1762 Act of Enlarging the Town of Alexandria was repealed. However, the trustees occasionally invoked the two-year clause even after the annulment. Their selective invocation of the ordinances was apparently designed to force development of the town.
The majority of early homes in Alexandria were built of wood or logs. Few, if any of them, have survived. It was not until the Federal Period (1790-1810) that many fine brick homes were constructed. If you can verify that a house was built on an early lot this does not mean that the same house still occupies the site.
Fire, war, floods and urban renewal, all have taken their toll. A house supposedly built in the eighteenth century may have actually been erected during the early part of the nineteenth.
Tax records are also important in determining when a house was built. If the taxes on a piece of property are relatively low, the lot was probably vacant when bought. A sudden increase in the assessed valuation generally infers that the owner made improvements on the lot and may have constructed a house or other buildings on it. However, check other properties to see if there was a general tax increase that year.
City directories are the most frequent utilized resources for researching the occupants of Alexandria houses. The Alexandria Library, Special Collections is fortunate to have a number of these dating from 1791 to 1980. More recent directories are available at the Barrett library, 717 Queen Street.
Early directories contain the name and occupation of the owner but do not provide house numbers. As an example, the directory may indicate only that John Wise resided on Prince Street near Pitt. One way of overcoming this difficulty is to utilize the land records at the courthouse. These provide an exact metes and bounds description of the real estate in question.
Directories of the 1870s have numerical addresses. These can be confusing, however, in that they do not represent current street addresses. The Charter and Laws of the City of Alexandria for the year 1874 stated:
All the streets running east and west shall be commenced at their eastern extremity, and numbered to their western termination, and all those streets running north and south shall be commenced at King street as a center and all those streets running north from King street shall be numbered from King street through to their northern termination and those streets from King Street south to their southern termination, always placing the odd numbers on the right hand and the even numbers on the left hand from the place of beginning...
Using this method of numbering, the block made no difference in the house numbers. In 1888, when the Post Office Department introduced delivery service, it became necessary to determine the block in which an address was located. Thus, the numbering system was changed to the present method of assigning a sequence of hundreds to each block of a street beginning with I 00 for the first block, 200 for the second, etc. Even numbers were still assigned to the left and odd numbers to the right. The Hopkins Atlas provides a key to the old numbering system.
Another valuable source of information on early houses is the Mutual Fire Assurance Records. The Alexandria Library, Special Collections has a large collection of these documents dating from 1796 to 1846. The polices provide graphic information on the physical dimensions and location of structures. Also noted are the types of buildings which surrounded the main dwelling such as privies, stables, pigeon houses and rabbit hutches. These records should be used with care since they are subject to misinterpretation.
For the second half of the nineteenth century, the Hopkins and Sanborn fire insurance maps are an excellent and detailed source of information on the composition of old houses. These maps provide information on the composition of the building -- wood or brick, the number of windows, location of fire walls and types of material utilized in the construction of the building. The maps date from 1885 to 1941 and are on microfilm at the Alexandria Library, Special Collections. The Library also has a copy of a 1941 Sanborn map with corrections and updates to 1956. Alexandria Archaeology has Hopkins maps from 1879, 1885, 1891, and 1897, and Sanborn maps from 1921, 1931, and 1941. These insurance maps are extremely useful tools in determining when buildings have been added to or razed. Many changes that occurred on the block in which a house is situated can be discerned by comparing one map with another.
Building permits were first issued in Alexandria in 1891. These documents frequently provide information on the architect, the owner, the builder, and the dimensions and the types of materials used to construct a dwelling. The Alexandria Library, Special Collections has a collection of 4,000 building permits dating from 1891 to 1930. They are indexed according to address and owner in Miller's Guide. Building permits dating from the 1930's to the early 1970's are housed in the City's Archives & Records Center on Payne Street, and may be seen by appointment. There are two types of permits in this group -- the actual building permit for the construction of new structures and the alteration and repair permits. These detail thousands of alterations that have been made to buildings in Alexandria. They are very useful because they document when windows, partitions, doors and other architectural elements have been changed. Unfortunately, the lovely front hall dentil molding of a 19th century dwelling may have been fabricated by the Smoot Lumber Company in the 1930s.
Private Papers and Photographs:
In reconstructing the history of a house, one must consider the owner's comments on his culture, lifestyle, and social standing. Letters occasionally mention construction activities and reasons for undertaking them. Diaries are looking glasses through which to view the past and explore the social and cultural activities of the society. Photographs of a historic house can be very illuminating. As the old adage goes, "A picture is worth a thousand words." Many questions about a house can be answered by studying old photographs of the home and its neighborhood. There are several private photographic collections in Alexandria. In addition the Alexandria Library is the repository for several others. The library has prepared indexes to many of these. Efforts should also be made to contact former owners of the house under investigation. Frequently they possess photographs and other archival materials that might be helpful.
Studying the Outlying Suburbs:
Although the major focus of historic research in Alexandria has concentrated on "Old Town," outlying neighborhoods are now receiving the attention they deserve. Much of this activity has been spurred by local civic associations. A valuable history entitled North Ridge Lore was published in 1981. It contains informative data on landmark houses, churches, local organizations, schools, personal reminiscences and biographical sketches of prominent citizens.
Rosemont has also been a topic of attention during the past year. Many cottage-style bungalows dot its landscape and offer a pleasant visual relief to the high concentration of Federal and Georgian structures in Old Town. In 1983, students from the University of Virginia conducted an inquiry into this suburb's history and architecture. The fruits of the research were presented as a slide/lecture program before the Alexandria Historical Society. A tape recording of this program plus other supporting documentation is available at the Alexandria Library, Special Collections. Building permits for many Rosemont structures are also housed in the manuscript collection and may be tapped by consulting Miller's Guide.
Anne Taylor and citizens of the Rosemont Association have prepared detailed forms for Rosemont's nomination as an historic district. These reports contain architectural and social data on most of the homes in this suburb and may be viewed at the Alexandria Library, Special Collections.
Although the suburb called Town of Potomac (Del Ray and St. Elmo) did not become a part of Alexandria until the 1930 annexation, there are two significant studies which should be reviewed. These are: A Study of the Town of Potomac; 1895-1920, by Kent R. Newell in 1980, and Town of Potomac--1908-1930, by Robert Crabill. Newell devotes a major portion of his treatise to an architectural analysis of the housing stock while Crabill concentrates more on the social history of the Town of Potomac. Other town records include a microfilm copy of local ordinances and the Town of Potomac Yearbook -- 1923-1926. Because the Town of Potomac was situated in Arlington County until 1930, the land records and suits of that county should be searched for individual deeds and plats. Another excellent source for information on the suburbs is the Alexandria Gazette. Commencing in the 1920's, the newspaper devoted an entire section to local news from Braddock Heights, Del Ray, St. Elmo and Rosemont.
