THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 19, 1995 TAG: 9502200231
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEPHEN HARRIMAN, TRAVEL EDITOR
DATELINE: ALEXANDRIA LENGTH: Long : 302 lines
TINY DUST PARTICLES dance slowly in the bright shafts of winter sunlight that stream through the tall chancel windows of Christ Church. On the wall, on either side of the elevated, wine-glass pulpit, are hand-lettered tablets - the Apostles' Creed, the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer - that have never been retouched since the Georgian brick church was completed in 1773.
A single pew, along the left aisle and near the front, remains as it was then: a sort of box stall elevated slightly above the brick tile floor. Thin cushions cover the benches. The silver signature plaque on the railing says George Washington.
He paid 36 pounds, 10 shillings, a goodly sum in those pre-Revolution days, for this pew.
Sundays when he was in town, Washington sat here where I am sitting, probably silently read the same tablets I am reading. Here, perhaps, he pondered the troubles Virginia and the other Colonies were having with England.
Since then almost every U.S. president has followed his footsteps to this pew at one time or another, usually on a Sunday near Washington's birthday - Feb. 22.
One of the most memorable visits came on Jan. 1, 1942, at a time when the planet was engulfed in war. Franklin Roosevelt sat here, too, in this same aisle seat, with Winston Churchill just to his left, to commemorate a World Day of Prayer.
Alexandria is a great place for history buffs. . . and shoppers. . . and gourmands. You should know about the history first - history you can see and feel. The place is steeped in it.
This is one of those places where George Washington really did sleep - right here in Alexandria in a little townhouse and just down the road as well at his plantation called Mount Vernon, where you can see the actual bed in which he died.
Robert E. Lee slept here, too, from the age of 9 until he went off to West Point in 1825.
This one-time river port on the Potomac, now a city caught up in the urban sprawl of Washington, D.C., was the ``hometown'' of both - Washington, the most prominent figure in our greatest national triumph, the Father of His Country; and Lee, the most beloved figure in our greatest national tragedy, the icon of the Lost Cause who cast his lot with his country, Virginia.
Interestingly, more than a common hometown binds these two historical figures. It almost requires a genealogical chart to follow.
In 1831 young Lt. Lee married Mary Anne Randolph Custis at a nearby hilltop plantation called Arlington. She was the only child of George Washington Parke Custis, who was both George Washington's step-grandson and his adopted son.
Arlington House would be the R.E. Lees' home until war engulfed the nation in 1861 - and Alexandria, just down the road, their hometown.
Today this city of 110,000 people is a mixture of historic charm and modern amenities. It encompasses a restored waterfront district called Old Town that offers an array of classy shops and trendy restaurants among countless 18th and 19th century landmarks; many comfortable, attractive, expensive residential neighborhoods; and an inside-the-Beltway collection of sleek, modern office buildings and hotels.
If either Washington or Lee returned ``home'' today, he would doubtless be able to find his way around Old Town. Both probably marvel at how well the new blends with the old. This is a city whose planners have taste.
In 1749, Washington, then a 17-year-old surveyor's apprentice, helped lay out the town that was to become a major port for the flourishing tobacco trade and later a social and political center. He drilled militia troops in market square as a 22-year-old lieutenant colonel and twice marched them westward - to get whipped by the French and Indians.
He built a townhouse at 508 Cameron St. in 1769 (it has been faithfully reconstructed), worshiped at Christ Church, purchased medicine at the Stabler-Leadbeater Apothecary Shop and patronized what is today called Gadsby's Tavern.
On his deathbed at Mount Vernon, Alexandria physicians attended him. His funeral service was given at the Old Presbyterian Meeting House (bad weather and mud streets made it impossible to get to Christ Church, only blocks away), and some of his personal effects are part of the collection at the 19th century George Washington Masonic National Memorial.
At Washington's death, three weeks before the close of the 18th century, Alexandria was a town of about 5,000 people, living on some 800 buildings (exclusive of servants' quarters), many of them of substantial brick construction, elegantly furnished by wealthy merchant princes. Across the river, the nation's capital that bore his name had but three substantial buildings - the White House, the Octagon House and the beginnings of the Capitol building - and lots of mud and swamps.
And George Washington remains Alexandria's senior patron saint. On Monday, the city will stage its annual Washington's Birthday Parade, the largest in the nation.
There were so many Lees living in and around Alexandria in the first half of the 19th century that some additional form of identification, particularly for the women, was necessary; ``Mrs. Lee'' would simply not be enough.
When Robert's mother, Ann, brought her young brood here from the Stratford plantation on Virginia's Northern Neck, she was called ``Mrs. H. Lee'' or ``Mrs. Harry'' or ``Mrs. General Lee.''
They lived first and briefly at 611 Oronoco, then moved to 607, a big brick house built in 1795 which today is open to visitors as the Boyhood Home of Robert E. Lee. Across the street at 614 is the Lee-Fendall House, a Greek Revival clapboard mansion, home to 37 members of the Lee family between 1785 and 1903. (Labor leader John L. Lewis owned the house and lived here from 1937 to 1969.)
Young Robert grew up here on Oronoco Street hardly knowing his father, ``Light-Horse Harry,'' the Revolutionary War cavalry leader and one-time governor of Virginia whose wild real estate speculation had led to debtor's prison and self-exile in the Caribbean.
Robert E. Lee, like Washington, worshipped at Christ Church, and he, too, patronized the Stabler-Leadbeater Apothecary Shop. Legend makes that shop, open today as a museum, the site of one of the defining moments in Lee's life. It is said that in his later years the only newspaper Lee read was from Alexandria, and that he chose it because it carried him ``back to old days.''
The Stabler-Leadbeater Apothecary Shop at 107 S. Fairfax is a drugstore that was in continuous operation from 1792 until the Depression forced its closing in 1933. For 141 years the two families produced tinctures, elixirs, potions, talcs, lotions, syrups and teas for healing as well as house paint and cleaning products. They also sold food items, wines and confections.
It's really a time capsule, probably the most important repository of its kind in America. Stored here are herbs and other medicinals that were gathered before the advent of DDT and other chemicals.
For example, drawer 59 contains witch hazel, an age-old remedy introduced by American Indians for external treatment of inflammatory conditions.
A wonderful, faintly medicinal smell still permeates the rooms.
Medicine bottles of all shapes, sizes and colors share shelf space with antique weights, scales and eyeglasses.
Records and correspondence include an order for Dr. Elisha Dick for Glauber Salts for use by George Washington in his final illness, one from Martha Washington in 1802 for castor oil and an entry made when Robert E. Lee ordered paint for Arlington House.
Other patrons include George Mason, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, Daniel Webster and John Jacob Astor.
A silver plaque on the counter near the front door marks the spot where Lt. Col. Lee was standing talking to Ned Leadbeater, grandson of the shop's founder, on Oct. 17, 1859, when Lee received word by messenger to report immediately to Gen. Winfield Scott at the War Department. The insurrectionist John Brown had seized the U.S. arsenal at Harper's Ferry and Scott wanted Lee to lead the troops - a company of U.S. Marines from the Washington Navy Yard and some militia - to subdue Brown.
The messenger, a young lieutenant named J.E.B. Stuart, had been hanging around the War Department waiting to see secretary John B. Floyd, a fellow Virginian, about a patent to hold a cavalry sabre. Stuart volunteered to take the message. He was told at Arlington House, according to the Stabler-Leadbeater legend, to look for Lee at the apothecary.
When Lee received the orders, he is supposed to have said to Ned Leadbeater, ``I am afraid this is only the beginning of more serious trouble.''
Which, of course, was very prophetic. In any case, it's a great story that seems to have been overlooked by historians.
There are several versions of how and where Lee, who was home on furlough from duty with the 2nd Cavalry in Texas, received his Harper's Ferry orders. Some of his most eminent biographers say he was at Arlington House. There's an old movie, a travesty of history called ``Santa Fe Trail'' (starring Ronald Reagan among others) that is often on television, which shows it happening at a military ball.
I spoke with University of Georgia history professor Emory M. Thomas, a Virginia native who has written the definitive biography of Stuart (``Bold Dragoon'') and has a biography of Lee coming out in early summer. He says the Stabler-Leadbeater story seems reasonable.
``We know,'' said Thomas, ``that Lee went immediately to the War Department and then on to Harper's Ferry and that he wore civilian clothes during the entire affair. Stuart did manage to find a partial uniform. Maybe this explains Lee's civilian clothes.
``It seems that if Lee had been at home at Arlington, he would have said something like, `Just a moment. Let me change into my uniform.' '' And if he were at the apothecary, Arlington House would not have been on the most direct route to Washington.''
Among other Alexandria highlights with Washington ties:
Gadsby's Tavern was where Washington and fellow patriots John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison hung out. It's really two taverns, one built in 1770 which was a center of political, business and social life in early Alexandria, and the adjacent 1792 City Hotel, whose ballroom became the site of the annual Birthnight Ball in Washington's honor. The general conducted the last review of his troops from the steps of the tavern in 1799.
The Gadsby museum has done a wonderful job of replicating tavern life - food of the day on the tables, broken dishes on the floor, straw matresses on the beds upstairs. The hotel houses a restaurant that duplicates the food, serving pieces, furniture and costumes of the period.
Carlyle House, once Alexandria's grandest home, was probably inspired by stone manor houses in Scotland and northern England. In 1755, British Gen. Edward Braddock used Carlyle House as headquarters, plotting there with five Colonial governors how to get the Colonists to pay for the French and Indian War. From there, Braddock marched off to get himself killed.
The George Washington Masonic National Monument stands as an imposing memorial to the Masons' most prominent member. The 333-foot tower rises atop Shooters Hill where Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton wanted to build the U.S. Capitol. (Washington nixed the location because with many business ties in the area, he didn't want to court accusations of conflict of interest.)
Down the George Washington Parkway, about eight miles, is Mount Vernon, the centerpiece of Washington's 8,000-acre working plantation, built in four stages on land he inherited in 1761.
Today the house and surrounding 30 acres of gardens and outbuildings are open to the public. Guides explain the decorative detail and the furnishings of the house as you move from room to room. The interior paint, authentically reproducted from flecks of the original, is striking: bold, vivid greens and blues that stop just short of garish.
There are self-guided tours of the outbuildings, gardens and George and Martha's tomb.
There's much more to Alexandria than its Washington and Lee history.
All of Old Town's historical sites are within yards of King Street, the main drag of contemporary Alexandria. It's reminiscent of the Georgetown area of Washington, but without the super-high prices, the heavy traffic and the impossible parking.
Restaurants, art galleries, antiques shops and boutiques line King Street and spill over into the intersecting streets. Prints and paintings, gift wines, crystal and porcelain. Neat stuff. Wonderful aromas emanate from restaurant doorways. From other doorways come the sounds of jazz, blues and country music.
The tree-lined brick sidewalks remain crowded well into the evening.
For Colonial architecture that will delight your eye, stroll down Captain's Row and Gentry Row. The 100 and 200 blocks of Prince Street, respectively, give you a feel for residential life in Old Town a couple of hundred years ago. Saint Asaph Street contains a stretch of wooden two-story Colonials of special interest, and there are probably more strange constructions called ``flounder houses'' in Alexandria than anywhere.
These narrow houses look like gabled houses cut in half. The tall side is always devoid of both windows and doors. There are at least three explanations, none conclusive.
Alexandria's most visited attraction, the Torpedo Factory Art Center, is a prime example of how the city builds on its past in innovative ways. The cavernous waterfront building was a government munitions factory through World War II.
Twenty years ago it was transformed into work and display space for some 160 artists, making it a sort of mammoth mall for one-stop creative shopping - a modern version of beating swords into plowshares. It's also home to Alexandria Archaeology, where you can watch volunteers piecing together the city's history one pot shard at a time. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
STEPHEN HARRIMAN
Robert E. Lee's boyhood home at 607 Oronoco St. in Alexandria is
open to visitors. The house was built in 1795.
Graphic
TRAVELER'S ADVISORY
ALEXANDRIA, A city of about 110,000, is about eight miles south
of Washington, D.C. It is within eight minutes of National Airport,
10 minutes of the Pentagon and 20 minutes of Capitol Hill. Its
historic heart called Old Town is an easily walkable area of about
eight blocks north to south by about six blocks east to west.
For more info: The best introduction to Alexandria is Ramsay
House Visitors Center (221 King St.) in Old Town Alexandria. Ramsay
House, the oldest house in Alexandria, was built by William Ramsay,
Alexandria's first postmaster and a close friend of George
Washington. Phone (703) 838-4200; TDD (703) 838-6494. Open daily 9
a.m. to 5 p.m. except Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day.
Ask about visitor parking pass.
The overall history of the city is told primarily in the newly
renovated Lyceum (201 S. Washington St.), which was Alexandria's
19th century intellectual and cultural center. The Alexandria Black
History Resource Center (638 N. Alfred St.), once a segregated
library, documents the trials and triumphs of African Americans from
1749 to the present. The center has published a walking-tour
brochure, also available at Ramsay House, of the significant sites
within former freedmen's districts of the city. Phone (703)
838-4356; open Tuesday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Virginia Tourism offers a free highway map and a travel guide
listing Virginia's attractions and accommodations; phone (800)
847-4882. For other lodging, Alexandria Accommodations makes
reservations for 11 top hotels in the city; phone (800) 296-1000.
Getting there: It is about a four-hour drive from South Hampton
Roads, via Interstate 64 and I-95; the quickest way to Old Town is
to follow the Capital Beltway east (I-95 and I-495) to exit 1 (north
on U.S. 1) and watch for signs to public parking and visitors
center.
Sites and tours: Walking tours of Old Town leave from Ramsay
House Monday to Saturday at 11 a.m., Sunday at 2 p.m. Adults, $3;
students ages 7 to 17, $1.50; children 6 and younger, free.
Stabler-Leadbeater Apothecary Shop, 105-107 S. Fairfax St.; (703)
836-3713. Open Monday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Sundays 1 to 5
p.m. Adults $2; children 11 to 17, $1; under 11, free.
Gadsby's Tavern Museum, 134 N. Royal St.; (703) 838-4242. Open
Tuesday to Saturday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Sunday, 1 to 4 p.m. Tours at
quarter before and quarter past the hour. Nominal admission fee.
Christ Church, 118 N. Washington at Cameron; (703) 549-1450. Open
to the public Monday to Saturday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Sunday, 2 to 4
p.m. Free.
Robert E. Lee's Boyhood Home, 607 Oronoco St.; (703) 548-8454.
Open to mid-December, Monday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Sunday
1 to 4 p.m.; closed Easter, Thanksgiving and some special occasions.
Open by appointment only mid-December through January. Adults, $3;
students 11 to 17, $1; children 10 and younger, free.
Lee-Fendall House, 614 Oronoco St.; (703) 548-1789. Open Tuesday
to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Sunday, noon to 4 p.m. Closed
Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Day and some special
occasions. Adults, $3; students, 11 to 17, $1; children 10 and
younger, free.
Torpedo Factory Art Center, 105 N. Union; (703) 838-4565. Open
daily, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
For Mount Vernon, take the George Washington Parkway (Washington
Street through Alexandria) south straight to Mount Vernon; about a
20-minute drive.
Mount Vernon is open daily year-round, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. November
through February; 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. March through October. Adults,
$7; 62 and over, $6; children ages 6 to 11, $3. Free on Monday, the
federal holiday now called Washington-Lincoln Day. Allow about two
hours for a tour of house and grounds. Expect long lines if you
visit between late spring and early fall. Info: (703) 780-2000.
Stephen Harriman
by CNB