BGuthrie Photos: VA -- Alexandria

VA -- Alexandria:

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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. ALEX_170327_003.JPG: Christ Church 118 N. Washington Street Before the American Revolution, the Church of England was the established church of Virginia and part of the colonial government. For administrative purposes, the colony was divided into "parishes" and all residents paid taxes to maintain church activities. Although Virginia was colonized in 1607, settlement northward moved slowly and Alexandria was not established until 1749. By 1753, Alexandria had a "chapel of ease" to provide a place of worship for residents closer than the main Anglican church seven miles west. In 1765, a new parish in northern Virginia was created, and the inadequate buildings at Falls Church and Alexandria were replaced. Two new churches, designed by James Wren, were built in each town from one set of plans, and completed just before the Revolutionary War. After the war, government support of religious institutions ended but Alexandria's Christ Church, located one block north, prospered with the support of area residents like George Washington and the clerical leadership of David Griffith, Bryan Fairfax, and William Meade. On April 21, 1861, after resigning his commission in the United States Army, Robert E. Lee attended Sunday morning services at the church. During the Civil War, when the Union Army occupied Alexandria, it seized many churches for use as hospitals or stables. Fortunately, as George Washington's place of worship, Christ Church was largely preserved with its interior intact. After the war ended, in 1869, a Mother's Mission to assist poor women in the area was established, and three years later, parishioner Sallie Stuart led efforts to create missions of the newly formed National Woman's Auxiliary to the Board of Missions throughout Virginia. Throughout our nation's history, Christ Church has been visited by many American Presidents and world leaders. On January 1, 1942, just weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill visited the church to commemorate the World Day of Prayer for Peace. The church is open for worship and public tours.
2. ALEX_170327_024.JPG: R. E. Lee Camp Hall 806 Prince Street Just one block south of this location, at 806 Prince Street, a Classic Greek Revival residence with Italianate influences was built in 1852 as the residence of Dr. Parson Johnson. During the Civil War, Union troops seized the large dwelling and converted it into a hospital for the many sick and wounded troops that had overwhelmed Alexandria's health care capacity. In 1903, the building was acquired as the hall of the R. E. Lee Camp Confederate Veterans, which had been established in 1884 and named in honor of local son Robert E. Lee. Lee fondly wrote of Alexandria, "There is no community to which my affections more strongly cling than that of Alexandria, composed of my earliest and oldest friends, my kind school fellows and faithful neighbors." Among those friends and neighbors were the men who had served in the 17th Virginia Regiment and founded the R.E. Lee Camp. Today, the Mary Custis Lee 17th Virginia Regiment Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy owns and operates the R. E. Lee Camp Hall museum at the site, which is open to the public periodically on select days. The museum contains many fascinating artifacts associated with Alexandria's Civil War period, including several associated with Lee and his family. Collection items at the museum include stirrups once owned by J.E.B. Stuart, and Lee's wartime campaign chair, a wooden directors-style chair. Also on view is a cobalt blue finger bowl from Arlington House, the ancestral home of Lee's wife, Mary Custis, which was confiscated by Union troops at the start of the war and later developed into Arlington National Cemetery. Several items were presented to the Camp by Lee's son, George Washington Custis Lee, after his successful lawsuit to regain ownership of the Arlington property, which he eventually sold back to the U.S. government. In 1889, the R.E. Lee Camp commissioned a statue named "Appomattox" to mark the nearby intersection of South Washington and Prince Streets where the local militia hastily departed Alexandria on the morning of May 24, 1861 as Union troops invaded the city. The statue depicts a Confederate soldier viewing the forlorn battlefields of the South, after the surrender at Appomattox. On its base are inscribed the names of Alexandrians killed during the war.
3. ALEX_170327_047.JPG: Barrett Library 717 Queen Street The Alexandria Library's Kate Waller Barrett Branch (2 blocks north, 1 block east) and the Alexandria Black History Museum (6 blocks north) have an unusual shared history. The library building was constructed in 1938 and named for Dr. Kate Waller Barrett, a noted Alexandria resident and national social activist. But at the time of its construction, public facilities in Alexandria were segregated and African Americans, whose taxes helped to support the library, were not permitted to use the new facility. The following year, decades before the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, 26 year-old Alexandria attorney Samuel Wilbur Tucker organized a small group of African American men to participate in what is believed to be the first "sit-down" demonstration in the United States. On August 21, 1939, five young, well dressed African American men entered the library and requested library cards. When their requests were denied, they each took a book from the stacks, sat down and started to read. The men participating in the quiet, non-violent demonstration were soon arrested, but as police removed them from the building, Tucker had cleverly arranged for press photographers to be on the sidewalk outside, thereby assuring national coverage. Alexandria Black History Museum 902 Wythe Street As a result of these actions, the city built the segregated and clearly unequal, Robert H. Robinson Library in 1940. This small building now forms the historic anchor of the Alexandria Black History Museum. Since 1985, the museum has presented exhibitions and programs relating to African American culture, the history of the African Diaspora and the significant role that African Americans have always played in the history and development of Alexandria. The museum continues to be a vital force for equality in Alexandria, and well-known authors, performers, and civil rights activists routinely participate in museum programs. The Alexandria Library and Alexandria Black History Museum continue to serve a diverse Alexandria community, and are vibrant public resources highlighting the city's cultural landscape.
4. ALEX_170327_055.JPG: Friendship Firehouse 107 S. Alfred Street In an 18th century town of mostly wooden buildings, where open flames provided heat, light and cooking on a daily basis, Alexandrians constantly faced the danger of fire. Water to fight fires had to be carried in buckets from nearby wells, town pumps, or creeks. Early fire apparatus allowed water to be hand-pumped and sprayed into a building or onto its roof, hopefully preventing it from spreading to the houses next door. However, the engines were not very powerful and had to be pulled by hand to the fire by hard-working volunteers. The Friendship Fire Company was established in 1774 as the first firefighting organization in Alexandria, and their equipment was stored at Market Square. As Alexandria grew, other fire companies formed, and Friendship moved to a new firehouse on Alfred Street that survives today as the Friendship Firehouse Museum, one half block south. Volunteers of Friendship, Sun, Relief, Hydraulion and other local fire companies served the city faithfully for decades, particularly during enormous blazes in 1827, 1855, 1871, and 1922. Over time, as buildings grew taller, the old volunteer companies were replaced by a paid professional fire department. The Friendship Firehouse was built in 1855 and substantially remodeled in 1871, when a huge steeple was replaced by a lower cupola, topped with a firefighter weathervane. In 1992, the Friendship Veterans Fire Engine Association gifted the building to the City of Alexandria, and it is now open to the public.
5. ALEX_170327_076.JPG: Carver School 224 N. Fayette Street 05 Carver School sign (click for larger image)Just two blocks north of this location along Fayette Street (named for the Marquis de Lafayette who visited Alexandria in 1824), near the southwest corner of Queen Street, stood the Old Powder House, dating from 1791 -1809. On the same spot, the Carver School, an African American nursery school, was built in 1944 and restored in 2014. The Powder House structure was built in a rural area far outside Alexandria in the late 18th century due to the dangers associated with the storage of gunpowder in populated areas. In January 1791, the Common Council passed an ordinance notifying the inhabitants of Alexandria that "...a house is now ready for the reception of powder under the care of Mr. John Yost..." and required that all gunpowder be deposited at that location within one week. Seven months later, a more permanent structure was required and in July of the same year the Council offered a contract to construct "...a powder house on ground belonging to Charles Alexander, Esq. near the Rope Walk. The building is to be made of brick 16 feet wide, 30 feet long, 10 feet high in the clear and 18 inch walls. The bricks may be made on the spot." The 20-year lease between Charles Alexander and the City stipulated that payment was to be made each December, consisting of one ear of Indian corn. By 1806, the prospering city had grown within 100 yards of the building and three years later, a new powder house was built further west near Shuter's Hill. The Carver School and The American Legion The wood-frame Carver School was built at the same location in 1944, under the auspices of National Defense Housing Act of 1941. Using federal funds offered during World War II, the school operated as a segregated school for African American children. By February 1946, when federal support began to decline, the two professional teachers at the school, Lucille G. Smith and Velma D. Leigh, were notified that they must assume all janitorial duties at the school including cleaning the building and maintaining the furnaces each day. When it became clear that white instructors working in other Alexandria schools were not subjected to this order, the teachers resigned within several days. The school closed in 1950 and the building became the William Thomas branch (Post 129) of the American Legion, named after the first African American from Alexandria to die in battle during World War I. By 2010, the building was vacant and neglected and was finally preserved in 2014 after a close call with demolition
6. ALEX_170327_090.JPG: Port City Historically, Alexandria's development moved from east to west, and three distinct areas of the city have unofficially been known as the "West End." The first West End ended at Shuter's Hill, the current site of the George Washington Masonic National Memorial. In the 1930's, the second West End extended to Quaker Lane, about two miles west of the Memorial. The final West End moved about four miles further west in 1952, to an area just beyond what is now Beauregard Street. Interestingly, each area has been so identified not only by its geographical proximity to the rest of the city, but also its association with separate families, all named West. Commerce Street was a rare diagonal street in Alexandria's first West End, which connected Duke and King Streets at an angle. Further west in Fairfax County, Duke Street changes its name to Little River Turnpike, an early colonial road that originally linked Northern Virginia's vast agricultural lands with Alexandria, also known as "Port City," on the Potomac. Wagons filled with tobacco, wheat, corn and other grains traversed this road on their way to the waterfront warehouses and docks. In 1793, Alexandria ranked as the third largest exporter of wheat and grains in the United States, and by 1797, it had become the 7th largest port in the United States. The short angled passage at Commerce Street was created and named specifically to facilitate commerce and trade in the growing city by eliminating the need for farm wagons to make sharp right angle turns within the city's existing street grid. Land for the street was conveyed to the town on January 1, 1798, by John Dundas, Abraham Faw and Francis Peyton to allow for construction of the roadway, thereby allowing the large wagons to maintain their speed and make gradual turns while heading to the waterfront.
7. ALEX_170327_130.JPG: Alexandria, D.C. Alexandria was established by Virginia's colonial assembly in 1749, over four decades before the U.S. Congress authorized creation of a national capital on the banks of the Potomac River. Once the final site for the Federal city was selected by President George Washington, part of Alexandria was incorporated into the District of Columbia in 1801. To mark the new capital's boundaries, large stones were set in a ten-mile square at one mile intervals by Andrew Ellicott, assisted by men such as African American astronomer Benjamin Banneker. At first, Alexandrians welcomed the town's inclusion into Washington, D.C., but residents soon became disillusioned. Provisions of the 1791 Act creating the District precluded the construction of any Federal buildings south of the Potomac River. Furthermore, the 1801 District Act disenfranchised the local populace, who could not vote in presidential elections nor have representation in Congress. Discussions about possibly outlawing slavery in the District also provided a strong impetus to retrocede Alexandria, a major slave trading center, to Virginia. In July 1846, the U.S. Congress voted to permit the retrocession upon referendum and, once approved, the land was formally accepted back by the Commonwealth of Virginia a year later. Boundary Stones The first and southernmost boundary stone was set at Alexandria's Jones Point, and four more such stones still exist within the city.
8. ALEX_170327_133.JPG: Benjamin Banneker Jones Point boundary stone
9. ALEX_170327_136.JPG: Boundary Stones
10. ALEX_170327_146.JPG: Freedom House Museum 1315 Duke Street The building at 1315 Duke Street, two blocks south of here, was originally built around 1812 as a residence for General Robert Young, commander of Alexandria's militia, who died in 1824. This three-story brick building then became the headquarters for one of the largest slave traders in America. In 1828, Isaac Franklin and John Armfield formed a partnership to facilitate the interstate slave trade. Though importation of slaves was outlawed in 1808, the domestic trade flourished. As the need for slave labor in northern tobacco regions decreased in the 1820's, demand grew in the Cotton Belt. Traders took advantage of this trend, acquiring slaves who were then shipped south where they could demand a much higher price. It is estimated that in the 1830s, Franklin and Armfield saw profits of more than $100,000 per year from the domestic slave trade. Franklin and Armfield began to withdraw from trading in the late 1830s and by 1858, their old slave pen operated as Price, Birch, and Co. Abandoned at the start of the Civil War, the building then served as a Union jail. Today the building is owned by the Northern Virginia Urban League, which opened the Freedom House Museum in 2008 to educate visitors about slavery. The building is dedicated to Rev. Lewis Henry Bailey -- a former slave who was sold through the slave pen to a family in Texas. Freed in 1863, he walked back to Alexandria and founded several churches and schools in Virginia, still in existence today.
Wikipedia Description: Alexandria, Virginia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Alexandria is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 128,283. Located along the Western bank of the Potomac River, Alexandria is approximately 6 miles (9.6 kilometers) south of downtown Washington, D.C.

Like the rest of Northern Virginia, as well as central Maryland, modern Alexandria has been shaped by its proximity to the nation's capital. It is largely populated by professionals working in the federal civil service, the U.S. military, or for one of the many private companies which contract to provide services to the federal government. The latter are known locally as beltway bandits, after the Capital Beltway, an interstate highway that circles Washington, D.C. One of Alexandria's largest employers is the U.S. Department of Defense. Others include the Institute for Defense Analyses and the Center for Naval Analyses. In 2005, the United States Patent and Trademark Office moved 7,100 employees from 18 separate buildings in nearby Crystal City into a new headquarters complex in the city.

Alexandria is home to numerous associations, charities, and non-profit organizations including the national headquarters of groups such as the Salvation Army. In 2005, Alexandria became one of the first cities of its size to offer free wireless internet access to some of its residents and visitors.

The historic center of Alexandria is known as Old Town. It is a major draw for tourists and those seeking nightlife. Like Old Town, many Alexandria neighborhoods are high-income suburbs of Washington D.C.

It is the seventh largest and highest income independent city in Virginia. A 2005 assessed-value study of homes and condominiums found that over 40 percent were in the highest bracket, worth $556,000 or more.
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