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href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161122072933/https://alexandriahistoricalsociety.wildapricot.org/"> <span>Home</span> </a> </div> </li> <li class="dir"> <div class="itemContainer"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161122072933/https://alexandriahistoricalsociety.wildapricot.org/membership"> <span>Membership</span> </a> </div> <ul> <li class=""> <div class="itemContainer"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161122072933/https://alexandriahistoricalsociety.wildapricot.org/joinnow"> <span>Join Now</span> </a> </div> </li> </ul> </li> <li class="dir"> <div class="itemContainer"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161122072933/https://alexandriahistoricalsociety.wildapricot.org/aboutus"> <span>About Us</span> </a> </div> <ul> <li class="dir"> <div class="itemContainer"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161122072933/https://alexandriahistoricalsociety.wildapricot.org/page-1508096"> <span>Organization</span> </a> </div> <ul> <li class=""> <div class="itemContainer"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161122072933/https://alexandriahistoricalsociety.wildapricot.org/board"> <span>AHS Board</span> </a> </div> </li> <li class=""> <div class="itemContainer"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161122072933/https://alexandriahistoricalsociety.wildapricot.org/boardduties"> <span>Board of Directors Duties</span> </a> </div> </li> <li class=""> <div class="itemContainer"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161122072933/https://alexandriahistoricalsociety.wildapricot.org/boardprocedures"> <span>Executive Board Procedures</span> </a> </div> </li> <li class=""> <div class="itemContainer"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161122072933/https://alexandriahistoricalsociety.wildapricot.org/committees"> <span>Committees</span> </a> </div> </li> </ul> </li> <li class=""> <div class="itemContainer"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161122072933/https://alexandriahistoricalsociety.wildapricot.org/bylaws"> <span>Constitution & Bylaws</span> </a> </div> </li> <li class=""> <div class="itemContainer"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161122072933/https://alexandriahistoricalsociety.wildapricot.org/organizationhistory"> <span>History</span> </a> </div> </li> <li class=""> <div class="itemContainer"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161122072933/https://alexandriahistoricalsociety.wildapricot.org/contactus"> <span>Contact Us</span> </a> </div> </li> </ul> </li> <li class="dir"> <div class="itemContainer"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161122072933/https://alexandriahistoricalsociety.wildapricot.org/lecturesandevents"> <span>Lectures & Events</span> </a> </div> <ul> <li class=""> <div class="itemContainer"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161122072933/https://alexandriahistoricalsociety.wildapricot.org/eventcalendar"> <span>Event Calendar</span> </a> </div> </li> <li class=""> <div class="itemContainer"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161122072933/https://alexandriahistoricalsociety.wildapricot.org/videos"> <span>Videos</span> </a> </div> </li> </ul> </li> <li class="dir"> <div class="itemContainer"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161122072933/https://alexandriahistoricalsociety.wildapricot.org/publications"> <span>Publications</span> </a> </div> <ul> <li class=""> <div class="itemContainer"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161122072933/https://alexandriahistoricalsociety.wildapricot.org/chronicle"> <span>The Alexandria Chronicle</span> </a> </div> </li> <li class=""> <div class="itemContainer"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161122072933/https://alexandriahistoricalsociety.wildapricot.org/newsletter"> <span>Newsletter</span> </a> </div> </li> </ul> </li> <li class="dir"> <div class="itemContainer"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161122072933/https://alexandriahistoricalsociety.wildapricot.org/awards"> <span>Awards</span> </a> </div> <ul> <li class=""> <div class="itemContainer"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161122072933/https://alexandriahistoricalsociety.wildapricot.org/awardsoverview"> <span>Awards Overview and Criteria</span> </a> </div> </li> <li class=""> <div class="itemContainer"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161122072933/https://alexandriahistoricalsociety.wildapricot.org/tmichaelmilleraward"> <span>T. Michael Miller Alexandria History Award</span> </a> </div> </li> <li class=""> <div class="itemContainer"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161122072933/https://alexandriahistoricalsociety.wildapricot.org/specialaward"> <span>AHS Special Award</span> </a> </div> </li> <li class=""> <div class="itemContainer"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161122072933/https://alexandriahistoricalsociety.wildapricot.org/highschoolhistoryaward"> <span>Alexandria High School History Award</span> </a> </div> </li> </ul> </li> <li class="dir selected"> <div class="itemContainer"> <span>Alexandria's History</span> </div> <ul> <li class=""> <div class="itemContainer"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161122072933/https://alexandriahistoricalsociety.wildapricot.org/bibliography"> <span>Bibliography of Alexandria History</span> </a> </div> </li> </ul> </li> <li class=""> <div class="itemContainer"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161122072933/https://alexandriahistoricalsociety.wildapricot.org/links"> <span>Links</span> </a> </div> </li> </ul> </div> </div></div> </div> </div> </div> <div id="idContentContainer" class="cnContentContainer rootHasSubitems"> <div id="idBreadCrumbsContainer" data-componentid="BreadCrumbs" class="WaPlaceHolder cnBreadCrumbsContainer WaPlaceHolderBreadCrumbs" style=""><div style=""><div id="id_BreadcrumbsGadget" class="WaGadgetOnly WaGadgetBreadcrumbs gadgetStyle000" style="" data-componentid="5392fd28896e221898498466"><div class="" style="" data-areaheight="auto"> <ul> <li><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161122072933/https://alexandriahistoricalsociety.wildapricot.org/">Home</a></li> <li class="last">Alexandria's History</li> </ul> </div> </div></div> </div><div id="idContentTopShadow" class="cnContentTopShadow"> <div class="topleft"> <div class="topright"> <div class="topmid"><div class="inner"></div></div> </div> </div> </div> <div id="idContentLeftShadow" class="cnContentLeftShadow"> <div id="idContentRightShadow" class="cnContentRightShadow"> <div id="idContent" class="cnContent"> <div id="idInnerContent" class="cnInnerContent"> <div id="idPrimaryContentContainer" class="cnPrimaryContentContainer"> <div id="idPrimaryContentBlock1" class="cnPrimaryContentBlock1 block"> <div id="idPrimaryContentBlock1ContentHolder" class="cnPrimaryContentBlock1ContentHolder"> <div id="idPrimaryContentBlock1Content" data-componentid="Content" class="WaPlaceHolder cnPrimaryContentBlock1Content WaPlaceHolderContent" style=""><div style=""><div id="id_GhR1BXk" class="WaGadgetOnly WaGadgetContent WaLegacyContentGadget gadgetStyle000" style="margin-bottom:0px;" data-componentid="GhR1BXk"><div class="gadgetContentEditableArea" style="" data-editablearea="0" data-areaheight="auto"> <h3><span style="color: #800000;">Colonial Alexandria</span></h3>Alexandria was founded as a colonial town in 1749, more than forty years before Washington, D.C. even existed.  Its founding fathers included English nobleman Thomas, the sixth Lord Fairfax, baron of Cameron; Lawrence Washington, George Washington’s older half-brother; and John Carlyle, an up-and-coming merchant from a Scottish background.   All wanted to establish a town on the upper Potomac River as a place where goods coming by ship from Europe and the West Indies could be traded for tobacco and other products from western Virginia and beyond. George Washington developed a close relationship with Alexandria beginning in 1754 when he first made his home at Mount Vernon, eight miles south of town.  Alexandria was the closest town to Mount Vernon, and it soon became his hometown.  In 1766, he became a member of the Alexandria Trustees, then the town’s governing body. Before the city was more than six years old it played a key role in the beginning of the French and Indian War.  In 1755 General Edward Braddock’s roughly 1,300 British soldiers sailed into the Alexandria harbor straight from the British Isles and made the town their temporary headquarters.   Later as Braddock and his troops marched toward present-day Pittsburg, Pittsburgh, were massacred by French and Indian forces.  Before leaving Alexandria, however, they caused Alexandrians to become among the first Americans to suffer the arrogance of British officers and soldiers.  As John Carlyle wrote:  “. . .  they used us Like an Enemy Country: took everything they wanted & paid Nothing, or Very little for it.”  It was an arrogance that before long the citizens of many other colonial towns experienced, and it helped bring about the American Revolution. <div> <br>   <h3><span style="color: #800000;">Revolutionary War to Civil War</span></h3>During the Revolutionary War, ships from Alexandria dodged British warships as they sailed to the French island of Martinique to trade Alexandria goods for much-needed French arms.   After the war was over, Alexandria entered a golden age.  As George Washington’s cousin, Lund Washington, observed at the time: “The port of Alexandria has seldom less than 20 Square Rigged Sale of Vessels in it and often many more.”  Imported into the port of Alexandria were such highly desired goods as wine, olive oil, and raisins from Spain; dessert wines from Portugal; fine cloth, dressy frocks, and manufactured goods from England; tiles from Holland; and rum, sugar, turtles, and coffee from the West Indies. In addition, soon after the war ended, representatives of Maryland and Virginia, with the assistance of George Washington, met in Alexandria to resolve a disagreement concerning who controlled the Potomac River.   This interstate meeting was so successful that its example led, step by step, to the gathering in Philadelphia of representatives of all the new states. This gathering produced the United States Constitution. In 1801, Alexandria left Virginia to become part of the new District of Columbia with high expectations for continued prosperity.  Moving to Alexandria with his family in 1810 to share in the city’s prosperity and be closer to other Lee family members was General Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee, a cavalry general during the Revolutionary War.  Included in his family was three-year old Robert Edward Lee.  Young Robert Lee grew up in Alexandria, living in the town until he left to enter West Point at the age of 18. Alexandria’s prosperity was dealt a blow in August 1814 when portions of Washington D. C. were burned by an invading British Army during the War of 1812.  Alexandria itself surrendered to the British navy when its ships sailed up the Potomac River.  The navy occupied the town and looted warehouses paying nothing for what they took -- 1,000 hogsheads of tobacco, 150 bales of cotton, roughly 16,000 barrels of flour and $5,000 worth of wine, sugar, and other articles, and several ships moored in the harbor.  A number of Alexandrians and other United States forces extracted a small level of revenge days later when they fired upon the British ships as they sailed from Alexandria back down the Potomac.  The loss of goods and the act of surrender, however, damaged the town’s economy and its reputation. As the town was recovering, it suffered another catastrophe in January 1827.  A devastating fire consumed 53 of its homes and warehouses.  The damage could have been worse had it not been for a nimble circus performer from a show that happened to be in town.  He climbed the steepest roof in Alexandria, and supported by only a gutter, used a hose to apply generous amounts of water to nearby buildings, thus preventing the fire from spreading further. The town gradually did recover, due in part to the establishment in 1828 of a new, unsavory business venture, the slave trading firm of Franklin and Armfield.  The firm set up shop at 1315 Duke Street where John Armfield purchased slaves and sent them south by ship to Isaac Franklin in New Orleans to be sold.  Before disbanding in 1838, Franklin and Armfield had become the largest slave dealer in the United States.  A few years later, based in part on fear that slavery would be abolished in the District of Columbia, and thus in their city also, Alexandrians requested that all the District’s territory located on the Virginia side of the Potomac River be returned to the Commonwealth.  In 1846 Congress granted the request, and in 1847 Virginia’s General Assembly officially accepted Alexandria as again part of the Commonwealth. In the 1840s and 1850s Alexandria began to improve its connections with the west through canals and railroads.  New prosperity resulted.  In May 1861, however, that prosperity came to a halt when the Union army invaded Alexandria the day after Virginia seceded from the Union. During that invasion, the first Union army officer killed in the Civil War was shot as he descended the steps of a hotel in Alexandria after removing a Confederate flag from the hotel’s roof.  His slayer, the hotel’s proprietor and a hot-headed Southern sympathizer, was gunned down immediately afterwards. These events began four long years of Alexandria’s occupation by the Union army.  During that time Alexandria became one of the largest military logistical centers in the United States.  In running this center, the Union army cared only to defeat the Confederate South, and it had minimal concern for the welfare of Alexandria. <div> <br>   <h3><span style="color: #800000;">Reconstruction to World War II</span></h3>As a result, at the end of the war, the city’s businesses had been destroyed, its financial resource severely limited, and its citizens demoralized.  In addition, many former slaves fled to the city during the war, and they often were unprepared for freedom.  The city thus faced two major tasks: bringing new life to the city’s economy and determining how white and black people in Alexandria would live. Alexandrians sought economic recovery by increasing the production of their existing manufacturing concerns and attracting new, large manufacturers who would produce goods for shipment to extensive markets.  Slowly they were successful.  Between 1899 and 1909, manufacturing in Alexandria increased by the largest percentage of any city in Virginia, led by large producers of fertilizer, leather, bottles, and beer (in one year, 1895, the local Robert Portner Brewing Company produced roughly 3.1 million gallons of beer.). The second task also was difficult, but the outcome was not so beneficial.  Once reconstruction ended in Virginia in January 1870, control of Alexandria and the Commonwealth soon returned to its conservative white citizens.  By the end of the nineteenth century, Alexandria was firmly a Jim Crow city of separation of the races in public facilities from schools to drinking fountains. By 1930, manufacturing in Alexandria had faded.  The Depression further hurt Alexandria’s economy, but its proximity to Washington was beginning to point to new ways of prospering.  A wave of federal workers arriving in Washington to help implement President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal found they could buy old houses in what soon would be called Old Town, restore them, and have a good, comfortable home close to where they worked.  Also, to attract tourists, Alexandrians expanded advertisement of their city’s colonial heritage, historic buildings, and connections to George Washington. In August 1939, Jim Crow racial separation was challenged by possibly the nation’s first sit-in civil rights demonstration.  The sit-in took place at the all-white Alexandria public library and was led by African American attorney Samuel W. Tucker. In December 1941, the United States was attacked at Pearl Harbor, and Alexandria, like the rest of the United States, went to war.  The city’s first casualty was a seaman aboard a Standard Oil tanker torpedoed by a German submarine off the North Carolina coast in February 1942.  (During the war, 101 Alexandrians were lost to enemy action.)  With one of the nation’s largest railroad marshaling yards and a factory producing torpedoes within its boundaries, Alexandria was especially active during the war. From as far away as Mississippi and Wyoming, people poured into the city to work on the railroad and in the factory. <div> <br>   <h3><span style="color: #800000;">Post-World War II</span></h3>When the war ended, a central concern of Alexandrians was which aspects of their city to change and which to preserve.   Racial segregation was a part of city life that some citizens strongly wanted to change and others vehemently wanted to preserve.  An effort began at the end of the 1950s to integrate Alexandria’s schools, an effort that did not end until the mid-1970s.  Along the way, it produced the memorable high school championship integrated football team of 1971 that became the subject of the movie “Remember the Titans.”  Also, conflicting movements to renovate, and to preserve, elements of the city center and waterfront stirred Alexandrians’ emotions and led to frequent contests before the city’s Board of Architectural Review, the City Council, and local and federal courts.   Those movements produced Alexandria as it appears today. Alexandrians have faced all of these challenges – occupying armies, commercial failures, and social upheaval – and overcome them.  It now is a flourishing city that values its historic waterfront, its old and historic buildings, stories of its eventful past, and its social, artistic, and economic vitality. To find out more details about the story of Alexandria read our <a title="The Alexandria Chronicle Archives" href="/web/20161122072933/https://alexandriahistoricalsociety.wildapricot.org/publications/alexandria-chronicle-archives/"><i>Alexandria Chronicle</i></a>, view <a title="Publications" href="/web/20161122072933/https://alexandriahistoricalsociety.wildapricot.org/publications/" target="_blank">other Alexandria historical publications</a>, visit the <a title="Related Links" href="/web/20161122072933/https://alexandriahistoricalsociety.wildapricot.org/related-links/" target="_blank">related links</a> page, and click on the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161122072933/http://alexandriava.gov/historic/" target="_blank">Office of Historic Alexandria</a>. </div> </div> </div></div> </div></div> </div></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div id="idContentBottomLeftShadow" class="cnContentBottomLeftShadow"> <div id="idContentBottomRightShadow" class="cnContentBottomRightShadow"> <div id="idContentBottom" class="cnContentBottom"><div class="inner"></div></div> </div> </div> <div id="idFooterSeparatorTopCorners" class="cornersContainer cnFooterSeparatorTopCorners"><div class="topCorners"><div class="c1"></div><div class="c2"></div><div class="c3"></div><div class="c4"></div><div class="c5"></div></div> </div> <div id="idFooterSeparator" class="cnFooterSeparator"><div class="d1"> <div class="d2"> <div class="d3"> <div class="d4"> <div class="d5"> <div class="d6"> <div class="d7"> <div class="d8"> <div class="d9"> <div class="inner"> </div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div> <div id="idFooterSeparatorBottomCorners" class="cornersContainer cnFooterSeparatorBottomCorners"><div class="bottomCorners"><div class="c5"></div><div class="c4"></div><div class="c3"></div><div class="c2"></div><div class="c1"></div></div> </div> <div id="idFooterContainerTopCorners" class="cornersContainer cnFooterContainerTopCorners"><div class="topCorners"><div class="c1"></div><div class="c2"></div><div class="c3"></div><div class="c4"></div><div class="c5"></div></div> </div> <div id="idFooterContainer" class="cnFooterContainer"><div class="d1 d1FooterContainer"> <div class="d2 d2FooterContainer"> <div class="d3 d3FooterContainer"> <div class="d4 d4FooterContainer"> <div class="d5 d5FooterContainer"> <div class="d6 d6FooterContainer"> <div class="d7 d7FooterContainer"> <div class="d8 d8FooterContainer"> <div class="d9 d9FooterContainer"> <div class="inner innerFooterContainer"> <div id="idFooterContentHolder" data-componentid="Footer" class="WaPlaceHolder footerContentHolder cnFooterContentHolder WaPlaceHolderFooter" style=""><div style=""><div id="idFooterContent" class="WaGadgetOnly WaGadgetContent footerContent gadgetStyle000" style="margin-bottom:0px;" data-componentid="W8gGzYP"><div class="gadgetContentEditableArea" style="" data-editablearea="0" data-areaheight="auto"> <span id="idFooterDefaultText">© Alexandria Historical Society</span></div> </div></div> </div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div> <div id="idFooterContainerBottomCorners" class="cornersContainer cnFooterContainerBottomCorners"><div class="bottomCorners"><div class="c5"></div><div class="c4"></div><div class="c3"></div><div class="c2"></div><div class="c1"></div></div> </div> <div id="idFooterPoweredByContainer" class="cnFooterPoweredByContainer"> <div class="d1"> <div class="d2"> <div class="d3"> <div class="d4"> <div class="d5"> <div class="d6"> <div class="d7"> <div class="d8"> <div class="d9"> <div class="inner"> <span id="idFooterPoweredByWA" class="cnFooterPoweredByWA"> Powered by <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161122072933/http://www.wildapricot.com/" target="_blank">Wild Apricot</a> Membership Software</span> </div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div> </div> <div id="idCustomJsContainer" class="cnCustomJsContainer"> <script type="text/javascript"> try { var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-37978978-1']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 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