Seaport in Virginia Part 12

Previous to this, in 1785, Lund Was.h.i.+ngton's ledger reveals that he had received 40 from Dr. Brown on account of Gen^l Was.h.i.+ngton for "Rent of House in Alexandria."[118] In the General's own account ledger he refers to Dr. Brown's rent as having been fixed by "M^r L^d Was.h.i.+ngton at 60 a year for My House," and the sum is cancelled due to advances made by Dr.

Brown and for professional services.[119]

In July 1783, Dr. Brown purchased from John Mills the white clapboard house that has been identified as his Alexandria home. He purchased twenty-six additional feet south on Fairfax Street adjoining his dwelling house, from Robert Townshend Hooe and Richard Harrison, merchants, on July 10, 1790. This property became his garden.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Dr. William Brown's clapboard residence]

An Alexandria tradition and the Brown family belief is that the house was built by him prior to the Revolution. It is, indeed, very old and probably dates between 1757, when the property was mortgaged by William Ramsay to John Dixon of White Haven, England, and 1783, when the property was sold to Dr. William Brown by John Mills, for the sum of 280, indicating a substantial structure. There was at least one house on lot No. 65, and Dr. Brown's house is the only one standing on that lot today at all indicative of a pre-Revolutionary dwelling. If the house was not built by Ramsay, the probability is that it was built by Mills between 1777 and 1783, which is doubtful, as building during the Revolution was so difficult as to make it almost impossible.

The home of the young Browns was the gathering place for the elite of Alexandria and the countryside. The Was.h.i.+ngtons dined and pa.s.sed the evening frequently. The Blackburns came often from Rippon Lodge, the Brown cousins from Port Tobacco, and of course Dr. Craik from around the corner. Colonel Fitzgerald, Colonel Swope, and Colonel Lyles were all near neighbors.

The Doctor was a man of fine attainments. Active in the church, he served as vestryman at Christ Church; public spirited, he was the moving force in the founding of the Sun Fire Company; and the Alexandria academy was largely his idea. It was in great part due to his efforts that Was.h.i.+ngton was aroused to take an active part in this project, to contribute 50 annually, and at his death to will 1,000 to this inst.i.tution.

At the outbreak of the war with England, Was.h.i.+ngton showed his confidence by appointing Dr. Brown Physician-General and Director of Hospitals of the Continental Army. He served throughout the Revolution.

Brown wrote and published the first _American Pharmacopoeia_ in 1778, "For the sake of expedition and accuracy in performing the Practice, and also to introduce a degree of uniformity therein throughout the several hospitals," the t.i.tle pages read.

It was due to hards.h.i.+ps suffered at Valley Forge that he died in 1792 at the age of forty-four years. The following notice appeared in the _Virginia Gazette and Alexandria Advertiser_ for Thursday, January 19, 1792:

On Friday, last, after a tedious and excrutiating illness, the iron hand of relentless Death arrested and hurried that amiable citizen, DR. WILLIAM BROWN, to the World of Spirits, "from whence no Traveller returns!" All the love we bore him could not add one "supernumerary gasp." He long felt the approaches of vital dissolution--no vain laments--but sustained it with religious intrepidity, such as marks the dignity of a Christian Hero.

He felt the force of Republican Principles early in life, and stept forth, in the infancy of the American war, to oppose the British King.--How often have I heard him, with the ardour of a Patriot, expatiate on the firmness and virtues of a Hampden and a Sidney!

Viewing with horror the piteous situation of our virtuous and wounded Soldiery--the derangement of the hospitals and medical department--he relinquished his domestic ease and lucrative employment, and offered his services to the Continental Congress. They were accepted--How he conducted the interesting and important charge, the testimony of that respectable body and his grateful country have long declared. Having arranged and reformed the const.i.tution of the army allocated to his care, and reduced the wild and extravagant practice to system and order, he left the service, and resumed his vocation in this Town; in which he discovered the most exemplary tenderness, and unusual depth of professional knowledge. He was sagacious by nature, inquisitive and comprehensive, improved by study, and refined by sentiment. He was equalled by few in the social and domestic virtues of politeness and benevolence. He was the accomplished Gentleman, and finished Scholar--the best of Husbands, and the best of Parents. The Poor and needy ever experienced the humanity of his tender and sympathetic soul. He was a man to hear "Afflicktion's cry." The loss of so much charity, friends.h.i.+p and beneficence but claims the tributary tear; But, temper your grief, ye pensive Relatives, and afflicted Friends--

"The toils of life and pangs of death are O'er; And care, and pain, and sickness are no more."

He is gone, we fondly hope, to chant anthems of praise to an approving G.o.d! Though the struggles of nature are agonizing and prevailing, yet disturb not his gentle shade by impa.s.sioned woe!--"The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Hall and stairway in Dr. Brown's House]

There are not many reminders left of the good Doctor. In the Library of Congress a few bills rendered to Colonel John Fitzgerald for outfitting s.h.i.+ps' medicine boxes and attending sick sailors; a letter from one Thomas Bond of Philadelphia written in April 1784 to Colonel Fitzgerald stating that his brother "goes to Virginia to study Physic under Dr.

Brown." In the Virginia State Library is a tax report showing that for the year 1784 he owned eight slaves and one cattle, and that in 1789 the Doctor had three blacks and two horses. The minutes he wrote as clerk and treasurer of the Sun Fire Company are preserved and, of course, a few copies of his _Pharmacopoeia_.

The Dr. William Brown house stands today much as it stood during his lifetime. Architecturally and historically it is one of the most interesting in Alexandria. No great house, this modest home built of white clapboard over brick and sitting close to the ground, rises two and one-half stories, hiding behind its stout doorway some of the best and certainly the most original woodwork in the old town.

One enters a s.p.a.cious hall, the wide board floors of which are worn with the pa.s.sing of many years, and colored by use and time a deep amber.

Running around the hall is paneled wainscoting in alternating vertical and horizontal panels. The stairway rises from about the middle of the hall in easy steps to the second floor, the spindles are rather primitive and the entire stairway has a provincial air. The white bal.u.s.ter rail is matched by a handrail and supported by half a matching newel post; wherever the cornice breaks, it turns against itself. An amusing feature, one found sometimes in old houses, is an inside window opening from the back drawing room into the hallway.

If the stair is simple, certainly the woodwork in the upstairs front room is most ambitious. Mantel, overmantel and matching cupboards cover one entire wall, the chimney end of the room. The mantel is flanked by two fluted pilasters, reaching from floor to denticulated cornice. Above the shelf is a rectangular dog-eared panel, in each of the four ears of which is a rosette. Under the shelf, oblong panels carry out the same design, divided by a carved half urn. The shelf is supported by consoles and decorated by a fret that returns around the urn. The cupboards on each side of the mantel have, at the top, circular gla.s.s doors, surmounted by an arch and keystone. The bottom doors are wood paneled.

The remainder of the woodwork is conventional, plain chair rail, baseboard and trim.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Dr. Brown's upstairs parlor]

The kitchen with its Dutch oven in the great brick chimney; the large fireplace where the old crane still hangs st.u.r.dily enough to support Mrs. Brown's best dinner, are in an excellent state of preservation. One is intrigued by some very ancient and peculiar waterworks that formed a part of the sanitary equipment in the culinary department and which function to this day. There is a heavy hand-hewn stone sink and a copper caldron with its own firebox and ashpit. Formerly a large oaken bathtub stood in the back room off the kitchen and the water heated in the copper caldron was available to both rooms. An old bra.s.s spigot that served the bathtub remains.

At Dr. Brown's death the house pa.s.sed to his widow. She left it in trust for her daughter, Sarah Maynadier, and the Maynadier grandchildren at her death in 1813. The house remained in the Maynadier family until April 26, 1842, when the property was purchased by James Green for seventeen hundred dollars. In 1940, the present owners, the Honorable and Mrs. H.R. Tolley, acquired the property.

Dr. Brown's home has fallen into sympathetic hands. Today Queen Anne chairs and piecrust tables grace the parlor. From the hall comes the vibrating tick-tock of a fine old clock. Logs blaze cheerfully in open fireplaces, the flames reflected in old and polished silver. The hall window frames Catherine Brown's garden, which is divided into three sections, one shut off from the other by wall or fence, making private living areas of each. Old trees, brick walks, ivy and flowering shrubs add their attractions. A tall brick smokehouse stands sentinel, all that remains of a number of outbuildings which cl.u.s.tered, village fas.h.i.+on, about the dwelling.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Dr. William Brown. From a miniature.

(_Courtesy Mrs. Bessie Wilmarth Gahn_)]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Chapter 9

The Peruke Shop

[405 Prince Street. Owners: The Moore Family.]

This house is completely surprising. Many years ago the owners put on a new pressed-brick front and changed the sash from the usual small lights to two single lights of large dimensions. The transition from this 1890 front to an eighteenth century interior in a perfect state of preservation, produces upon one crossing the threshold the sensation of walking straight through the looking gla.s.s. And whither does the looking gla.s.s lead? Right into the parlors of Mr. William Sewell!

The stairway rises on the far side of a fine arch in the entrance hall.

Halfway up, it becomes obscured from view, leaving one gazing at a paneled ceiling, as it makes an abrupt about-face. The rooms on the second floor are quaint. Low-pitched, sloping ceilings, off-center mantels with odd panels and chimney closets and six-paneled doors with H&L hinges, are amusing as well as charming.

Two parlors on the ground floor, opening off the hall, are formal and elegant. Fine paneled chimney b.r.e.a.s.t.s dominate these rooms. Dentils and fret trim cornices and mantels. Chair rails, six-panel doors, wide board pine floors, and double doors opening flat against the walls, making the two rooms into one, are found here. In the front room the interesting feature is a Franklin stove set in the fireplace--quite the last word in comfort in the 1780s.

On July 14, 1749 the Reverend John Moncure bought lot No. 61 for 5 _9s._ On March 28, 1752, the deed for this property was filed at Fairfax Court House and described as lot No. 61, a half acre of land on Royal and Prince Streets, as surveyed and platted by John West. Two years later, June 15, 1754, the Reverend John Moncure, along with other gentlemen of prominence in the colony, lost his lot for having failed to comply with the directions of the a.s.sembly to build thereon within three years. The following September there took place an auction of these forfeited lots, and No. 61 pa.s.sed to William Sewell for 5 7_s._ 6_d._

At a court held at Fairfax, on April 18, 1759, with five gentlemen justices presiding; _to wit_, John Carlyle, John West Jun., John Hunter, Robert Adam, and William Bronaugh:

William Sewell brings into court his servant Elizabeth McNot for having a base born child. Ordered that she serve for the same one year and she agrees to serve her said master six months in consideration of his paying her fine.[120]

Thus out of the mist of one hundred and ninety years emerges again the dim figure of William Sewell. And who, pray, was William Sewell?

Peruke-maker! So called in a deed of trust dated 1766, "William Sewell Peruke Maker," and Elizabeth, his wife. The same Elizabeth?

Nearly two hundred years have pa.s.sed since William dressed a wig or powdered a head, but if these parlors were his shop, and certainly they were, all the gentry in the town waited his pleasure here. Visitors who came to Alexandria and took part in the b.a.l.l.s testified to the elegance of the ladies' apparel (almost always) and a lady to be elegant must have a well dressed head. It was rare, too, to see a gentleman without his peruke. William must have had a very large business. One likes to think that Major Was.h.i.+ngton dealt with Sewell, and it is not difficult to imagine on ball evenings Mrs. Carlyle's maid rus.h.i.+ng in, making a hasty curtsy and breathlessly demanding Madam's wig; or perhaps Mrs.

Fairfax's maid presents Mrs. Fairfax's compliments and "Please, will Mr.

Sewell come at two o'clock to dress Mistress Fairfax's hair?" Nor, is it difficult to picture William, when the shop day is over, with his apprentices bent over the fine net, meticulously crocheting, by candlelight, the white hair into a lofty creation that will, in about six months time, take a lady's breath away.

Alas! Alack! Peruke-making and hair-dressing were not all they ought to be. Poor William owed a lot of money. He was indebted with interest to John Carlyle and John Dalton for 42 15_s._ 7_d._; William Ramsay for 83 14_s._ 4_d._; John Muir for 23 7_s._ 9_d._--all merchants of Alexandria. But that was not all; the Kingdom of Great Britain was concerned. He owed one Henry Ellison, of White Haven, merchant, 62 10_s._ 7_d._, and Joshua Pollard of Liverpool, s.h.i.+pmaster, 17. Poor William put up for security lot No. 61, with all buildings thereon, water rights, watercourses, etc., which led, eventually, to a sheriff's sale. By due process of law, and to satisfy and pay sundry mortgages, lot No. 61 fell to William Ramsay.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Mantel in home of William Sewell, peruke-maker]

Ramsay sold a part of this lot on Prince and Royal Streets in 1785 to Colin McIver, and the property was described as bounded today: "Beginning 24 feet 6 inches west of Royal and running West on Prince 24 feet, 6 inches, thence 88 feet North to a six foot alley, etc., for 225, with all houses, buildings, streets, lanes, allies, profits, etc."

In 1795 Colin McIver's son, John, sold the property to a Philadelphia merchant named Crammond for 450 and Crammond agreed to give up the house and land within a stated time to anyone paying more, or to pay the difference.

After twenty-three years the property was bought by another merchant of Philadelphia, Thomas Asley, for $750.00, and within two years Mr. Asley sold it to John Gird of Alexandria, in the District of Columbia, for $1,300. In September 1819, John Gird had a note endorsed for $4,100 by Isaac Entwistle, and mortgaged some of his personal possessions which were listed as "one clock, one sideboard, two mahogany dining tables, two tea ditto, one pair card tables, one secretary, two bureaus, one writing desk, one dozen rush bottom chairs, one ditto with settee to match, one sofa, two looking gla.s.ses, carpets, bra.s.s andirons, two fenders, shovel, tongs, window curtains, three bedsteads and beds, chair, wash stand, chest, house linen, one set gilt tea china, four waiters, one half dozen silver teaspoons, one set plated castors, sundry gla.s.s and earthen ware, kitchen furniture, etc."[121]

Six years later this debt was not cleared up and John Gird secured the debt with his house and lot. Thus ended Gird's tenure and the property pa.s.sed on through other hands for twenty-four years to the Miller family; thence to Isaac Rudd, until the Moore family purchased the house about 1892.

[Ill.u.s.tration]