Dr. James Craik and His Dwelling

[210 Duke Street. Owner: Mr. Merle Colby.]

Of the many quaint, historical figures whose memories haunt the old streets and houses of Alexandria, none is more interesting than Dr. Craik.

He is remembered as a "stout, hale, cheery old man, perfectly erect, fond of company and children, and amusing himself with gardening work." But this was when the sands were running out. The good Doctor had passed fourscore years, and his share of history-making was over. Let us turn back some two hundred years and begin.

There is a little village near Dumfries in Scotland called Arbigland or Obigland. In the year 1730 on a cold December day a baby boy began an eventful life. He was destined to bring to the New World the skill to heal and succor the wounded, to ease the dying, to administer the primitive hospitals of the American Revolution, and to move for a span of forty-five years as the close and intimate friend of George Washington.

The names of his parents have been lost in the Scottish fogs. A story that his father employed a gardener by the name of John Paul, sire of another young Scotsman who distinguished himself in our naval history under the patronymic of John Paul Jones, is all we can glean of our Craik's paternal parent.[154]

The Scottish baby, christened James Craik, grew to young manhood in his native country, going in proper time to the University of Edinburgh and there was educated in medicine for service in the British Army. After leaving the university he set sail for the West Indies; from there he came to Virginia in 1750 and settled in or near Winchester.

We pick up his trail four years later on an April morning in the town of Alexandria. The occasion is both historic and dramatic. The market square was filled with "two companies of foot," a hundred and twenty soldiers; a drummer wielding his sticks fiercely; two wagons, loaded with provisions, and well guarded by officers and soldiers; a captain, a lieutenant, five subalterns and a "Swedish Gentleman" going along as a volunteer, and one surgeon. This military assembly under the command of Lieutenant Colonel George Washington was marching out of Alexandria for points west "to the Ohio" to fight the Indians and the French, to build forts, and to defend the possessions of His Majesty. The commander of the purposeful outfit was twenty-two years old, and the surgeon, Dr. James Craik, twenty-four.

Did the two meet in the City Tavern, in the market square, or upon that first day's march of six miles when the troops bivouacked for the night? Wherever the acquaintance was made, the beginning of a friendship that was to last the lives of both men was cemented on this expedition. From the battles of Great Meadows and Fort Necessity, our warriors returned to accompany Braddock to the Monongahela and Fort DuQuesne where Dr. Craik nursed Washington through an illness and was with Braddock from the time he was wounded until his death.

In August 1755 Dr. Craik was back from two unsuccessful expeditions. He was one of a group of officers addressing the august assembly sitting at Williamsburg, by letter, who informed the Burgesses that they had lost horses, furniture, tents, marquees, clothes, linens—in short, all their field equipage—and asking that body to compensate in some measure for their misfortunes, reminding the House that it was customary among British troops by way of a contingent bill, and suggesting that the colonial troops were equally deserving. The letter was ordered tabled, but later £30 was voted as compensation.

After this second disastrous campaign, Dr. Craik was lured into domesticity by Miss Marianne Ewell, whom he married in 1760. This young lady drew the ties closer to Mount Vernon. Her mother, first cousin to George Washington, was Sarah Ball Conway, who married Charles Ewell. After his marriage, Dr. Craik moved across the Potomac to Port Tobacco, Maryland, where he built a house and proceeded to raise a family of six sons and three daughters.

In 1754 Governor Dinwiddie offered as bait to officers who would enlist for service in the French and Indian Wars, two hundred thousand acres of land in the Ohio country. Sixteen years later this land had not been distributed. Washington was selected as agent to represent the officers of the First Virginia Regiment, and at their request, he left early in October 1770 to inspect and locate lands to be patented in their names. He was accompanied by Dr. Craik. The two set off on horseback with three Negro servants, two of the General's and one of Dr. Craik's, and a pack horse, spending two months in surveying and plotting these wild lands. Despite bad weather, cold, and early snow, it was a journey enjoyed by both men.

The route was charged with memories of Fry and Braddock's campaign. Washington wished to retrace these rivers and streams. The possibility of connecting the Potomac with the west by canals, opening up the country for settlement and trade had come to the engineer even while the soldier was fighting. As they rode he dreamed of tilled fields and settled communities in the path of his horse and used his instruments to measure distances and to plumb the depth of streams. That he revealed his plans to this congenial friend of his travels seems certain. Fourteen years later, in 1784, he took Dr. Craik over the same terrain when these dreams appeared to attain realization in the contemplated canal to connect the Potomac with the Ohio.

During his entire life, Dr. Craik was a steady visitor at Mount Vernon, on social occasions or on professional calls. He could be counted on for a visit at least once a month; sometimes he remained four or five days at a time, but more frequently he only passed the night. It is rather strange that the good Doctor is never mentioned as a companion of Washington's favorite sport. That he was an able horseman, covering the roughest terrain in arduous campaigns, a seasoned sportsman, a hardened athlete but no fox-hunter, seems borne out by the fact that he is never mentioned as sharing in the chase, although the gentleman to whom it meant so much noted almost every hunt and rider in his daily journals.

Politically the two friends were united. When Virginians were becoming dissatisfied and impatient with England, Dr. Craik and Washington thought alike, attending county meetings and councils, acting together. When the colony was disrupted by revolt and Washington appointed commander in chief of the Continental forces, he at once had Dr. Craik appointed Surgeon-General in the Continental Army. In 1777 he was made Assistant Director General of the Hospital of the Middle Department of the Army. Throughout the war he was part of Washington's military family.

At Cornwallis' surrender, Dr. Craik was in command of the hospital corps at Yorktown and present on that occasion. It was his painful duty to attend the fatally injured Hugh Mercer at Princeton, to dress the wounds of La Fayette at Brandywine, to nurse during his last hours young Jacky Custis, only surviving child of Martha Washington. It was Dr. Craik who learned of the Conway Cabal in 1777 and warned Washington of the conspiracy to remove him from command. To him we also owe the Indian legend of Washington's immortality. When Braddock was defeated and killed at Monongahela, Washington, with four bullets through his coat and two horses shot from under him, the chosen target of the Indian chief and his braves, was unharmed, and the Indians believed him immune to poisoned arrow or blunderbuss.

It is said that Washington persuaded Dr. Craik to move to Alexandria after the Revolution. We find him renting a house on Fairfax Street from one Robert Lyles in 1788 for £45. In 1789 he rented a house on Prince Street from John Harper for £25, and in 1790 one on the same street for £35. He rented and occupied a house belonging to John Harper from 1793 to, or through, 1795, for £60, a residence which has been so closely associated with Dr. Dick that it bears a memorial tablet in his memory.

In October 1795, Dr. Craik bought the property on Duke and Water (now Lee) Street, which he occupied for several years, and owned until 1810. Tradition, in this case false, says the house was built by George Coryell, and the story of how he came to Alexandria as a builder is a very interesting anecdote. On one of Washington's trips to Philadelphia after the Revolution, the story goes, he admired a well designed and constructed gate at the house of Benjamin Franklin, and inquired the name of the artisan. It was the work of one George Coryell of Coryell's Ferry. The young man's father, Cornelius Coryell, had acted as guide during the New Jersey campaign and the family had rowed Washington across the Delaware in that surprise attack upon the Hessians on Christmas Night, 1776. The General, interested in building, and something of an architect himself, with an eye to securing competent workmen near home, is said to have persuaded George Coryell to move to Alexandria. Here Coryell bought a lot on Duke Street in 1794 where he lived for many years. That Coryell set up in the building and lumber business and was very active is better documented, for this advertisement appeared in the Gazette for October 23, 1793:

George Coryell
Has for Sale
At His Board Yard on Mr. Mease's Wharf and
at his Dwelling House on Duke Street
Two-inch, Inch, and Half-Inch and
etc. Plank. House frames of different
sizes, Cypress shingles
Locust and Red Cedar Post
Scantling

Many houses in the town are perhaps his handiwork, but the statement that he built Dr. Craik's house or the frame cottage next door, which tradition says was his Alexandria home, is open to grave doubt. Recorded deeds at Fairfax Court House testify that the house and lot east of Dr. Craik were owned by Joseph Robinson, a sailmaker, in 1783, and used descriptively in a deed dated 1795. Coryell's lot was two doors below Dr. Craik's house (the lot now in possession of General Carl Spaatz) which Coryell purchased from William and Sarah Lyles of Prince Georges County, Maryland.

Coryell served for a time as clerk of the market and sealer of weights and measures. He did some repair jobs on Washington's town house. At the General's funeral, when Lieutenant Moss was unable to carry the heavy weight of the casket, George Coryell took his place as one of the pallbearers. He remained in Alexandria some fifty-odd years, returning to Coryell's Ferry a few years previous to his death in 1850, at the advanced age of ninety-one.

At the first auction of lots in Alexandria town in 1749, the lots numbered 80 and 81 were sold to Anne West. The trustees upset this sale in 1754, reselling lot No. 80 to George Mercer for £9 13s. 10d. and lot No. 81 going to Daniel Wilson for £10 10s. By devious transactions these parcels of land were divided and sold. The property of Dr. Craik was in the ownership of John Short, a watchmaker, in 1783. Due to inability to repay John Harper money advanced, Short, then of the borough of Norfolk, sold his house and lot at auction on November 30, 1789 to John Murry for £234. This same property was sold by John B. Murry and Patty, his wife, of the city and state of New York on October 26, 1795, along with another lot belonging to Murry, to Dr. James Craik for £1,500. Allowing for the additional lot, for which Murry had paid £71 10s. 1d. in 1787, and on which Dr. Craik's stable stood, for inflation and increase in value of property in Alexandria following the Revolution, this price of approximately $7,500 indicates beyond question that John Murry made very substantial improvements upon this property. It was subject to a ground rent of £11 forever, and it is only within the last few years that the present owners have satisfied this rent.

courtyard

Rear of house and courtyard built by John B. Murray and bought by Dr. James Craik. The leanto at right replaces the frame building of Joseph Robinson, sailmakerThe house is a typical Alexandria town mansion. With three stories, dormer widows, of salmon brick, laid in Flemish bond, it faces the street as sturdily as when first built.

All the chimneys in Dr. Craik's house are handsomely paneled, as well as the window frames. Cornices, chair rails, stairway, six-panel doors, old pine floors, H&L hinges are part of its attractions. It is believed that Dr. Craik used the front rooms on the first floor of his house as his office. Washington was a visitor in this house. He frequently mentions in his journal dining or supping with his friend. The last time seems to have been in July 1798, when he "went up to Alexa. with Mrs. W. and Miss Cus[tis] dined at Doct^r Craik's, ret^d in y^e aftⁿ."

One of the Craik boys was named after George Washington. In September 1785, Washington makes this entry in his diary: "Wed. 31st.... This day I told Dr. Craik that I would contribute one hundred dollars pr. ann. as long as it was necessary towards the education of his son, George Washington, either in this country or in Scotland."

George Washington Craik studied medicine, and was, for a time during Washington's second administration, his private secretary. He was one of the young people of the town who was a constant visitor at Mount Vernon up to Washington's death. In 1807 and 1808 he was postmaster at Alexandria. He married Maria D. Tucker, daughter of Captain John Tucker, and their son, James Craik, was an Episcopal clergyman. Another son, William, married the daughter of William Fitzhugh and became the brother-in-law to George Washington Parke Custis. William Craik was a member of Congress, judge of the District Court of the United States, and chief justice of the Fifth Maryland Judicial Circuit Court. Craik lost two sons, James and Adam. James Craik Jr. set up in the drug business in Alexandria, dissolving his current business of James Craik & Company in 1787, but continued "the drug business at his store next door to Col. Ramsays'." At the time of this announcement he advertised for a young man well recommended as an apprentice for the druggist profession. He died, poor young man, without attaining any great success. The Doctor was appointed administrator and failed to give any accounting of the estate. As a result Dr. Craik was haled before the court to show the cause of his failure to comply with the order. He was somewhat riled as appears from the following:

James Craik this day appeared at the Register office and being duly sworn, gave the following statement: That when the said James Craik, Jr., departed this life all the personal estate he had consisted of a Medical Shop furniture, and medicine, to what amount or value he cannot ascertain, nor did he ever think it necessary he should render any appraisement of them, as he was security for the payment of the money they were purchased for, and since the deceased death has paid the same, and every debt he owed; in speaking of the said shop furniture and medicine being all the personal estate of the deceased his cloathes are excepted of which the said administrator saith he considered it unnecessary to render any account for the reasons above mentioned. Sworn to before me at the Register office on Tuesday, the 26th day of April, 1803.

Clem Moore

James Craik Adms.[155]