The Married Houses

[209-211 North Fairfax Street. Owner: Mrs. Herbert E. Marshburn.]

When the new town of Alexandria was laid out, John Dalton purchased, on July 13, 1749, the first lot put up for sale (No. 36) for the sum of nineteen pistoles. The lot faced the Potomac River and was bounded by Water (now Lee) Street, Fairfax Street and lot No. 37. When the latter lot, which lay on Cameron and Fairfax, was put up later in the day, it was purchased by Dalton for sixteen pistoles.

Within three years Dalton had finished a small frame-and-brick cottage, neatly paneled, in which he is purported to have lived and died. The house faced on Cameron Street, standing about the middle of lot No. 37, with an extensive garden running the depth of the premises to the river, surrounded by outbuildings, orchards, wells, and so on, as was the custom of the times. His will mentioned the fact that he lived on this lot and left to his daughter, Jenny Dalton (later Mrs. Thomas Herbert), his new brick building on the corner of Fairfax and Cameron. His will further stated that the house must be finished out of his estate. To his daughter, Catherine (later Mrs. William Bird), he left the remainder of the lot which included his dwelling and another house on that same lot, at the time occupied by John Page.

On February 27, 1750, John Dalton succeeded Richard Osborn as a trustee of the town. His appointment was the first after the original selection of trustees by the assembly in Williamsburg.

John Dalton was a partner of John Carlyle in the firm of Carlyle & Dalton, which for many years acted as agent for the Mount Vernon produce. He was a pew owner with George Washington at Christ Church, which he served as vestryman. With his wife and daughter, he was a frequent visitor at Mount Vernon and a later chronicler has asserted that he barely missed becoming the General's father-in-law. A fox-hunter and horse-lover, in a company of Alexandria gentlemen or alone, he hunted with Washington and bred his mares to the blooded Mount Vernon stud.

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The old Clapboard House on the John Dalton property and believed to have been his original house.
(Courtesy of Mr. Frank McCarthy)

On January 12, 1769, Washington went up to Alexandria to "ye Monthly Ball." He lodged with Captain Dalton and the next day being very bad he was "confined there till afternoon by rain."[78] Sometimes when attending court he "lodged at Captn. Dalton's."[79]

John Dalton's bequest to his daughter, Catherine, included the home place. On April 24, 1793, Catherine and her husband, William Bird, sold to Jonah Thompson and David Findley for £1,500 (about $7,500) the property described as being in Fairfax Street, 60 feet to the north of Cameron, and extending north upon Fairfax Street 119 feet 3 inches to the line of Herbert, Potts and Wilson, thence East parallel to Cameron to cross Water and Union Streets into the Potomac River, thence with a line parallel to Fairfax south 119 feet 3 inches, and included houses, buildings, streets, lanes, alleys, and so on. But the Birds reserved the right to the "use and occupation of the dwelling House now occupied" and the kitchen and garden, until the "1st day of October next" and also reserved unto Lanty Crowe the house "demised unto him to the end of his term, he paying the annual rent thereof unto the said Jonah Thompson and David Findley."[80] Findley died within the year and Jonah Thompson bought from Amelia Findley, the mother and heir of David Findley, equal and undivided portion of the already described lot and paid her the sum of £500 12s.

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Jonah Thompson's House purchased from John Dalton's daughter, Catherine Bird

Jonah Thompson was an important citizen of Alexandria. He was a shipping merchant, banker and large property owner. He married Margaret Peyton and they had three sons, Israel, William Edward, and James; a daughter, Mary Ann, married a Mr. Popham, and another daughter, Eugenia, married a Mr. Morgan.

In 1809 Jonah Thompson mortgaged this property to the Bank of Alexandria for $13,500, which he paid within four years. In May 1850, the heirs of Jonah Thompson sold to Benjamin Hallowell for $4,600 a lot beginning at the south side of the alley which divided the block, running south 43 feet 7 inches. Benjamin Hallowell, in turn, sold to James S. Hallowell for nine thousand dollars in April 1854, and from James S. Hallowell and his wife the property passed through various hands until it became St. Mary's Academy.

The Jonah Thompson house, part of it at least already built in 1793, is one of the most interesting houses to be found anywhere. It is unusually large and has two handsome arched stone entrances. One, although similar, obviously was added, as the line of demarcation is plainly visible between the bricks.

The house has been sadly abused with no thought given its architectural merits and much of the woodwork has been removed. The stair is perhaps the finest in Alexandria, with spindles and risers carved in a more elaborate fashion than was the practice of the thrifty Scotsmen of Alexandria. At the rear of this large house, separated only by a narrow area, stands another house, facing the long garden and originally the river. The front of this house boasts the loveliest bit of Georgian architecture left in the old seaport. A pure Adam loggia, executed in stone, runs across the garden faÇade. While arches are now filled in and clothes hung to dry flap on the gallery, the outline is so chaste in its classic form that nothing can destroy the illusion of beauty.

No search of records reveals how or why these two houses stand back to back. Whether Jonah Thompson built the first for his bank or business offices, or whether his family outgrew the house and he needed more room is not known. The two are treated as one house in all the documentary evidence, and one's curiosity, interest, and imagination are excited by the twin or married houses. One story has it that Jonah Thompson built the rear or twin house for his eldest son so that the two families might be together but with separate mÉnages.

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The Adam Loggia. Originally open between column and pilaster

Captain John Dalton forged a link between Mount Vernon, his family, and his posterity that was stronger than he knew. It was his granddaughter who was so deeply distressed at the ruin and desolation of the home of Washington that she fired her daughter's imagination with an idea that saved the spot for the nation. This great-granddaughter of John Dalton was Ann Pamela Cunningham, whose name will ever be indissolubly connected with Mount Vernon. In 1853 she formed the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, and as its first regent stirred the women of America with her ardor and directed the entire campaign until adequate funds were collected. In 1859 John Augustine Washington sold the Mount Vernon estate to Miss Cunningham for two hundred thousand dollars—after the Virginia Legislature and the federal government had both refused to acquire it.

This sale was negotiated by the Alexandria banker, John W. Burke, who was appointed executor and guardian of John Augustine Washington's estate after he was killed during the Civil War while on active duty as a member of General Robert E. Lee's staff.

When the war broke out, Alexandria was occupied by Union troops. The Union authorities knew of the sale of Mount Vernon and repeated but futile efforts were made to find the securities. Mr. Burke's home was searched no less than three times. The funds were never found in their hiding place of the soiled-clothes basket. There they reposed until Mrs. Burke (nÉe Trist, great-granddaughter of Thomas Jefferson) and Mrs. Upton Herbert (nÉe Tracy), both Philadelphia-born ladies, sewed the bonds in their petticoats and with high heads carried them through the Union lines to Washington and delivered them to George W. Riggs, who held them for the duration of the war, when he returned them to Alexandria—and Mr. Burke.

An interesting sequel to the story occurred only a short time ago when the last of John Augustine Washington's children died. Mr. Taylor Burke, grandson of John W. Burke, and president of the Burke & Herbert Bank, administered the estate of the late Mrs. Eleanor Washington Howard, and distributed her estate, composed of the remainder of that purchase price, among her heirs.[81]

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