Spring 2010 Hugh West and the West Family’S Momentous Role in Founding and Developing Alexandria and Fairfax and Loudoun Counties, Virginia by Jim Bish
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Editor: Linda Greenberg Spring 2010 Hugh West and the West Family’s Momentous Role in Founding and Developing Alexandria and Fairfax and Loudoun Counties, Virginia by Jim Bish There has been much written about the founding Within a few years after Hugh’s birth, his grand- and development of the city of Alexandria and the Fairfax mother, Sarah (Pearson) West died.6 By 1710 Hugh’s County region. Most writers give credit to the Fairfaxes, grandfather, Major John West, married again, this time to Washingtons, Masons, Alexanders, and Carlyles. Elizabeth (Semmes) Turley.7 She was the widow of John However, I contend that, and, this paper explains why, the Turley and had young children. When Hugh was about most critical family in establishing Alexandria and devel- seven years of age, in 1712, his father John West died and oping the region’s commercial interests were members of his mother Ann (Harris) West married John Wheeler and the West family and the most important member of that possibly moved to land that Wheeler had received as a 1 family in establishing Alexandria was Hugh West. land grant farther north on Pohick Creek.8 Probably by 1712, Major John West had no surviv- EARLY YEARS: 1705 ing sons because both John West and his brother Pearson Hugh West was born March 18, 1705 in Stafford West had died. Not long after that, Major West -- Hugh’s County, Virginia (now Fairfax County, Virginia) to John grandfather -- and his new bride, Elizabeth, probably at and Ann (Harris) West.2 Hugh was born into a frontier least twenty years his junior, had a son also named John. society where land meant wealth and power, and those Hugh now had a half-uncle about seven years his junior. who assembled landholdings could build significant fam- Both Hugh and his uncle John became very influential in ily fortunes. Hugh was fortunate in that his grandfather, the region between 1730 and 1775.9 Major John West, took the first step in acquiring land by In 1715, Hugh’s grandfather Major John West purchasing over 2,000 acres of some of the best land in died and was probably buried on plantation lands, earlier the region. West descendants also married into families granted to John Matthews and later acquired from John with considerable landholdings, such as the Pearson, Waugh just south of Great Hunting Creek, that Major Harrison, Owsley, Harris, and Broadwater families3 West probably called West Grove. The primary benefici- Hugh’s father, John West, appears to have followed aries of the estate were his minor son John who received in his father’s footsteps in Stafford County.4 John West almost 2,000 acres and his minor grandson Hugh West married Ann Harris about 1703. Hugh seems to have who received 700 acres. Not long after her husband’s been the first of possibly four children born to the couple death, Major John West’s widow, Elizabeth (Semmes) over the next few years.5 [Turley] West, married again, this time to Charles 1 Broadwater. It appears that after their marriage, Charles north of Great Hunting Creek, was chosen for the inspec- and Elizabeth continued to live on the West land of West tion station because its deeper harbor allowed the largest Grove at Great Hunting Creek. It was probably there that ships to navigate and dock. This point of land was part of young John West, half uncle to Hugh West, grew to adult- the 100-acre property owned by Simon Pearson, soon to hood.10 It is not known, but it seems probable that he be purchased by Hugh West.15 lived with his mother on the John Wheeler homestead.11 On December 29, 1725, Hugh married Sybil Harrison, daughter of William Harrison and Sarah (Halley) Harrison.12 It is not known where they lived, but they probably started out on the 300 acres purchased by his grandfather, Major John West, from William Green on July 6, 1686 and which Hugh’s grandfather had willed to him. He began married life as a gentleman planter. Another piece of land later obtained by Hugh was the 100-acre parcel on the Potomac River first obtained by his grandfather as a Northern Neck land grant on February 16, 1703. Although the land was willed by Major John West to John and Benjamin Blake and later sold to Hugh’s cousin Simon Pearson, Hugh acquired it in the 1730s. It appears that once Hugh obtained this 100- acre tract near the Potomac he moved his young family there. Between the years 1725-1740, Hugh and Sybil had five known children: John Jr., Hugh Jr., George, Sybil, and William. Their property became an important piece of land as on it Hugh developed the first commercial business activities north of Hunting Creek including tobacco warehouses, a Potomac River ferry, and eventu- ally an ordinary. This site, then known as West’s Point, later became the city of Alexandria.13 TOBACCO: 1730 It appears that Hugh developed a reputation for diligence and industry. He supplemented the income he earned as a gentleman planter by becoming an attorney. Then, by the mid-1730s, he became heavily involved in Virginia’s most important economic enterprise — tobac- co and the industries that served the tobacco trade. The growing, warehousing, and marketing of tobacco eventu- This illustration shows how tobacco was processed ally brought Hugh and his family significant influence.14 after harvesting, Virginia Historical Society In 1730, Virginia’s House of Burgesses passed a Tobacco Inspection Act which regulated the developing Passage of the 1730 Tobacco Inspection Law was tobacco trade. The act was intended to improve the qual- truly a brilliant move by Virginia Governor William ity of tobacco shipped from Virginia and to control fraud Gooch. At a time when tobacco prices had been plum- and smuggling. (The royal government had tried to pass meting, he was able to stabilize prices by assuring tobac- such legislation for over 50 years.) The law called for the co purchasers in England of the better quality of building of an inspection station on the Potomac River Virginia’s tobacco. However, in Virginia, many of the near the mouth of Great Hunting Creek on the land of smaller tobacco farmers, who raised tobacco on marginal Elizabeth [West] Broadwater, which was on the land of land, feared that their crops would not meet the new West Grove settled by Hugh West’s grandfather south of inspection standards and that large plantation owners Great Hunting Creek, but the shallowness of the water from rich river valleys would produce better crops. They there, as reported to the House of Burgesses, made this also feared that the tobacco inspectors would use their site “very inconvenient.” As a result, a point of land new authority against them. Marginal land was primari- extending out into the Potomac, located about one mile ly in counties settled in the early 1700s, such as Stafford and Prince William. This was also the area from which 2 the colonial government feared resistance to the new act. develop his advantage. All tobacco had to be delivered Those fears were justified. By 1732 some tobacco to the West warehouses, then the northern most ware- inspections warehouses were burned in Northumberland, houses in the colony. The closest warehouses to the south King George, and Prince William Counties, the latter the were at Quantico Creek, almost 30 miles away. To use very county where Hugh West lived. Prince William was West’s warehouses, existing roads had to be improved one of only five Virginia counties that petitioned the and new roads built. Tobacco was shipped in round House of Burgesses to repeal the inspection act.16 wooden kegs called hogsheads; the name derived from their resemblance to the snout of a hog. These hogshead barrels were packed with tobacco leaves. The barrels round shape allowed them to be rolled down roads, called rolling roads, towards waterways for delivery to inspec- tion warehouses. Hogsheads were commonly seen rolling along the crude roads of the day. It did not matter how the hogsheads of tobacco arrived, but that they did arrive, so that the tobacco could be inspected and approved for sale. That meant that a stream of people vis- ited the inspection station yearly.18 In colonial Virginia, tobacco was the basis of the economic system. Tobacco served as credit and currency. Because of the indeterminacy of ship arrivals, tobacco sometimes had to be stored for long periods of time. That necessitated the warehousing of tobacco after it was inspected. Each tobacco owner was given an unique, identifying brand known as a tobacco mark. Usually it was made up of the tobacco owner’s initials. These marks were used during the inspection, storing, and ship- ping processes.19 Virginia Historical Society Despite the troubled times, a tobacco warehouse was built on Simon Pearson’s land by John Summers and his slaves. Shortly after its completion in 1732, John Awbrey and Lewis Elzey were appointed tobacco inspec- tors and soon after Hugh West purchased that land from Pearson. The first tobacco warehouse was a plain struc- ture, probably about a 50-foot square, hewn, timber- framed building. As simple as the building might seem, the establishment of this tobacco warehouse at West’s Point not only set in course a secure fortune for Hugh West but provided the catalyst to establish the location of the future city of Alexandria, Virginia.17 1744 survey showing the house of Hugh West and his public tobacco warehouses. These were the primary Hugh West certainly realized the importance of structures on the land that became the new town of having the tobacco warehouse on his land and being its Alexandria in 1749, Alexander v.