The Murray-Dick-Fawcett House: a Future Alexandria Museum
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Tal Day, Editor Spring 2019 THE MURRAY-DICK-FAWCETT HOUSE: A FUTURE ALEXANDRIA MUSEUM Sue Kovach Shuman* Imagine Alexandria in the early 1770s: The the expanding town.2 Two years later, in 1774, town has expanded, the Potomac River trans- he bought the lot upon which it stood from a ports ships bringing goods such as rum from descendant of John Alexander, who had been the Caribbean and one of the trustees linen from Ireland, for formation of and an air of possi- the Town in bility permeates life. 1749.3 Before the But acquiring these Revolutionary goods carries a War and the sign- price, and colonists ing of our nation’s are growing increas- Declaration of In- ingly vexed by the dependence, the high taxes imposed original beams on them by the Brit- with hand-cut ish. nails, wide-plank Patrick Murray, a floors, and walls merchant in 1770 Figure 1. Murray-Dick-Fawcett House, 517 Prince Street. of that two-room then resident in Credit: Google Street View plus attic and cel- Perthshire, Scot- lar house were land,1 saw opportunity in Alexandria and im- standing and thereafter stood witness as Alex- migrated. In 1772, he began building a timber- andria was buffeted by wars, depressions, and frame house on Prince Street, at the edge of occasional periods of prosperity and hope. * Sue Kovach Shuman is the Murray-Dick-Fawcett House project historian in the Office of Historic Alexandria. She holds a B.A. degree in Journalism from The Pennsylvania State University and an M.A. in Journalism from the University of Maryland. In 2018, she earned a Public History and Historic Preservation certificate from Northern Virginia Community College and is currently pursuing a Virginia Association of Museums management certificate. Earlier in her career, she worked for several newspapers, including, for 20 years, The Washington Post. Today, with subsequent early additions, The Builder and Early Owners Murray’s home is the most authentic, perhaps In 1784 Murray expanded the 1772 struc- least altered, 18th-Century building in North- ture by adding two large rooms at the back.8 In ern Virginia—a gem of vernacular architec- 1785 he opened a livery stable there “to take 4 ture. Unlike Mount Vernon, the Carlyle in gentlemen’s horses”9 The stable was located House, the Lee-Fendall House, or some other at the back of the property, possibly with ac- historic houses still in private hands, it is not cess from St. Asaph Street. Today part of the fancy or imposing. But unlike the house muse- Alexandria courthouse sits on that land. Mur- ums mentioned, the house built by Murray on ray’s businesses appear to have operated at Prince Street was a residence occupied by de- least partially with slave labor. In 1784, Mur- scendants of one subsequent owner, John ray placed a notice for a runaway slave named 5 Douglass Brown, for nearly 200 years. Jack who was a wagon driver.10 If Murray ran Someday, the house a stable, he would have will become a City of employed help, or owned Alexandria museum slaves. There were as with a focus on 18th many free blacks as en- and 19th Century do- slaved blacks in Alexan- 6 mestic life. Most of the dria at the time.11 home’s residents were Between 1783 and not famous, but they 1791, Murray served as a contributed to the rich juror or grand juror 16 fabric of growing Alex- times in Fairfax County andria. The house will court proceedings.12 He tell the story of its resi- also speculated in western dents, mostly middle- Figure 2. Front Parlor Woodwork with Coal Stove. lands, including 806 acres class people who were Credit: Historic American Building Survey /Library of in Montgomery County, educated locally, cre- Congress {“HABS 1936”) Pennsylvania,13 and 640 ated local businesses, sometimes worked for acres on the Cacapon River in what is now the government, coped with momentous West Virginia. That land, which was partially events, and generally led respectable lives, but cultivated and about 20 miles west of Win- outside the limelight of fame. chester, may have produced farm products that From 1816 until 2000, the house stayed in Murray marketed in Alexandria.14 Murray also the family of John Douglass Brown and his accumulated debts.15 descendants, almost 200 years, passing down Murray’s debts did not preclude his enjoy- through generations largely untouched. The ing a respectable standing in Alexandria. In house was not all that passed down. Memora- 1786, Patrick Murray’s daughter, Mary, mar- bilia, letters, financial records, and clothing ried Baron De La March (also spelled de la worn by family members from the 18th to the Marche and Delamarche). The groom’s family 20th Centuries as contents of the house sur- had ties to English royalty – King Henry III, vived as well. Pending development of the who lived from 1207 to 1272 and ruled for al- house as a City museum, these objects are be- most 50 years. There were family ties as well ing catalogued and incorporated into antici- to the French House of Talleyrand and even a 7 pated exhibitions at the Alexandria Lyceum. family castle in County Mayo, Ireland.16 Sadly, Murray’s daughter died three years later. The cause of death is not known, but 2 newspaper death notices in the United States John Douglass Brown and His Descend- at this time cited many deaths from measles, ants: A Family Home for Two Centuries 17 epidemic typhus or influenza. John Douglass Brown. John Douglass By 1792, Murray had again expanded his Brown arrived in Alexandria in 1801 to begin house, to six rooms plus a kitchen annex and, an import-export business. From very early 18 under financial pressure, tried to sell it The on, Brown appears to have integrated well into architectural features dating from that period Alexandria society. At some time between suggest that Murray or a later resident was op- 1805 and 1811, he commissioned a portrait of erating a tavern. himself by Cephas Among other things, Thompson, an itinerant the kitchen fireplace, painter from New Eng- 14.6 by 17 by 15 feet, land who painted many was sufficiently large to other people prominent in hold massive pots; there the early Republican pe- was a commercial-scale riod, including Chief Jus- smokehouse; and three tice John Marshall and separate brick closets Commodore Stephen De- with privies were built catur.23 19 to “seat” eight. In 1811, when Brown Murray did not was 29, he married a sec- avoid a mortgage de- ond cousin, Mary Gould- fault. Following an auc- ing Gretter, who had tion sale, the Alexan- Brown and Douglass dria physician Elisha roots in Pennsylvania Cullen Dick and his reaching back to the late wife Hannah purchased 17th Century. Her grandfa- the property in April ther Samuel Brown, an 20 1794 as speculators. immigrant from Belfast, Dick sold the property Figure 3. John Douglass Brown, Portrait by Cephas owned land near Valley in November 1794 to Thompson (c. 1801-11). Credit: family collection Forge.24 two merchants, John Brown’s business involved both selling and 21 Thomas Ricketts and William Newton. storing goods. Until 1823, he was in business There are no records suggesting that Dick did with Thomas Janney & Co.25 During the War anything to alter the house. of 1812, their business continued to operate, In 1796, Newton was living in the house but not without suffering losses when Alexan- with his family and four enslaved people as dria’s waterfront was pillaged in 1814 during well. As the total number counted in a 1796 the British attack on Washington, D.C. The census was 13, it appears Newton also took in business may have suffered other losses from renters. In 1806, Newton sold the property for British looting; however, the family records $4,000 to William Smith of Dumfries, who that survive concern thousands of pounds of 22 also rented it. tobacco seized by the British for which Brown and Janney later sought compensation.26 Although Alexandria by then was recover- ing from the damages to its waterfront during the attack on Washington in 1814, Brown may 3 nevertheless have gotten a bargain when he By 1825, Brown had leased a fireproof bought the property in 1816 for $3,000—a 25 warehouse on Janney’s Wharf, where he percent loss on Smith’s $4,000 investment. stored and sold flour, grain, and other goods.31 Was it because Smith knew the front door on He also continued to warehouse flour, grain, Prince Street needed to be moved when Prince and other goods for other merchants. 32 In Street was widened?27 Did the house need 1826, his own business expanded to include other repairs? The house was large, about 40 “Manchester coal, suitable for either grates, years old, in a desirable location, and had a smiths, furnaces or sugar refiners.”33 stable at the back — everything a young man John and his wife Mary had five children, like Brown could want to grow his business four of whom were painted with their parents and raise a family.28 by John Esten Cooke around 1824, when Jen- From fire insurance records we know that nett Brown was still a baby. In 1830, John the front door was relocated from the sidewalk Brown died, leaving Mary with four children on Prince Street to under the age of 15. the right side of the Mary and her chil- house sometime be- dren stayed in the tween late 1815 and house, and so, for March 1823, after successive genera- John Douglass tions, did items of Brown bought it.