ugh the old and historic town of Alexandria--and
bought a house!

The town at once became of vital interest to us. We spent months and
years going through every vacant building into which we could force an
entrance. Our setter dogs could point an empty doorway as well as a
covey of quail, and seemed as curious about the interiors as we were
ourselves. I became obsessed with a desire to know the age of these
buildings and something of those early Alexandrians who had lived in
them.

Old maps and records littered my desk. Out of the past appeared clerks
on high stools wielding quill pens and inscribing beautiful script for
me to transpose into the story of one of America's most romantic and
historic towns. It has been impossible to write about every house in
Alexandria--even about every historic house. I tried to recall the old
town as a whole. A succession of hatters, joiners, ships' carpenters,
silversmiths, peruke makers, brewers, bakers, sea captains, merchants,
doctors and gentlemen, schoolteachers, dentists, artisans, artists and
actors, began to fill my empty houses. Ships, sail lofts, ropewalks,
horses, pigs, and fire engines took their proper places, and the town
lived again as of yore--in my imagination.

Everywhere I turned I found General Washington: as a little boy on his
brother Lawrence's barge bringing Mount Vernon tobacco to the Hunting
Creek warehouse; on horseback riding to the village of Belle Haven; as
an embryo surveyor carrying the chain to plot the streets and lots. He
was dancing at the balls, visiting the young ladies, drilling the
militia, racing horses, launching vessels, engaging workmen, dining at
this house or that, importing asses, horses, and dogs, running for
office, sitting as justice; sponsoring the Friendship Fire Company, a
free school, the Alexandria Canal, or other civic enterprises. He was
pewholder of Christ Church and master of the Masonic lodge. To town he
came to collect his mail, to cast his ballot, to have his silver or his
carriage repaired, to sell his tobacco or his wheat, to join the
citizenry in celebrating Independence. His closest friends and daily
companions were Alexandrians. The dwellings, wharves, and warehouses of
the town were as familiar to him as his Mount Vernon farm.

In Alexandria Washington took command of his first troops. From the
steps of Gadsby's Tavern he received his last military review, a display
of his neighbors' martial spirit in a salute from