thwest corner of Prince and Union was our stout
Captain's warehouse and his wharf jutted out into the Potomac across the
street from his place of business. A few years ago a great oil tank
buried in the ground forced its way to the surface, bringing with it the
enormous beams of John Harper's wharf and part of an old ship rotting in
the earth. Real estate was only a side issue with the Captain. His main
interest was the sea, his ships, and their cargoes.

On February 23, 1795 Harper sold to John Crips Vowell and Thomas Vowell,
Jr., for L150, that part of lot No. 56 fronting on Prince Street, 24
feet 6 inches, 88 feet 3-1/2 inches in depth, which begins on the "North
side of Prince, fifty feet to the Eastward of Water Street, upon ye
Eastern Line of a ten-foot alley, and all houses, buildings, streets,
lanes, alleys, etc...." The Vowells agreed to lay off and keep open
forever an alley upon the northern back line of the premises, nine feet
wide "Extending from the aforesaid ten-foot alley to the line of ...
William Wright."[139] This described property was one of those houses
built by Harper. The two Vowells were his sons-in-law and both gentlemen
in the shipping trade.

By this circuitous route we arrive at 123 Prince Street,[Owner: Miss
Margaret Frazer.] the house with a pure _Directoire_ tent room,
practically a duplicate of that at Malmaison, and another room with a
magnificent painted Renaissance ceiling. How such work became a part of
the sturdy two-story "Sea Captains' Houses" is one of Alexandria's
mysteries. It is true that both rooms were in a deplorable state of
repair, and it was necessary to trace the work on paper, repair the
plaster and then continue the interrupted design. Naturally, the colors
were freshened. It was exciting to watch this discovery unveiled, when
sheets of shabby paper were pulled from the walls, and the artist
repaired and restored the work of some itinerant master whose name has
vanished with his dust these hundred years or better.

John Harper, a Quaker, was born in Philadelphia in 1728, and he was
living in Alexandria in 1773, if not before. By his first wife, Sarah
Wells of Pennsylvania, he had twenty children. He married at her death
Mrs. Mary Cunningham, a widow, the daughter of John Reynolds of
Winchester. By this lady he had nine children. In 1795 he was living at
his residence on Prince Street, for William Hodgson's property was
described in his insurance record as being next