held the carnivals, and
public gatherings, and here was the larder of Alexandria. To this day
the market square caters to the appetites of hungry townsmen. Across
Royal Street, facing the square, stood the City Tavern or Coffee House;
southward on the same side of the street was the Royal George, after the
Revolution called George Tavern. Already substantial wharves and
warehouses appeared along the water front, and private houses and stores
were beginning to fill the empty lots.[27]

[Illustration]

HEADQUARTERS AND PORT OF SUPPLY

As the passage of four years marked physical growth in Alexandria, so it
made a difference between a lad barely seventeen and an officer in His
Majesty's Militia. Early in November 1753, Major George Washington, aged
twenty-one, and an Adjutant General of the Colony, was sent by the Royal
Governor to the Ohio to "visit" the commandant of the French forces and
deliver a letter asking him to withdraw from the lands "known to be the
property of the Crown of Great Britain." Up to town came Major
Washington to busy himself acquiring the "necessaries" for the
expedition. Once equipped, he set out from Alexandria and was gone about
two months, returning on January 11, 1754. January 16 found him in
Williamsburg making his report to the Governor. The report was of such a
nature that His Excellency alerted the Virginia troops; it was deemed of
such importance as to be published in both Williamsburg and London
gazettes.

When Washington returned he carried a commission from His Excellency of
a lieutenant colonelcy in the Virginia regiment "whereof Joshua Fry,
Esquire, was Colonel," and joined his command in Alexandria. The market
square took on a militant atmosphere. "Two Companies of Foot, commanded
by Captain Peter Hog and Lieutenant Jacob Van Braam, five subalterns,
two Sergeants, six Corporals, one Drummer and one hundred and twenty
Soldiers, one Surgeon, one Swedish Gentleman, who was a volunteer, two
wagons, guarded by one Lieutenant, Sergeant, Corporal and twenty-five
soldiers," were all under the command of Lieutenant Colonel
Washington.[28]

Many brave young men newly outfitted in the colorful uniforms of His
Majesty's Militia, short clothes and white wigs, drilling in the market
square, swaggering around the town, filling up the new City Tavern.
Dances and dinners for the officers were the order of the day. Then came
the command for Washington to join Fry in defending British possessi