ed the plans for this
arresting doorway from New England. The interior focal point is again
the doorway, for here the beauty in design and wood carving equal the
elegance of the exterior. An added interest is the circular wall, window
and door in the entrance hall.

The drawing room mantel is of gray marble, early Empire in design, a
style which dominates the lower floor. The walls support the original
old whale-oil lamps, complete with engraved shades and prisms.
Interesting family portraits and fine furniture have occupied the same
places for over a century and a quarter. The Sheraton sideboard is
exceptional.

In the garden court, box bushes cluster close to the doorway, perfuming
the air after a summer's shower. Enormous pink poppies, phlox, and roses
grow in riotous abandon, while old-fashioned periwinkle covers the roots
of ancient trees.

It is a satisfactory thought that Fowle's descendants still inhabit his
house, using many of his possessions, for this is one of the few old
residences in Alexandria still in the family. Five generations have
called it home. Two wings, or dependencies, of this house have been
demolished and the garden reduced by time and the inroads of "progress."
What is still a large city garden, no longer touches Washington and King
Streets.

[Illustration]

Chapter 22

The Vowell-Snowden House

[619 South Lee Street.]

Presently the residence of Mr. Justice and Mrs. Hugo L. Black, this
house has been known in Alexandria for about a hundred years as the
Snowden home; and so it was from 1842 to 1912 when it passed from the
hands of that family.

The Snowdens have long been prominent in the old town. Samuel Snowden
became sole owner and editor of the _Alexandria Gazette_ in 1800, a
paper that traces its ancestry back to 1784, and boasts of being the
oldest daily newspaper printed continuously, still in circulation in the
United States. Edgar Snowden succeeded his father as editor, at the age
of twenty-one years. Active in civic affairs, interested in politics, he
was the first representative of Alexandria to the Virginia Assembly
after the retrocession of Alexandria to Virginia in 1846. He ran for
Congress on the Whig ticket when Henry Clay was defeated for the
Presidency and went down with his party.

He was mayor of Alexandria in 1841, and Mrs. Powell states in her
_History of Old Alexandria_ that in a collection of silhouettes in
London is one of "Edgar Snowden, Mayor