dow of
General Harry Lee resided!

Alexandria was in a turmoil of hospitality, welcoming the Marquis de la
Fayette. Hallowell and his wife of a few hours stood in their front door
the morning after their marriage and saw the famous Frenchman paying his
_devoirs_ to Mrs. Lee. Hallowell's autobiography pictures the occasion:
"When he got opposite," he wrote, "he looked at us, took off his hat,
and made a graceful bow, not knowing it was to a lady who had been
married the day before." Nor that his liking for a fresh smiling face
inspired the schoolmaster to immediately express his emotions in the
following verse:

Each lover of Liberty surely must get
Something in honor of LaFayette
There's a LaFayette watch-chain, a LaFayette hat,
A LaFayette this, and a LaFayette that.
But I wanted something as lasting as life
As I took to myself a LaFayette wife.[187]

The school of Benjamin Hallowell filled slowly at first. The ninth boy
to enroll was Mrs. Harry Lee's son, Robert Edward. Edmund Lee and Thomas
Swann sent their boys, who were "ten dollar" scholars. The time was to
come when Hallowell would turn away more than a hundred applicants, but
that was after Robert Edward Lee had gone to West Point and
distinguished himself.

At the end of his year in Alexandria, Hallowell's child was born. Both
he and the mother were very ill, "seemingly with bilious fever." Then,
for the first time, Hallowell heard that the "situation on Oronoco
Street, on the edge of town as it was, had always been regarded as
unhealthy."[188] He could not bear the idea of his wife and family
continuing in a place that was so evil, or of inviting his scholars to
share such an environment. Then it was that he got in contact with the
widow Hooe, made arrangements to give up his first schoolhouse and
immediately engaged the more healthy situation on Washington Street.

The house which was so "unhealthy" is a replica in almost every respect
of Mrs. Harry Lee's house, but there is no record of Mrs. Lee
complaining of the situation nor of the health of her boys.

The new schoolhouse, so commonly spoken of as the Lloyd House [220 North
Washington Street.] by Alexandrians, was built by John Hooe in 1793. In
1826, Benjamin Hallowell rented it from the widow Hooe and in the spring
vacation with his ill wife in his arms, moved into this building so
admirably adapted to his purpose.

"My school room," he tells us, "was on the first