nd dormer trim follow the best
mid-Georgian tradition. This house is one of Alexandria's finest homes.
It was for many years the residence of Mr. and Mrs. W.A. Smoot.

[Illustration]

Chapter 27

The Alexandria Lyceum

[201 South Washington Street.]

Benjamin Hallowell, our Quaker pedagogue, was not content with improving
the minds of the young. He soon realized the necessity of furbishing up
the cranial contents of his associates.

An able propagandist, Hallowell set himself to interest his friends in
founding a lyceum. This was accomplished in 1834, just ten years after
his entrance as a schoolmaster. Naturally he was the first president and
naturally the early lectures were held in his school. Here the erudite
of the town were wont to gather to express themselves in lecture and
debate. Hallowell does not give the date of the actual building of the
lyceum, saying merely:

At length a lot was purchased on the Southwest corner of Washington
and Prince Streets, on which was erected a fine building, a little
back from the street, with a pediment front supported by four fluted
Doric columns with a triglyph cornice, and surrounded by an iron
railing, and a beautiful yard of flowers and ornamental shrubbery. In
this building was placed the Alexandria Library, and there was
besides, on the first floor a large reading room, and a room for a
cabinet of minerals, and specimens in Natural History. On the second
floor was a well arranged and handsome lecture room, with marble
busts of Cicero and Seneca, one on each side of the President's desk
and seat. In this room lectures were given by John Quincy Adams,
Caleb Gushing, Dr. Sewell, Samuel Goodrich (Peter Parley), Daniel
Bryan, Robert H. Miller, William H. Fowle and several others. I gave
the introductory lecture (which was published) and several others
afterwards. Attending the Lyceum was a very interesting and improving
way of spending one evening in the week (Third-day evening), and the
citizens would adapt their visiting and other arrangements so as not
to have them come on Lyceum evenings.[191]

Thus came into being one of the finest examples of the Classical Revival
in American architecture. When the portico was under construction,
bricks salvaged from old St. Mary's Catholic Church were used for the
columns (afterwards plastered). This is an interesting fact, but another
Quaker-Catholic relationship me