as good a market
and a shorter journey. Numerous bakehouses appeared and Alexandria
packed and shipped large quantities of bread and crackers along with
flour to Europe and the Indies.

Alexandria had been a port of entry since 1779 and time was when the
Potomac from mouth to port was so crowded with vessels that navigation
was difficult. The early gazettes constantly referred to the crowded
condition of the river. The water front seethed with activity. One finds
the notice in a newspaper of 1786 of the arrival from St. Petersburg,
Russia, of the ship _Hunter_ of Alexandria. She was advertised to ply
her trade between these two places. This ship was built, owned, and
sailed by an Alexandrian, and was but one of many claiming Alexandria as
home port. Far corners of the earth were united in this ancient harbor
for a hundred years or more. "Commerce and Shipping" columns in the
local journals were as well read then as are our "classifieds" today.
Ships from China lay beside ships from Spain; flags from Holland,
Jamaica, Portugal, Germany, France and Russia flaunted their gay colors.
Private as well as public wharves were built. Large and rich shipping
firms were numerous. Great warehouses of brick lined the river front. A
kinsman of President Washington wrote him in 1792 that the "port of
Alexandria has seldom less than 20 square-rigged vessels in it and often
many more. The streets are crowded with wagons and the people all seem
busy."[43]

Sloops, brigs, barques and schooners unloaded osnaburgs, wild boars,
moreens, brocades and damasks, bombazines, Russian and Belgian linens,
Scottish wools, French and Italian silk, caster hats, morocco leather
slippers, pipes of Madeira wine, casks of rum and port from Spain,
spices, fruits, and muscovado sugar from the West Indies, chests of
Hyson tea from China, neat sofas, bureaus, sideboards, harpsichords and
spinets from London, along with other things "too tedious to mention."

By 1816 decline in the importance of the port had set in, but no less
than 992 vessels entered and cleared the customs that year. This number
did not include the "vast number of inland packets, coal traders, lumber
vessells, wood d^o, grain d^o, etc." Of these 992 vessels, 195 were
foreign--ships, brigs, schooners, sloops--while coastwise entrances and
clearances reached 797. On January 22, 1817, the account of vessels in
the port of Alexandria stood:

Ships 9
Barques 1