Evening star., 1939-04-09
Alexandra Po|ishes
Silver, Mahogany
To Greet Visitors
Historic Old Homes
Will Be Opened
Next Saturday
Blythe Associated Press.


ALEXANDRIA, Va, April g.
George Washington's home town is
polishing up its silver and mahog-
any again to show all comers just
how the Father Of his Country lived
In the days when 1.-The red coats are
coming!' was a terrifying cry.
It was in Alexandria, 7 miles
south of Washington, that Wash
ington shipped his tobacco. joined
the Masons, started a free school
and dropped into the tavern for q
hot rum and butter with John Paul
Jones to talk over the English taxes
on tea.
Early in this century Alexandria
was just a sleepy town with shut
ters hanging askew on homes that
had once been handsome. But in
recent years lovers of Colonial gran
deur began to buy the homes OF
Revolutionary officers for as little
as $1,000 and restore them. One
famous place, four-story Georgian
brick, was bought for $4,000 and
restored. The owners, newspaper
people, have turned down $4,000
for it.
Homes to Be Opened.
Next Saturday 20 of Alexandria S
more famous homes and buildings
will be open to visitors. Small fees
will go to restoring more OF Alex
andria's Colonial beauty.
Some of the very chairs on which
the Boston tea party was planned
are in regular use in the 1870 home
of Mrs. Fitzhugh Talman, on Prince
street. She is descendant of Ben
iamin Edes of Boston. in whose
home the Americans made up as
Indians before boarding ships IN
Boston Harbor to dump the Eng
1ish tea.
Prince street, itself. could be in a
museum The block next to the
Potomac River looks like an old
English street: Georgian brick
houses flush with the sidewalk. set
wall to wall. And the street is paved
with the same cobble stones the
Hessians laid. They're hard on mod
ern auto tires, but Alexandria
wouldn't think of tearing them up.
Visitors will see, too. the club
house of the country's first Jockey
club, which Washington helped
start. 1t is now the home OF Mr..
and Mrs. A. H. Stevens.
The towns citizenry now includes,
as it did in Colonial days, many
public figures. There is Norman
Davis, the rowing Ambassador; his
brother, Judge Ewin L. Davis, the
Federal Trade commissioner; John
L. Lewis, the labor leader; Emily
Newell Blair, the writer. F. A. Sill
cox. head of the Forestry Division;
John Collier, commissioner OF Indian
affairs, and many others.
Judge Davis found his house had
been built by Benjamin Hallowell
Alexandria's early Quaker school,
master
Gadsby Tavern Famous.
In the Fairfax house, built IN
1852, live the Charles Beatty Moores
When they took over the house Mrs
Moore found bricked-up room IN
which were lying six hoop-skirt
frames left by some Colonial belle
Under the library floor was a
bricked-up box. Had the Fairfaxes
hidden their silver there during the
Revolution? Or had Gen. Robert
E. Lees Aunt Hodgson" used it
during the Civil WARP
It was around famous Gadsby
Tavern that much of the social life
rotated. And that tavern has now
been restored as a museum. 1t was
built in 1852 and soon became ia
nous for terrapin, turkey. ham and
a very good cellar. One story tells
of Washington making special
trip in from Mount Vernon on
horseback because he heard that
Gadsby had bought some good cam
vasback duck.
1t was in this tavern that Wash
ington recruited his first military
command, the militia which fol-
lowed him to fight the French and
Indians in 1854 His coach pulled
up in the tavern's bricked court
yard the day he started for Phila-
delphia to make his first inaugural
address, and there he said farewell
to his Alexandria friends.
Many Legends Survive.
Charming legends survive about
the place In 1916 ship docked at
Alexandria with two passengers. a
young Englishman and woman OF
evident wealth. The young woman
was i'll. They tool rooms at the
tavern. Doctors were called, but
before they could enter her room
they had to swear to secrecy. She
died. Her companion, before he left
still nameless, erected monument
to her which still stands in st. Paul's
church yard. The inscription reads
ITO the memory of a female
stranger whose mortal sufferings
terminated on the 14th day of Oc-
tober, 8l6.
This stone is erected by her dis
consolate husband, in whose arms
she sighed out her last breathe and
who under God did his utmost to
sooth the cold, dull hour of death.
"How loved. how honor'd once avails
thee not
To whom related, or by whom begot
A heap of dust remains of thee
IT'S all thou are, and all the proud
shall be-"