People & entities
The merchants, innkeepers, enslavers, freedpeople, congregations, companies, and households that give the corridor's buildings their biographies.
People
Terry Adkins
b. 1953 · d. 2014
Sculptor, conceptual artist, and musician whose interdisciplinary practice — his "recitals" — built large-scale installations around the lives of Black historical figures. …
John Alexander
b. 1711 · d. 1764
Member of the Alexander family whose patent of 1669 granted the land on which Alexandria, Virginia was later laid out. The town was named for the family when the Virginia General …
John Armfield
b. 1797 · d. 1871
North Carolina–born slave trader who managed the Alexandria operations of Franklin & Armfield from 1828 to 1836, directing the collection and forced transport of thousands of …
Hunt Burke
Great-great-grandson of John W. Burke; fifth-generation Burke-family leader at Burke & Herbert Bank.
John W. Burke
b. 1825
Senior partner who at age 27 joined the twenty-three-year-old Arthur Herbert on August 14, 1852 to open the Burke & Herbert Banking & Exchange Office at the corner of …
Julian Thompson Burke
Son of John W. Burke; brought into the bank in 1877. The first of a continuous line of Burke-family officers spanning five generations at Burke & Herbert Bank.
Anne Carlyle
Daughter of John Carlyle and sister of Sarah Carlyle Herbert and George William Carlyle; documented in the Carlyle House family records.
George William Carlyle
d. 1781
Son of John Carlyle; inherited 121 North Fairfax Street in 1780. Killed at the Battle of Eutaw Springs (September 1781) in the closing campaigns of the Revolutionary War.
John Carlyle
b. 1720 · d. 1780
Scottish-born merchant, one of the founding trustees of Alexandria in 1749, and builder of the stone Carlyle House at the head of what is now Fairfax Street. Carlyle was a …
Samuel Cummings
b. 1927 · d. 1998
American-born, Monaco-based arms dealer who founded International Armament Corporation (Interarms) in 1953 and built its principal operations in Alexandria. At its peak Interarms …
G. W. P. Custis
b. 1781 · d. 1857
Step-grandson of George Washington, raised at Mount Vernon, builder of Arlington House, and father-in-law of Robert E. Lee.
Benjamin Dulany
b. 1752 · d. 1816
Maryland-born merchant and planter with extensive landholdings on both sides of the Potomac, including Shuter's Hill west of Alexandria. His household straddled the social …
Thomas J. Fannon
Founder in 1885 of the Alexandria wood-and-coal yard that became T. J. Fannon & Sons, Alexandria's longest-running family-owned heating-fuel business.
Philip Richard Fendall
b. 1734 · d. 1805
Builder of the 614 Oronoco Street (1785), secretary to George Washington's Potomac Company, and first president of the Bank of Alexandria. Twice a widower, his three marriages …
West Ford
b. 1784 · d. 1863
Man born enslaved on the estate of Bushrod Washington and later freed; a longtime manager at Mount Vernon whose descendants maintain an oral tradition of descent from the …
Isaac Franklin
b. 1789 · d. 1846
Tennessee-born slave trader who, with partner John Armfield, operated the largest domestic slave trading firm in the United States during the 1830s. Franklin managed the firm's …
John Gadsby
b. 1766 · d. 1844
English-born innkeeper who operated the City Tavern and City Hotel in Alexandria from 1796 to 1808 and later ran the National Hotel in Washington. His Alexandria establishment …
Dave Grohl
b. 1969
Drummer of Nirvana (1990-1994) and frontman/founder of Foo Fighters (1994-present); raised in Springfield, Virginia and a transferred junior at Bishop Ireton High School in …
Benjamin Hallowell
b. 1799 · d. 1877
Quaker educator, scientist, and surveyor who ran a boys' boarding school at 609 Oronoco Street from 1824 onward. Robert E. Lee received his pre–West Point tutoring from …
Arthur Herbert
b. 1829 · d. 1919
Co-founder of Burke & Herbert Bank (1852), Confederate officer in the 17th Virginia Infantry, and longtime master of "Muckross" on Seminary Hill. Born at Carlyle House; …
John Carlyle Herbert
Grandson of John Carlyle via his mother Sarah Carlyle Herbert; inherited 121 North Fairfax Street in 1781 after the Revolutionary War death of his uncle George William Carlyle, and …
Sarah Carlyle Herbert
Daughter of John Carlyle; her marriage to William Herbert transferred 121 North Fairfax Street into the Herbert family, where her grandson Arthur Herbert was born in 1829.
John Hollensbury
Alexandria brickmaker and property owner who in 1830 built the 7-foot-6-inch-wide alley infill known as the 523 Queen Street to block loiterers and wagon-wheel hubs from his …
Harriet Jacobs
b. 1813 · d. 1897
Formerly enslaved author of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) who, with her daughter Louisa, worked among formerly enslaved people living in and around Union-occupied …
Anne Carter Lee
b. 1773 · d. 1829
Mother of Robert E. Lee. After her husband's financial ruin and departure for the West Indies, she moved her children to rented quarters in Alexandria, where Robert spent his …
Anne Hill Carter Lee
b. 1773 · d. 1829
Mother of Robert E. Lee; second wife of Henry "Light-Horse Harry" Lee III. Rented the Federal-era house at 607 Oronoco Street, Alexandria, raising her children there after …
Charles Lee (U.S. Attorney General)
b. 1758 · d. 1815
United States Attorney General (1795-1801) under presidents Washington and Adams; brother of Henry "Light-Horse Harry" Lee III and Edmund Jennings Lee. Practiced law in …
Edmund Jennings Lee
b. 1772 · d. 1843
Mayor of Alexandria (1815-1818), lawyer, and youngest brother of Henry "Light-Horse Harry" Lee III and Charles Lee (U.S. Attorney General). Lived from 1801 in his house at …
G. W. Custis Lee
b. 1832 · d. 1913
Eldest son of Robert E. Lee and Mary Anna Custis Lee; Confederate major general; later president of Washington and Lee University succeeding his father.
Henry "Light-Horse Harry" Lee III
b. 1756 · d. 1818
Continental Army cavalry officer, ninth governor of Virginia, and father of Robert E. Lee. Sold the Oronoco Street property in 1784 to his cousin Philip Richard Fendall that became …
Mary Anna Custis Lee
b. 1808 · d. 1873
Wife of Robert E. Lee, daughter of G. W. P. Custis, and great-granddaughter of Martha Washington. Brought Arlington House and its Mount Vernon-derived collections into the Lee …
Richard Bland Lee
b. 1761 · d. 1827
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Virginia (1789-1795); brother of Henry "Light-Horse Harry" Lee III, Charles Lee (U.S. Attorney General), and Edmund …
Richard Henry Lee
b. 1732 · d. 1794
Signer of the Declaration of Independence; introduced the resolution for independence in the Continental Congress (June 7, 1776). His daughters Anne and Sally married Charles Lee …
Robert E. Lee
b. 1807 · d. 1870
United States Army officer who spent much of his childhood in Alexandria at the house on Oronoco Street before his West Point appointment, and who later commanded Confederate …
Robert E. Lee Jr.
b. 1843 · d. 1914
Third son of Robert E. Lee and Mary Anna Custis Lee; Confederate captain. Author of the 1904 memoir *Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee*, an essential primary …
W. H. F. "Rooney" Lee
b. 1837 · d. 1891
Second son of Robert E. Lee and Mary Anna Custis Lee; Confederate major general of cavalry; later U.S. Representative from Virginia.
Nelly Custis Lewis
b. 1779 · d. 1852
Granddaughter of Martha Washington, raised at Mount Vernon by George and Martha after her father's death. With her husband Lawrence Lewis she built 9000 Richmond Highway on …
John L. Lewis
b. 1880 · d. 1969
President of the United Mine Workers of America (1920-1960) and founding president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). Owned the 614 Oronoco Street from 1937 until …
Lawrence Lewis
b. 1767 · d. 1839
Nephew of George Washington and husband of Nelly Custis Lewis. Built 9000 Richmond Highway on land carved from the Mount Vernon estate by Washington as a wedding gift in 1799.
Lloyd "Tony" Lewis
First Black student admitted to any of the Episcopal Church Schools of the Diocese of Virginia, entering St. Stephen's School for Boys in Alexandria in September 1961 — four …
William Meade
b. 1789 · d. 1862
Second Bishop of Virginia (consecrated 1841; assistant bishop 1829–1841) and the founder of Episcopal High School in Alexandria in 1839 — the first high school in Virginia. A …
William Nelson Pendleton
b. 1809 · d. 1883
West Point–trained Episcopal priest who served as the first principal of Episcopal High School in Alexandria from its 1839 opening through 1844, then later as Robert E. Lee's …
William Ramsay
b. 1716 · d. 1785
Scottish-born merchant, one of the original trustees of Alexandria in 1749, and by local tradition the town's first postmaster and first lord mayor. His frame house on King …
J. H. D. Smoot
Founder of the Alexandria lumber business that operated continuously for two hundred years under successive Smoot-family names: J.H.D. Smoot, W.A. Smoot, Smoot Lumber & Coal, …
Lewis Egerton Smoot
Spun off the coal, sand, and gravel arm of the family lumber business into a successful independent firm; namesake of the L. E. Smoot Memorial Library and associated philanthropies …
W. A. Smoot
Successor at the Smoot lumber firm. Renamed the business W. A. Smoot & Co. and expanded into the planing-mill and millwork lines that would supply major Washington public …
The Rev. Edward Tate
Episcopal priest who founded St. Stephen's School for Boys at a single residence on Russell Road in Alexandria in 1944. The school was admitted that same year to the Church …
Wernher von Braun
b. 1912 · d. 1977
German-American rocket engineer; technical lead of Nazi Germany's V-2 program and later director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, where he led development of the …
George Washington
b. 1732 · d. 1799
Planter, military commander, and first President of the United States. Master of Mount Vernon from 1761 until his death in 1799, and a regular presence in Alexandria, which he …
John Wise
b. 1762 · d. 1815
Alexandria tavern keeper and landowner who built the 1792 City Tavern addition on North Royal Street. Wise leased the property to John Gadsby in 1796 and continued to operate other …
Frank Lloyd Wright
b. 1867 · d. 1959
American architect, founder of the Prairie and Usonian schools. Designed the Pope-Leighey House (1940), now relocated to the 9000 Richmond Highway parcel in Alexandria.
Families & communities
The Burke and Herbert families
Two Alexandria families joined in 1852 by a single business partnership that became Virginia's oldest continuously operating bank. Five generations of Herberts and multiple …
The Fannon family
Five-generation Alexandria family that has owned T. J. Fannon & Sons on Duke Street since Thomas J. Fannon founded the firm as a wood-and-coal yard in 1885. Among the …
Freedmen of the Contrabands Camp
founded 1861
Collective entity representing the several thousand formerly enslaved people who fled to Union-occupied Alexandria during the Civil War, settling in camps at Shuter's Hill, …
The Herbert family
Anglo-Irish merchant family that married into the Carlyles in the late eighteenth century, inherited 121 North Fairfax Street, and produced Arthur Herbert, co-founder of Burke …
The Lee family
The Alexandria branch of the Lee family of Virginia. Anchored at 614 Oronoco Street and 607 Oronoco Street, its members shaped the city's law, politics, and banking from the …
The Smoot family
Multi-generation Alexandria family that owned and operated Smoot Lumber Co. from 1822 until its 2023 closure — one of the longest commercial continuities in the …
Businesses
Burke & Herbert Bank
founded 1852
Alexandria-based bank founded in 1852 by John Burke and Arthur Herbert as a stock-and-real-estate commission firm. The oldest continuously operating bank in Virginia and one of the …
T. J. Fannon & Sons
founded 1885
Alexandria heating-fuel firm founded by Thomas J. Fannon in 1885 as a wood-and-coal yard at 1200 Duke Street. Continuously operated by the Fannon family across five generations; …
Interarms
founded 1953· dissolved 1999
Alexandria-based arms dealership founded by Samuel Cummings in 1953, doing business as Interarms. For much of the Cold War the firm held one of the largest private inventories of …
Smoot Lumber Co.
founded 1822· dissolved 2023
Alexandria lumber and millwork firm founded by J. H. D. Smoot in 1822; operated continuously under successive Smoot-family names for two hundred years until closing its Edsall Road …
Nonprofits
Alexandria Library Association
founded 1937
The private nonprofit operating Alexandria's first free public library, which opened on Queen Street in 1937. The association's segregation policy excluding Black patrons …
Parker-Gray School
founded 1920· dissolved 1965
Alexandria's segregated public school for Black students, named for John Parker and Sarah Gray, two early Black educators in the city. Parker-Gray operated as the city's …
Military units
U.S. Army (Civil War)
founded 1775
The Federal land army that occupied Alexandria from May 24, 1861 through 1865 and constructed the Defenses of Washington, including Seminary Hill (off Seminary Road, near St. …