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 Assembly chartered it in 1749.
The Alexander patent of 1669 conveyed to Robert Alexander roughly six thousand acres along the west bank of the Potomac, land that would become the site of Alexandria and much of present-day Arlington County. John Alexander, a great-grandson, held the sixty-acre tract around the tobacco warehouse at the mouth of Great Hunting Creek when the Virginia legislature reorganized the settlement as a town in 1749 [1] Powell, History of Old Alexandria, 1928 Book . The family received compensation for the land in the form of half-acre town lots.
Descendants of the Alexander family continued to hold property in and around the town for generations. The family name persists in the waterfront street grid, in Arlington County (once “Alexandria County”), and in scattered family burial grounds [2] Miller, Artisans and Merchants, 1991 Book .
Associated places
- 1749–1764
John Alexander's family, whose land patent underlay the town itself, are documented as associates of Ramsay during the town's first decade.
Sources
- 1.
Mary G. Powell, The History of Old Alexandria, Virginia, from July 13, 1749 to May 24, 1861, Richmond: William Byrd Press, 1928.
Book
- 2.
T. Michael Miller, Artisans and Merchants of Alexandria, Virginia 1780-1820, Heritage Books, 1991.
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