John Carlyle

John Carlyle was born on 6 February 1720 in Carlisle, Cumbria, England, the second surviving son of the apothecary-surgeon William Carlyle and Rachel Murray. His father’s family came from Dumfriesshire, descended from the Lords Carlyle of Torthorwald; his mother’s people were of Clan Murray ^[1] Source 1 Wikipedia, "John Carlyle (merchant)" Website ^[2] Source 2 R. H. Spencer, "The Carlyle Family" (W&M Quarterly, January 1910) Book .

Apprenticed in the 1730s to the Whitehaven merchant William Hicks, Carlyle was sent to Virginia in 1741 as Hicks’s factor and settled at Belhaven — the small tobacco-warehouse landing that would be reorganized as Alexandria in 1749 ^[3] Source 3 Miller, Artisans and Merchants, 1991 Book . After his 1747 marriage to Sarah Fairfax — daughter of William Fairfax and a cousin of Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron — he struck out on his own. By midcentury Carlyle had built a transatlantic merchant operation of unusual breadth for the Northern Neck: trade with England and the West Indies, retail at Alexandria, a foundry in the Shenandoah Valley, mills, forges, four ships (three of them transatlantic-capable), and three plantations across thousands of Virginia acres ^[4] Source 4 John F. Carlyle, ed., "Correspondence of Col. John Carlyle" (NVRPA, 2011) Manuscript .

He was among the eleven trustees who laid out the town and served as its first overseer. In August 1753 — the masonry completed after two years of work — he and Sarah moved into the stone mansion overlooking the Potomac, the most substantial private dwelling in the Northern Neck at that date ^[5] Source 5 R. H. Spencer, "The Carlyle House" (W&M Quarterly, July 1909) Book .

The Braddock Congress, April 1755

Commissioned a colonel in 1755, Carlyle was the commissary supplying the Braddock expedition. In April of that year, General Edward Braddock used the Carlyle House as his headquarters and convened there — almost certainly in the dining room — what became known as the Congress of Alexandria: a planning meeting with the royal governors of Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts that decided the opening campaign of the French and Indian War ^[6] Source 6 Powell, History of Old Alexandria, 1928 Book ^[5] Source 5 R. H. Spencer, "The Carlyle House" (W&M Quarterly, July 1909) Book . The Fort Duquesne expedition that followed was a catastrophe: 1,300 British troops marched against roughly 300 French regulars and Native warriors, and at the Battle of the Monongahela on 9 July 1755 took 456 dead and 422 wounded; Braddock was mortally wounded and buried at a secret location to keep his grave from being desecrated. Carlyle’s own accounts from the period record the logistical difficulty of provisioning the expedition ^[4] Source 4 John F. Carlyle, ed., "Correspondence of Col. John Carlyle" (NVRPA, 2011) Manuscript .

Later years and family

Sarah Fairfax Carlyle died, and around 1760 Carlyle married Sybil West, daughter of Hugh West; the union produced four more children, bringing the total to eleven. Around 1770 he built a second country house in what is now Fairlington/Arlington — first called Torthorwald for the Lords Carlyle of that name, later renamed Morven — with a stud farm and a grist mill on Four Mile Run; Morven was demolished in 1942 ^[1] Source 1 Wikipedia, "John Carlyle (merchant)" Website .

Carlyle was active in importing, buying, selling, and owning enslaved people, who labored in his household and across his many business ventures. His household inventory at death lists them by first name.

He died in October 1780 and was buried at the Old Presbyterian Meeting House in Alexandria. The following year — September 1781 — his son George William Carlyle, born May 27, 1766, was killed at the age of fifteen at the Battle of Eutaw Springs in South Carolina, one of the final engagements of the Revolutionary War ^[1] Source 1 Wikipedia, "John Carlyle (merchant)" Website .