1830–1861
chapter 3 of 8
Antebellum Era
Slavery, commerce, and the road to war
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Places featuring this era
Alexandria Market House & City Hall (Masonic Hall), 301 King Street, Alexandria, Independent City, VA · Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · http://www.loc.gov/item/va1295/ 301 King Street
Alexandria's seat of municipal government, the present 1873 building stands on the footprint of the 1817 City Hall and Market House. …
AgnosticPreachersKid at en.wikipedia · via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0 Old and Historic Alexandria District, the colonial-through-antebellum core of the city, listed on the National Register in 1966.
APK · via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 313 South Alfred Street
One of the oldest African-American Baptist congregations in the United States, founded in 1803; present sanctuary erected 1855. NRHP-listed …
Ser Amantio de Nicalao · via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0 811 Prince Street
Italianate residence built 1854 by merchant John Bayne; later occupied by the Fowle family of shipbuilders. NRHP-listed 1986.
APK · via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 1707 Duke Street
Antebellum jail compound operated by slave trader Joseph Bruin from the 1840s through emancipation. NRHP-listed 2000.
606 South Washington Street 606 South Washington Street
Mid-19th-century chapel, part of Alexandria's antebellum African Methodist Episcopal congregation. NRHP-listed 2004.
814 Duke Street 814 Duke Street
Townhouse associated with Dr. Albert Johnson, a 19th-century African-American physician in Alexandria. NRHP-listed 2004.
Ser Amantio di Nicolao · via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0 2823 King Street
Garden cemetery established 1856 on the western edge of Alexandria; among its interments are several mayors and Confederate veterans. …
APK · via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 Jones Point Park
Frame lighthouse built 1855 at the south boundary stone of the original District of Columbia; one of the few surviving Potomac River inland …
Beyond My Ken · via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 206 North Pitt Street
Three brick rowhouses built ca. 1849 by Moses Hepburn, a free Black property owner and one of antebellum Alexandria's wealthiest African …
404 South Royal Street 404 South Royal Street
Mid-19th-century residence of George Lewis Seaton, a free Black master carpenter who served in the Virginia House of Delegates during …
Farragutful · via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 228 South Pitt Street
Federal-Greek Revival 1817 sanctuary, the second oldest Episcopal congregation in Alexandria after Christ Church. NRHP-listed 1985.
The original uploader was Ser Amantio di Nicolao at English Wikipedia . · via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 3.0 105 South Fairfax Street
Apothecary operated 1792-1933 by the Stabler and Leadbeater families; designated a National Historic Landmark in 2021. NRHP-listed 1982.
712 Prince Street 712 Prince Street
Federal-style 1820s townhouse later occupied by mayor and judge Henry Daingerfield's family. NRHP-listed 2019.
The original uploader was Ser Amantio di Nicolao at English Wikipedia . · via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 3.0 614 Oronoco Street
Federal-style house built in 1785 by Philip Richard Fendall on land acquired from the Lee family. Occupied by a rotating cast of Lee family …
614 Wolfe Street 614 Wolfe Street
Two-story brick schoolhouse built 1786 on Wolfe Street. was a founding trustee and bequeathed funds for free education of poor children. …
APK · via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 607 Oronoco Street
Federal-era house at 607 Oronoco Street rented by Anne Carter Lee from about 1812; principal childhood residence of her son Robert E. Lee …
![Old Loyd [i.e. Lloyd] House, Alexandria, Va.](/images/gtdju7ejdnwoq7p/old_loyd_i_e_lloyd_house_alexandria_va_2rutnb54Yg._hu_952f28a739427277.jpg)
Old Loyd [i.e. Lloyd] House, Alexandria, Va. · Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · http://www.loc.gov/item/2016803285/ 220 North Washington Street
Late-Georgian 1797 townhouse at the corner of North Washington and Queen built by merchant John Wise. Charles Lee, U.S. Attorney General and …
9000 Richmond Highway 9000 Richmond Highway
Federal-style brick mansion built 1800–1805 by and on a 2,000-acre tract carved from the Mount Vernon estate as their wedding gift from .
1100 Wilkes Street 1100 Wilkes Street
Cluster of twelve adjacent burial grounds stretching across the 1100 block of Wilkes Street, including Methodist Protestant, Presbyterian, …
Theodore Christopher · via Wikimedia Commons · CC0 1315 Duke Street
Brick Federal-era house and compound at 1315 Duke Street, operated from 1828 to 1836 as the headquarters of Franklin & Armfield, the largest …
609 Oronoco Street 609 Oronoco Street
Federal-style brick house at 609 Oronoco Street where Quaker educator ran a boys' classical school from 1824. received his pre–West Point …
Farragutful · via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 310 South Royal Street
Founded in 1795 as the first Catholic parish in Virginia. Present Greek Revival church on South Royal Street completed 1827; congregation …
1200 North Quaker Lane 1200 North Quaker Lane
The first high school in Virginia, founded 1839 by Bishop William Meade of the Episcopal Diocese on a 100-acre campus west of Old Town. …
Placeholder illustration of Lyceum. Seed placeholder — KingSt.com, 2026. To be replaced with archival photograph. 201 South Washington Street
Greek Revival building completed in 1839 as the Alexandria Lyceum, a subscription library and lecture hall. Served as a Union hospital …
SDC at en.wikipedia · via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain 1 Wilkes Street
The 1843 stone tide lock at the southern terminus of the Alexandria Canal, which connected the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal at Georgetown with …
Seminary Hill (off Seminary Road, near St. Stephens Road) Seminary Hill (off Seminary Road, near St. Stephens Road)
Layered Seminary Hill site that was the country estate "Muckross" of Burke & Herbert Bank co-founder Arthur Herbert, the Civil War earthwork …
People of the era
Benjamin Hallowell
b. 1799 · d. 1877
Quaker educator, scientist, and surveyor who ran a boys' boarding school at 609 Oronoco Street from 1824 onward. received his pre–West Point tutoring from Hallowell in 1824–1825.
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 …
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 Herbert family
Anglo-Irish merchant family that married into the Carlyles in the late eighteenth century, inherited , and produced , co-founder of and master of .
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 New …
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, Smoot …
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 …
John W. Burke
b. 1825
Senior partner who at age 27 joined the twenty-three-year-old on August 14, 1852 to open the Burke & Herbert Banking & Exchange Office at the corner of Prince and Lee Streets …
Mary Anna Custis Lee
b. 1808 · d. 1873
Wife of , daughter of , and great-granddaughter of Martha Washington. Brought Arlington House and its Mount Vernon-derived collections into the Lee household.
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 …
Smoot Lumber Co.
founded 1822· dissolved 2023
Alexandria lumber and millwork firm founded by in 1822; operated continuously under successive Smoot-family names for two hundred years until closing its Edsall Road yard in …
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 chief …
