John Carlyle and His House
[Like nearby Ramsay House, the home of John Carlyle has also been
threatened by business interests and was in danger of demolition just
before the outbreak of World War II. It was saved by Mr. Lloyd L.
Scheffer who acquired the property from the Wagar estate and continues
to maintain the residence as a historic house museum. Entrance to the
Carlyle Home is through the lobby of the Wagar apartments at 123 North
Fairfax Street.]
In an ancient will book at Fairfax Court House is the inventory of a
gentleman's estate--household fabrics, mahogany and walnut furniture,
family pictures, maps, prints, books, silverware, glassware, chinaware,
and all manner of utensils, and drawers of "Trumpery!" More personal
items imply a rich wardrobe and a man who doubtless cut a figure in
society, for the list of apparel is long, containing, "1 scarlet cloth
jacket with broad gold lace," "1 crimson velvet jacket with broad gold
lace," "1 pair scarlet breaches with gold knee bands," "1 silver tobacco
box," "1 tortoise shell ditto with silver top," "2 pair silver shoe
buckles and 1 pair gold studds," "24 silver large coat buttons and 1
stock buckle," "1 box with 4 wiggs," etc.[73]
Another entry in a more ancient tome reads:
At a court held for the County of Fairfax, 19th March, 1754. Present
John Colvill, Geo. Wm. Fairfax, John West, William Ramsay and Thomas
Colvill, Gentlemen Justices.
Mr. John Carlyle produced a commission from the Honorable the
Governor under the seal of the Colony appointing him Commissary of
provisions and stores for an expedition intended to the River Ohio
pursuant to which he took the oaths according to Law, repeated and
subscribed to the Test.... Lieutenant Col^o George Washington,
Lieutenant John West Jr. and James Townes pursuant to their military
commissions from the Honorable the Governor took the oaths according
to Law and subscribed to the Test.[74]
[Illustration: John Carlyle's Alexandria Mansion]
Military echoes are not lacking from the inventory of his possessions.
Is it possible that "1 Blue cloth coat with vellam holes"[75] related to
his military service as major of Virginia militia? Was this perchance
the coat worn by Major Carlyle in 1755 when the Redcoats of His
Britannic Majesty's forces and the Virginia Militia fought under General
Edward Braddock and met defeat at Great Meadows at the hands of the
French and Indians? Major Carlyle was quartermaster in those days, with
the mission of scouring the countryside for horses and forage. Objects
of military use more easily picked out of the list taken by his
executors include a spyglass, guns, pistols, swords, saddles,
saddlebags, holsters, a powder horn and "2 spontoons." It is a local
tradition that a store of these latter antique weapons were left behind
in Alexandria by Braddock's direction and that they constituted part of
the equipment of the town watchmen until the outbreak of the War Between
the States.
[Illustration: Mantel in the dining room]
John Carlyle was a Scotsman of gentle birth, of the Limkilns branch of
Carlyles of Torthorwald Castle. He left his home in Dumfrieshire for
Dumfries in Virginia at the age of twenty to enter one of the Scottish
shipping firms in that town in the year 1740. Foreseeing the end of that
port, he moved to the village of Belle Haven, and with John Dalton set
up in the mercantile and shipping business by 1744. This firm, under the
name of Carlyle & Dalton, was destined to become the most important one
in the new port, and John Carlyle the leading citizen. He was one of the
influential men in Fairfax County who agitated for a town at Belle
Haven, at the Hunting Creek warehouse. He was selected by the assembly
as one of the incorporators of the town of Alexandria, and as one of the
first trustees. Active in the town from the beginning, he helped build
the courthouse and market place. He was the town's first "Overseer." In
1755 he was ordered to build a warehouse at Point Lumley, a hundred feet
long, twenty feet wide, with thirteen-foot pitch, as well as to build
roads and clear streets.
[Illustration: John Carlyle's shell and silver snuffbox. Listed and
described in the inventory of his estate]
Carlyle bought the third lot put up for auction on July 13, 1749, No.
41, paying thirty _pistoles_. As the auction continued, he purchased
another lot adjoining the first for sixteen _pistoles_. Upon his two
lots he erected in 1752 the greatest private house in Alexandria for two
or more decades, and furnished it with the best his ships could carry.
The Carlyle house stands high above the river and so strong and thick
are the foundations that tradition has it they were early fortifications
against the Indians. The house of stone is oblong, being almost as long
again as it is wide and is believed originally to have had connecting
wings. Two-and-a-half stories high, large twin chimneys rise out of the
hipped roof and three dormer windows break the front and back. Double
galleries stretch across the river end, and before modern buildings
obstructed the view, the river could be viewed for miles in each
direction.
[Illustration: Portrait of John Carlyle's mother, Rachel Carlyle, which
hung always above her son's bed]
Inside, a large hall divides the house. A stairway that has neither the
appearance nor character of so old a house, and is doubtless an
"improvement," winds up to the second floor. Four rooms open into this
hall--fine rooms, too--but the blue or drawing room is the gem,
architecturally and historically. This is paneled from floor to ceiling.
There are three windows with low window seats and heavy paneled blinds
which become a part of the jambs when closed. Over the doorways are
elaborate pediments, with broken arches. The chair rail is carved in a
fret pattern and the dog-eared fireplace mold in the familiar
egg-and-dart design. In the overmantel, double dog-eared molding
outlines the center panel and two flat fluted pilasters reach from
mantelshelf to the heavy modillioned cornice which is carved in
alternating modillions and rosettes. The room is sixteen by eighteen
feet, painted a light slate blue with white or cream trim. On the second
floor five comfortable bedchambers open upon a narrow hall.
To this home Carlyle brought his first wife, Sarah Fairfax, whom he
married in 1748. She was the daughter of Colonel William Fairfax of
Belvoir, sister of Ann Fairfax Washington and George William Fairfax.
After her death in 1761, when Carlyle married Sybil West, he named their
only son for his well loved brother-in-law, George William Fairfax. When
his will was opened, it was by the side of Sarah he wished to be buried:
"As to my Body, I desire it may be interred under the Tombstone in the
enclosed ground in the Presbyterian Yard near where my first wife and
children are interred."[76]
This house was the social and political center of Alexandria. Such men
as Charles Carroll, Aaron Burr, John Paul Jones, John Marshall, Thomas
Jefferson, George Mason, George Washington, and the two Fairfaxes are
but a few of those who gathered here for good food, good wine, and
better talk. Any visitor of importance was entertained at "coffee"; the
house was often filled with music, and "balls" were common.
The "Congress of Alexandria" met here Monday, April 14, 1755, and on the
following Tuesday and Wednesday, when with Braddock and the five
colonial governors plans were made for concerted action against the
French and Indians. Here that famous letter, still in existence, was
written, urging upon the British government the necessity of taxing the
colonies. This letter set into movement a chain of events disastrous to
the mother country. It resulted in the loathed Stamp Act and led
ultimately to the Revolution of 1775.
[Illustration: Mantel in the music room. Probably a later "improvement"]
Carlyle was appointed collector of His Majesty's customs on the South
Potomac in 1758, succeeding his father-in-law, William Fairfax. In 1762
he was importing race horses into the colony. These were imported, "just
as they imported Madeira wine and other luxuries." One of the early
Maryland gazettes of July 29, 1762 carries the following advertisement:
Imported by Carlyle & Dalton in the ship _Christian_, Captain Stanly,
and for sale, three horses [Thorne's Starling: Smith's Hero, and
Leary's Old England] and three mares [the other two being the
Rock-mares Nos. 1 and 2] of full blood, viz: A _ch. m._ with a star
and two white heels behind, eight years old: Got by Wilson's Chestnut
Arabian: her dam by Slipby, brother to Snap's dam; and out of Menil
[sic] the dam of Trunnion. Menil was got by Partner: out of
Sampson's-Sister, which was got by Greyhound: her grandam by Curwen's
Bay Barb: her g. grandam by Ld. D'Arcy's Arabian: her dam by
Whiteshirt: out of a famous mare of Ld. Montagu's.
JOHN CARLYLE[77]
Alexandria, Va., July 1762.
In 1772 Carlyle took over the incompleted work on Christ Church and
carried it to completion. In 1773 he bought pew No. 19. In 1774 he built
the Presbyterian meetinghouse. In between times he was hunting at
Belvoir and Mount Vernon, dancing at Alexandria assemblies, sitting as
town trustee and gentleman justice, journeying to England and back,
laying out and planting his garden, taking part in long, hot arguments
with his family and neighbors in the ever-widening breach between the
colonies and the mother country, breeding race horses, and joining in
the frolics of the Jockey Club. Heir to a title old and honorable as it
was, he ardently espoused the cause of the colonies. Too ill for active
military service, he nevertheless served as a member of the Committee of
Safety until his death in 1780, at the age of sixty.
John Carlyle divided his lands, named after the Scottish family
holdings, Limkiln, Bridekirk, Torthorwald Taken, between his two
grandsons, Carlyle Fairfax Whiting and John Carlyle Herbert. To his
daughter, Sarah Herbert, he left thirty feet on Fairfax Street and one
hundred feet on Cameron Street, to include his dryware house. The
mansion and all other property were for a brief period the property of
his only son.
In his will he expressed the utmost concern for the education of this
boy, George William Carlyle, and urged his executors to spare no expense
and to send him to the best schools. Alas, for the plans of men! The
lad, fired by the talk of father and friends, was serving in Lee's
Legion in 1781, and ere John Carlyle was moldering in his grave this boy
of seventeen years, spirited, brave, heir to large estates, great
fortune and honorable name, and to the title of Lord Carlyle, was dead
at Eutaw Springs, led by that boy hardly older than himself "Light Horse
Harry" Lee.
Enough of serious and sad history; let us in lighter vein go once more
into the lovely paneled blue room where not only weighty conferences
occurred, but where, in lace and satin, noble figures threw aside the
cares of state and trod a measure to the tinkling of the spinet; where
games of cards were indulged in and the _pistoles_ changed hands. Let us
go into the dining room with its fine Adam mantel and its mahogany
doors, and visualize again the terrapin and the canvasback, the Madeira
and Port so abundantly provided from that great kitchen below, and the
most famous wine cellar of its day in Alexandria. Let us stroll in the
still lovely garden where the aroma of box and honeysuckle mingle, and
turn our thoughts once more to the inmates of this fine, old house.
Built in the days when Virginia was a man's world, when men who wore
satin, velvet and damask were masters of the art of fighting, riding,
drinking, eating, and wooing. When a man knew what he wanted, and got it
by God's help and his own tenacity, enjoying himself right lustily in
the getting. Perchance Major John Carlyle, clad in Saxon green laced
with silver, will be wandering up and down his box-bordered paths with
his first love, Sarah Fairfax, watching the moon light up the rigging of
Carlyle & Dalton's great ships at anchor just at the foot of the garden.
[Illustration]
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