614 Oronoco

Philip Richard Fendall was born on November 24, 1734, in Charles County, Maryland — a scion of the Lee and Fendall families, described in his time as a “banker, lawyer, and merchant prince.” He succeeded his father as Clerk of Court for Charles County in 1764, attended the Maryland provincial conventions in Annapolis in 1774 and 1775, and was present at the earliest stirrings of the American Revolution. In 1793, he was elected the first President of the Bank of Alexandria — the first bank established south of the Potomac River.

He married three times. His first wife, Sarah Lettice Lee — eldest daughter of Richard Lee — died in 1761, just two years after their marriage. By 1780, Fendall had married his second wife, Elizabeth Steptoe Lee, widow of Philip Ludwell Lee of Stratford Hall. Elizabeth died in this house in 1789. In 1791, Fendall married his third wife, Mary “Mollie” Lee — the sister of Light-Horse Harry Lee. Their son, Philip Richard Fendall II, was born in the house in 1794.

During the Revolutionary War, Fendall traveled to France, where the Continental Congress sent him and a group of merchants to audit the accounts of American diplomatic personnel. His cousin Arthur Lee was one of America’s commissioners to the court of Louis XVI, and was instrumental in securing the 1778 Treaty of Alliance with France. John Adams’ diary entry for May 13, 1778 records dining in company that included “Mr. Fendell of Maryland.” His relationship with George Washington was deep and personal: Fendall made 34 recorded visits to Mount Vernon between 1770 and 1799, and Washington dined at the newly completed Lee-Fendall House on November 10, 1785 — recording in his diary: “Dined at Mr. Fendall’s (who was from home) and returned in the evening with Mrs. Washington.” Washington wrote a letter of introduction to the Governor of the Bahamas for the Fendalls in 1787 as Elizabeth sought warmer climates for her health, and in 1788 offered ass’s milk from his imported jennies for the ailing Elizabeth.

At the height of his wealth, Fendall controlled 82,408 acres of land across Virginia and Kentucky, and invested in the Potomac Canal Company, Georgetown Bridge Company, Pimmitt Run Industrial Park (encompassing a mill, distillery, brewery, and quarries), and Robert Young & Co. The mid-1790s brought severe agricultural depression across the South. Land values plummeted and Fendall’s vast acreage could not be converted to cash. By 1803, overwhelmed by debts and lawsuits, he declared bankruptcy and was confined to debtors’ prison in Fairfax County. His release was secured only after friends — including William Herbert, Richard Bland Lee, Thomas Swann, Robert Young, and William Byrd Page — established a trust to manage his property.

Reverend James Muir’s diary entry for March 10, 1805 records the sudden end: “Mr. Fendall died this morning. He was in usual health last Lord’s Day and at church service. Taken ill on Monday.” His will, probated April 9, 1805, expressed his final wish: “my body may be decently interred without pomp or show, my Burying Ground at my Farm.” That farm — north of Old Town near what is now Slater’s Lane — became his resting place alongside his wives.

After Philip’s death, Mollie Fendall served as executrix of his will and managed the family estate. In 1808 she leased the Lee-Fendall House to the well known tavern keeper John Gadsby, connecting the estate to the era that saw the composition of the Star-Spangled Banner by Francis Scott Key. Gadsby relocated to Baltimore later that year. Mollie died in 1827 and was buried alongside her husband on the farm. The family cemetery survived intact within the grounds of the Mutual Ice Company’s Potomac Yards facility — visible in early 20th-century aerial photographs — until the remains were eventually disinterred and relocated.

The key to understanding the relocation lies in a notice buried in the Alexandria Gazette on July 2, 1858: Philip Richard Fendall Jr. had purchased the first plots at the newly founded Ivy Hill Cemetery, reported as “the first lot holder of this spot.” Those plots are believed to be Section B, Lot 1 — the same lot where the family was eventually reinterred after the farm cemetery was displaced by Alexandria’s expanding transportation infrastructure.

In 2023, David Heiby and historian Catherine Weinraub — Historian and Archivist of the Ivy Hill Cemetery Historical Society — searched Ivy Hill’s archival records and discovered a card confirming the interment of P. R. Fendall in Section B, Lot 1, with a notation that no grave markers exist for any burials in that lot. Archaeologist Mark Ludlow then employed ground-penetrating radar at the site and identified four subsurface anomalies consistent with burials — one associated with Philip Richard Fendall, the gravesites of his second wife Elizabeth Steptoe Lee and his third wife Mary “Mollie” Lee, and one additional unidentified burial yet to be confirmed. Archaeological stakes now mark the four locations. The graves bear no headstones, monuments, or markers of any kind, which explains why the burials had been forgotten for over a century.

Born and raised in the Lee-Fendall House — the only child of Philip Richard Fendall Sr. and Mary “Mollie” Lee to be born in Alexandria. A Princeton graduate, he became a lawyer and served as a Lieutenant in the Maryland Militia during the War of 1812. His father was a delegate to the Maryland Convention of 1775 and a close friend of George Washington. In tribute to that friendship, Philip II was a significant supporter of the Washington Monument; his name appears on a bronze plaque at its base. He collaborated with his uncle, Richard Bland Lee, who oversaw the rebuilding of the U.S. Capitol after it was burned in the War of 1812.

Friend and clerk of Henry Clay, Secretary of State under President John Quincy Adams. President of the Jamestown Society. Secretary of the American Colonization Society from 1833, which advocated establishing a colony — Liberia — outside of America for formerly enslaved people. District Attorney for the District of Columbia. He was selected as a pallbearer at the funerals of both Dolley Madison and George Washington Parke Custis — two of the most significant state funerals of the mid-19th century. During the Civil War, he attempted to pay the $92.07 federal tax due on Arlington House for his cousin Mary Lee — a payment that was refused, leading to the confiscation of the property and its use as a federal cemetery after 1864.

He married Elizabeth Mary Young (October 7, 1804 – October 7, 1859) on March 31, 1827. The celebrated English novelist Charles Dickens said that Elizabeth Fendall was “the most interesting woman he met in the United States.”

Attended the United States Naval Academy and was commissioned in the United States Marine Corps as a 2nd Lieutenant on October 17, 1857. He sided with the North during the Civil War. His brother, James Robert Young Fendall, served as a Confederate States Marine Corps lieutenant — the two brothers on opposite sides of the same war.

A prominent lawyer and politician in Alexandria, Virginia, and a member of the Lee family of Virginia. He married Sarah Lee in 1796 — daughter of Richard Henry Lee, who introduced the motion of Independence in the Second Continental Congress, declaring that “these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States.” They had nine children.

Lee was elected to the Alexandria Common Council from the third ward in 1809. In 1810 he became the Council’s President but resigned in June. He was later re-elected to the Council and served on several committees. Elected Mayor of Alexandria in March 1815, he served for three years. Austerity characterized his administration; even Lee’s friends were prosecuted for gambling. Appointed Clerk of the Circuit Court for Alexandria County in July 1818, he served until retiring in 1840.

He was appointed to the Board of Trustees of the Alexandria Academy in August 1818 — one of Virginia’s first free schools, which received an endowment from George Washington at his death in 1799. Lee was an early member of the American Colonization Society, which advocated sending free Black Americans back to Africa.

Born in Westmoreland County, Virginia, the daughter of Richard Henry Lee — a central figure in America’s founding who introduced the Lee Resolution on June 7, 1776, paving the way for the Declaration of Independence, and issued the nation’s first Thanksgiving proclamation on October 31, 1777. Under the new Constitution, Richard Henry Lee was elected as one of Virginia’s first U.S. Senators, receiving more votes than any other candidate.

In 1789, Sarah married Edmund Jennings Lee I. Together they raised at least nine sons and five daughters in a household remembered for its warmth and activity. In 1828, Sarah and her husband purchased the Lee-Fendall House from the estate of his sister. Financial strain followed. The house eventually sold to Colin Auld for $1,050 — well below its $3,500 assessed value. Their son Edmund Jennings Lee II repurchased the property for $1,000, returning it to family hands. Edmund and Sarah moved into the home that same year. Her time there was short-lived. She died in 1837.

Born in Virginia, most likely closer to 1795 than 1801 — many Lee family records were destroyed during the Civil War, making precise dates difficult to confirm. She lived in the Lee-Fendall House with her parents and, after her father’s death, she and her sister Harriet inherited the house. They eventually sold it to the husband of their close relative, Harriet Stuart Cazenove, passing the property into the next chapter of its history.

Sally married John Bolling Bland (1788–1863) of Jordan’s Point, Prince George County, Virginia, who also settled in Alexandria. Their daughter, Mary Lee Bland (1817–1898), carried the Lee family line forward. Sally outlived her husband and died in Alexandria on April 14, 1879. Her gravestone inscription reads: “Sally Lee, Daughter of Edmund J. & Sally Lee, Died April 14, 1879, in the 78th year of her age. Forever with the Lord.”

The daughter of Edmund Jennings Lee I and Sarah Caldwell Lee, and a first cousin of Robert E. Lee. She married John Lloyd and eventually established their residence at The Lloyd House at 220 N. Washington Street — today home to the Alexandria Historic Alexandria administrative office.

Born into Philadelphia’s Quaker community and orphaned as a child, Lloyd was raised by his maternal grandfather, Captain John Harper (1728–1804), a Revolutionary War figure and prominent merchant who secured gunpowder for Revolutionary militias and established a thriving mercantile business in Alexandria. Harper also built numerous homes on what is now Captain’s Row on Prince Street.

Under his grandfather’s care, Lloyd became a successful dry goods merchant, hatter, and real estate investor. After his first wife, Rebecca Janney, died in 1817, he wed Ann Harriotte Lee — a first cousin of Robert E. Lee — in 1820. The family initially resided at 609 Oronoco Street, one of two twin five-bay houses where George Washington once dined; the adjoining 607 Oronoco is famously known as the Boyhood Home of Robert E. Lee. The Lloyd family later moved to the Lloyd House on Washington Street.

Eldest son of John and Ann Harriotte Lloyd. After attending the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, he pursued a career as a merchant in Virginia. When the Civil War began, he was appointed Captain, Assistant Commissary of Subsistence, serving in the C.S. Army of Northwest Virginia, the Army of Northern Virginia, and finally at Danville until the war’s end. Following the war, he returned to civilian life, inheriting the family home and living in solitude. He never married, proudly considering himself a gentleman of his time. He is buried with the footstone “E.J.L.”

William Hodgson was a respected figure in Alexandria civic life — a member of Masonic Lodge No. 22, a vestryman of Christ Church since 1813, an original Director of the Bank of Potomac (1804–05), and a Founding Member of the Alexandria Library Company in 1794. He participated in the Relief Fire Company in 1788 and the Sun Fire Company in 1798. Originally from England, he had spent two years in Newgate Prison for calling George III a “German Hogbutcher.” Despite that earlier ordeal, he later became a frequent visitor to Mount Vernon and played an integral part in Washington’s funeral procession.

He married Portia Lee in 1799, when she was 19 and he was 34. Their wedding took place at Sully Plantation in western Fairfax County — a property with deep ties to Portia’s family. Etched window pane shards found in the main house, bearing the name of one of their children, document the family’s continued presence at Sully during subsequent visits.

After their marriage, they initially lived at 207 Prince Street before relocating to Bellevue, a twelve-acre estate overlooking the Potomac situated half a mile north of Old Town — the site now occupied by the Marina Towers and Town Gate office complex. After William’s death in 1820, Portia moved in with her sister at 609 Oronoco Street in 1825, next door to where the Lee and Lloyd families lived, and remained there until her death in 1840. Portia was the daughter of William and Hannah Phillip Lee, prominent owners of Green Spring Plantation near Williamsburg, Virginia.

The son of Edmund Jennings Lee I and Sarah Caldwell Lee, and a cousin of Robert E. Lee. After Robert’s family moved to Alexandria in 1811, the two grew up together. Cassius lived at 428 N. Washington Street — today known as the Lloyd House — until 1865.

He married twice: first to Hanna Phillippa Ludwell Hopkins in 1833, and after her death to Ann Elza Gardner, the granddaughter of Anthony Charles Cazenove — the same Cazenove family that owned the Lee-Fendall House. He also served as a pallbearer for George Washington Parke Custis at Arlington, alongside Philip Richard Fendall II, who is interred in the Presbyterian Cemetery.

On April 20, 1861, Robert E. Lee resigned from the U.S. Army. The following day, after attending Christ Church, a meeting was held at Cassius’s home — which Lee often called his “second home.” Cassius sent his children to stay with his cousin Ann Harriotte Lee Lloyd during the gathering. It was there that Lee was offered command of Virginia’s forces. Two days later, Lee traveled with commissioners to Richmond, where he formally accepted the position on April 23, 1861.

Born in Chantilly, Fairfax County, Virginia, the son of Richard Henry Lee and Anne Gaskins. His father was a signer of both the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation; his uncle, Francis Lightfoot Lee, signed both as well. After graduating from Harvard University, he became a respected lawyer in Virginia.

In 1807 he married Elizabeth Fitzgerald, but she died that same year. In 1810 he married her sister, Jane Fitzgerald; both sisters were descendants of Colonel John Fitzgerald, a renowned Revolutionary War veteran. In 1811, Francis II acquired the Sully estate in Fairfax County from his second cousin, Richard Bland Lee, realizing annual profits of $1,500 to $2,500 from the plantation.

In 1816, Jane died from complications during childbirth. The loss devastated Francis, who suffered either a nervous breakdown or a stroke. By 1825, unable to care for himself, he was committed to the Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia. With him institutionalized, Sully fell under negligent management and was eventually sold in 1838. Francis spent his later years in mental health facilities before returning to Virginia in 1849. He died a year later in an asylum near Alexandria. He and his wives Elizabeth and Jane Fitzgerald are interred in Christ Church Episcopal Cemetery, though the exact resting places of Elizabeth and Jane remain unknown.

His son, Samuel Phillips Lee, married Elizabeth Blair Lee — daughter of Francis Preston Blair, the powerful Washington insider who on April 18, 1861 met with Robert E. Lee and offered him command of the Union forces gathering in Washington, an offer Lee declined before meeting with Winfield Scott and then his brother Sydney that same evening. That connection made Samuel Phillips Lee the brother-in-law of Union Major General Francis P. Blair Jr. and of Montgomery Blair, who served as United States Postmaster General in the cabinet of President Abraham Lincoln. Francis Preston Blair gave the newlyweds a house as a wedding gift, built beside his own home across the street from the White House. Today both homes are used together as Blair House — the Official Residence of foreign dignitaries visiting the United States. Samuel Phillips Lee remained loyal to the Union throughout the Civil War and served as a Rear Admiral in the United States Navy. His brother, John Fitzgerald Lee, also remained loyal to the North and served as Judge Advocate General of the United States Army from 1849 to 1862. Samuel is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

One of twenty-six members of the Lee family buried in Christ Church Cemetery — the older brother and closest friend of Robert E. Lee. A celebrated United States naval officer who, among other exploits, commanded the USS Mississippi — the flagship of Commodore Perry — when Perry opened Japan to the West in 1853.

The highlight of Lee’s career came when he was chosen as one of three naval officers to escort the Japanese delegation during their official 1860 visit to the United States. Selected because he was a person “of polished manner, of good address and high society with official rank,” Lee spent six weeks escorting the Japanese through official Washington, including a dinner at the President’s Mansion and a reception in the East Room on May 17, 1860, where President Buchanan and his cabinet received them. Since Dutch was the only Western language known to the Japanese, all conversations were conducted by translating Japanese to Dutch to English and back again throughout the visit.

On April 18, 1861 — the day Robert E. Lee met first with Francis Preston Blair, who offered him command of the Union forces gathering in Washington, and then with General Winfield Scott — Robert visited Sydney that same evening. It was one of the last times the two brothers spoke before the war divided the country. When Virginia declared secession, Sydney resigned his commission and was formally dismissed on April 22nd, the same day Robert assumed command of Virginia’s forces. Sydney was commissioned as a Commander in the Confederate Navy and put in command of the Gosport Navy Yard, where he oversaw the transformation of the charred USS Merrimack into the ironclad CSS Virginia. In 1863, he denounced South Carolina for getting the South “into the snarl of succession,” and grumbled that they should “be hanged . . . How I did want to stay in the old navy!” The brothers last saw each other on May 6, 1869, attending services together at Christ Church in Alexandria. Sydney died on July 22, 1869. Robert arrived in Alexandria two days later — too late for the funeral.

Sydney and his wife Anna Maria Mason Lee (February 26, 1811 – November 3, 1898) — sister of James Murray Mason, also buried in Christ Church Cemetery — rest together under an obelisk in Lot 20:5, just a few paces from the Edmund Jennings Lee family plots. Their son Fitzhugh Lee became a Confederate cavalry commander and later the 40th Governor of Virginia. It was Fitzhugh Lee’s brigade — under the immediate command of Colonel Thomas Mumford — that clashed with the 1st Massachusetts Cavalry at the Battle of Aldie on June 17, 1863, leaving Charles W. Needham mortally wounded and eventually buried in the Alexandria National Cemetery within the Wilkes Street Complex.

Following in his father’s footsteps, Sydney Smith Lee Jr. served in the Confederate Navy throughout the Civil War. Early in the conflict he served aboard the CSS Louisiana, then contributed to missions aboard the CSS Atlanta and CSS Georgia from 1862 to 1864. In 1864, he was assigned to the CSS Rappahannock near France before transferring to the CSS Shenandoah, a vessel tasked with disrupting Union commerce — particularly American whaling operations in the Pacific Ocean.

On August 2, 1865, while the Shenandoah was navigating the Pacific, she encountered the British merchant ship Barracouta en route from San Francisco to Liverpool. The Barracouta carried newspapers bearing two momentous pieces of news: the surrender of Lee’s uncle, General Robert E. Lee, at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865, and the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865. It was only then — nearly four months after the war had ended — that the Shenandoah ceased its wartime operations.

The irony is profound. History marks April 9, 1865 — the day his uncle surrendered at Appomattox — as the end of the Civil War. Yet at that very moment, Sydney Smith Lee Jr. was still actively raiding Union ships in the Pacific, conducting the last offensive combat operations of the war entirely unaware that it had ended. He would continue for another four months. In a very real sense, the man whose uncle’s surrender “ended” the war was still fighting it long after that ending had been declared.

Fearing prosecution as pirates for continuing attacks after the war’s official end, the officers and crew decided to sail the Shenandoah more than 17,000 miles to England, evading Union ships with the help of smokeless anthracite coal. They surrendered to British authorities at Liverpool on November 6, 1865 — the last formal surrender of Confederate forces at the end of the American Civil War.

Afterward, Lee and several fellow officers moved to Argentina, seeking refuge while fears of prosecution persisted. In time, many — including Lee Jr. — returned to the United States once the threat of arrest subsided. He lived a quiet life thereafter, never married, and died in 1888. He is buried near his parents in Lot 20:7 at Christ Church Cemetery.

The Lee family lawyer, Francis Lee Smith lived in Alexandria’s largest home at 510 Wolfe Street but fled to Richmond when the town was occupied on May 24, 1861. His departure had immediate consequences. Smith’s house was first requisitioned as a residence and office by General John Slough, Alexandria’s military governor, and then converted into the Wolfe Street General Hospital with 100 beds. Because Smith also failed to pay taxes to the authorities in person, the land he owned across from St. Mary’s Catholic Cemetery — now 1001 S. Washington Street — was confiscated in 1864 for use as an African American cemetery. From 1864 to 1869, Contrabands, Freedmen, and U.S. Colored Troops were buried there. In 1865, the 118 U.S.C.T. soldiers who had already been buried in the Contraband and Freedmen’s Cemetery before the petition were disinterred and reburied in Alexandria’s Soldiers’ Cemetery alongside their comrades. All told, 249 U.S. Colored Troops are buried in the Alexandria National Cemetery.

After the Civil War, Smith advised the Lee family to abandon hope of reclaiming Arlington, since he too had failed to reclaim the land where the Contraband Cemetery stood. His son, Francis Lee Smith Jr., believed his father was wrong. He pursued the case that became known as United States v. Lee. The suit succeeded because Philip Richard Fendall Lee had attempted to pay the Arlington tax on behalf of his cousin Mary Lee — a payment the government had refused. On May 15, 1883, the government compensated Custis Lee with $125,000 for the property, with an additional $25,000 to be paid after Lee settled the interest on the unpaid tax, formally transferring ownership of Arlington to the United States. In 1892, the Lee family received a further $217,236 in compensation for the wood and timber taken from the estate during the war.

A French Huguenot who fled to Geneva, Switzerland, then to the United States, settling in Alexandria in 1797 and becoming a leading citizen. He contracted yellow fever during the 1803 epidemic but survived. He spoke fluent French. On October 16, 1824, when the Marquis de Lafayette visited Alexandria, Cazenove introduced him to the assembled crowd from the steps of 601 Duke Street — the home of the late Thomas Lawrason, whose widow Alice served as Lafayette’s hostess for the evening. Lafayette had lodged at 301 S. St. Asaph Street and walked across to 601 Duke, where he addressed more than a thousand Alexandrians in broken English; Cazenove, speaking fluent French, was well suited to facilitate the occasion. Among those in the crowd that day was a young Robert E. Lee, then just 17, who would enter West Point less than a year later on July 1, 1825. The Lawrason house at 601 Duke Street is known as “The Lafayette House” to this day, and the Lawrason family is buried in Christ Church Cemetery. He was one of the last Alexandrians to wear a waistcoat and breeches along with a cocked hat. His son’s purchase of the Lee-Fendall House bound the Cazenove family permanently to the Oronoco Street neighborhood.

Louis, the son of Anthony Charles Cazenove, married Harriet E. Tuberville Stuart — the great-granddaughter of Richard Henry Lee, signer of the Declaration of Independence — in 1850. He purchased what is now called the Lee-Fendall House as a wedding present, adding the Greek Revival and Italianate elements seen today. Copies of their wedding portraits hang in the parlor of the house. He died of scarlet fever in 1852, just two years after the wedding. His first wife, Frances Ansley, whom he married in 1837, died in 1847 at the age of 27.

Harriet lived on for more than forty years after her husband’s death, managing the property, relocating to Seminary Hill, and finally selling the house in 1870. She is buried near her husband in the Presbyterian Cemetery.

William Holmes Fowle Jr. was the son of a prominent Alexandria merchant, known for his bold and spirited nature. In 1827, he took offense at something the young Louis Cazenove — son of Anthony Charles Cazenove, and the same man who would later purchase the Lee-Fendall House as a wedding gift — had written about Fowle’s relatives in Boston. Fowle sought an apology, which Cazenove provided. Despite receiving it, Fowle remained unsatisfied and challenged Cazenove to a duel.

On December 26, 1827, the two men met on Maryland soil across the Potomac River. Fowle was skilled with firearms; Cazenove had only handled a loaded pistol the night before. Bystanders could not determine who fired first. Fowle missed — but Cazenove’s shot found its mark, leaving a permanent scar on Fowle’s face. Despite the injury, both men survived. They eventually reconciled and moved on.

Fowle went on to a distinguished business career, serving as a director of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, president of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company, and president of the Bank of the Old Dominion. His flour mill, Pioneer Mill, operated from 1854 until 1861, when Union forces commandeered it as a commissary warehouse. He married Eliza Hooe, of a prominent Northern Virginia family, and together they raised a large family. Remarkably, Fowle and his wife Eliza T. died just months apart in 1869; their gravestones feature a distinctive bridge design that links the two markers together.

Dr. Edwin Bentley lived at the Lee-Fendall House during the Civil War while serving as Head Surgeon of the Third Division Military Hospitals — the network of wards, branches, and subdivisions covering Alexandria’s northern section, anchored by the Grosvenor Military Hospital across Washington Street. As the war continued, his authority expanded: Bentley was eventually elevated to Superintendent of all military hospitals in the city, placing him in command of the entire medical apparatus of occupied Alexandria, including the L’Ouverture Hospital — which occupied most of the block bounded by Duke Street, Prince Street, S. Payne Street, and West Street, with a Virginia historical roadside marker today at the corner of S. Payne and Prince Streets — where African American soldiers received care. The Lee-Fendall House was also the site of the first successful blood transfusion in the United States Army, conducted during his tenure there.

In May 1864, when officials in Washington proposed ending burials at the Alexandria National Cemetery in favor of the newly established Arlington National Cemetery, Bentley objected formally, citing “great inconvenience and expense.” His advocacy prevailed — burials at Alexandria National Cemetery actually increased through 1864 and 1865, and the cemetery remains active within the Wilkes Street Cemetery Complex today.

As Superintendent of Contraband medical care, Bentley also held authority over the L’Ouverture Hospital. When the December 27, 1864 petition signed by 443 U.S. Colored Troops demanding equal burial rights arrived at the Lee-Fendall House, Bentley signed it and forwarded it to Governor Slough, who then consulted with Captain Lee before the Government agreed to the soldiers’ demands.

After the war, Bentley continued his Army career and co-founded Arkansas’s first medical school. He also pioneered early treatment for what we now recognize as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder — work that placed him among the most forward-thinking military physicians of the 19th century. When he died in 1917, he was buried at Arlington National Cemetery — the very cemetery whose expansion he had once resisted in favor of preserving Alexandria’s sacred ground.

Wilmer McLean has no direct connection to the Lee-Fendall House. But his grave — just a short walk from where you are standing — is inseparable from the story of Robert E. Lee, who is the central figure connecting most of the people on this tour. McLean’s father, Daniel McLean, played a pivotal role in establishing St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Alexandria, cementing the family’s deep roots in this community.

In 1853, McLean married Virginia Hooe Mason, a widow previously married to John Seddon Mason. Her dowry included the 1,200-acre Yorkshire farm near Bull Run in Prince William County — a property that would define his place in history. On July 18, 1861, Union cannons targeted Yorkshire, then serving as the headquarters of Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard. The cookhouse, which was being used as a signal station, suffered a direct hit. Three days later, on July 21, the armies clashed again near Manassas in the First Battle of Bull Run. Yorkshire became a makeshift hospital and prison for captured Union soldiers and spectators — including Congressman Alfred Ely of New York. McLean had stumbled into the opening act of the Civil War.

Resolved to remove his family from the battlefield, McLean relocated them approximately 120 miles south to the quiet courthouse village of Appomattox, Virginia — as far from the fighting as he could imagine. On April 9, 1865, Colonel Charles Marshall, an aide to General Robert E. Lee, approached McLean in search of an appropriate location for the surrender. Reluctantly, McLean offered his parlor. It was there that Lee surrendered to Grant — the moment history records as the end of the American Civil War.

The significance of the moment was not lost on those present. Despite McLean’s objections, Union officers quickly claimed his furniture as trophies, leaving gold coins in exchange. General Sheridan acquired a side table and presented it to General Custer as a gift for his wife Elizabeth. General Capehart took the chair used by Grant; Lieutenant Colonel Whitaker secured Lee’s chair. A doll named Lucretia — belonging to Virginia McLean — was also taken. McLean foreclosed on the Appomattox house in 1867, and it changed ownership multiple times, was later dismantled for a proposed museum that never materialized, and sat in ruins until the National Park Service restored it in the 1940s.

Financial hardships followed the war. McLean moved his family to Manassas in 1867, then eventually returned to Alexandria. Through his connection with Confederate raider John Mosby, he secured a position as tax collector for the Port of Alexandria, serving from 1876 to 1880. He died on June 5, 1882. His wife Virginia outlived him by eleven years and rests beside him in Lot 268.

McLean often summarized his place in history in a single sentence: “The American Civil War began in my front yard and ended in my parlor.” He is buried in St. Paul’s Cemetery — within the same Wilkes Street Cemetery Complex as Sydney Smith Lee, the older brother and closest friend of the man who surrendered in his parlor. The two men whose lives were most dramatically defined by Appomattox rest within the same 52-acre landscape of cemeteries.

Thomas Fleming (January 25, 1851 – January 28, 1922), his son John Paton Fleming (April 14, 1898 – January 28, 1922), and his daughter Mary Lee Fleming (April 7, 1892 – January 28, 1922) were descendants of Dr. Robert Fleming Fleming, who purchased the Lee-Fendall House in 1870. The Flemings were also related to Richard Bland Lee. John worked as an examiner at the U.S. Patent Office. Mary Lee was preparing to travel to the Blue Ridge Mountains as a missionary.

After two days confined at home by the biggest snowstorm in Washington DC history — more than 28 inches — the three Flemings decided to walk the mile from their home at 1801 Wyoming Avenue NW to the Knickerbocker Theatre at 18th and Columbia Road NW. The first film, School Days, started at 7:30 p.m. The feature, Get Rich Quick Wallingford, was set to begin at 9:00 p.m. A live orchestra would play throughout both films. They thought the theatre would be lightly attended and they could get good seats near the front.

At 9:00 p.m., just as the second film was starting, a thunderous crack rang through the building. The weight of the accumulated snow had overwhelmed the Knickerbocker’s flat roof. The ceiling and top of the theatre collapsed onto the concrete balcony; the balcony then collapsed onto the people below, burying moviegoers under concrete, plaster, and twisted steel beams. The Flemings — and 95 others, including former Congressman Andrew Jackson Barchfeld — were crushed to death. Thomas was identified in the morgue only by his watch and other personal belongings. In total, 98 people died and 133 were injured.

The rescue operation that night brought together Marines from the Barracks at 8th and I Street SE and the Pan American Building, along with Army soldiers from Fort Myers in Arlington, Virginia. The soldiers were commanded by Major George S. Patton — later one of the most famous generals of World War II. Army mules were used to pull military trucks through the snow-covered streets of Washington. Patton later wrote to his father: “They were pretty much flattened… Many of the heads were only three or four inches thick.”

No one was ever held legally accountable for the collapse, which investigators attributed to structural deficiencies and the extraordinary snow load. In later years, both the theatre’s architect, Reginald Geare, and its owner, Harry Crandall, took their own lives — in 1927 and 1937 respectively.

The three Flemings are buried in the Presbyterian Cemetery near their relatives, the Dixons and Quisenberrys, and near the Cazenove family plot — two families bound together by the house on Oronoco Street. Also in the Fleming plot are Robert Fleming Fleming (who ran an automotive dealership in Washington), his wife Ida von Lengerke Fleming, and infant Ann Paton Fleming.

Born in New Jersey, Downham arrived in Alexandria in 1862, selling whiskey to Union troops. In 1865, he married Sarah Miranda Price (April 2, 1845 – November 10, 1937), daughter of Alexandria merchant and shoemaker George E. Price. He ran a wholesale and retail liquor store at the lower end of King Street and built a successful business in liquor distribution.

He served twice on the city council before being elected to five consecutive two-year terms on the Board of Aldermen. After the death of Mayor John Smoot by heart attack on Christmas Eve 1887, Downham was selected as interim mayor. He was elected outright in 1890 and served four years before stepping down.

His son, Robert Downham, purchased the Lee-Fendall House in 1903 from the Fleming heirs. E.E. Downham was also a Shriner and Knights Templar and raised funds for the George Washington Masonic National Memorial. He died in 1921 and is buried with his wife in the Presbyterian Cemetery. His son Robert and daughter-in-law Mai are buried at Ivy Hill Cemetery, located one mile northwest of the Wilkes Street Cemetery Complex at 2823 King Street, Alexandria, VA 22302.