History Alexandria Virginia
In the early days of Alexandria, this half block contained the courthouse, the market house, two fire houses, the assembly hall, the jail, and the stocks and pillory. The first town hall/schoolhouse was built at the corner of Fairfax and Cameron Streets as early as 1759, and the jail may have been built even earlier. The current city hall was completed in 1873, with a southern addition added in 1961. In April 1752, Gov. Robert Dinwiddie (1693-1770) issued a proclamation moving the Fairfax County Court to Alexandria, and a courthouse was built here.
Washington’s diaries show that he came here frequently to attend Fairfax County and Hustings Court proceedings. Washington served as a Fairfax County justice of the peace from 1760 to 1774, and in the Virginia House of Burgesses from 1758 to 1775. He came here to vote in many elections. On July 18, 1774, the Fairfax Resolves were adopted at a meeting in the courthouse in Alexandria, with George Washington presiding.
In March 1785, Washington was very interested in the Maryland-Virginia Conference, a meeting that began on this site to settle maritime and navigational differences between these two states concerning the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay. Subsequently, the meeting moved to Mount Vernon, where an agreement was signed calling for another meeting of states in Annapolis the following year. The Annapolis convention of 1786 resulted in the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Thus, this site is very important in American history. Meetings here led to the end of the Articles of Confederation and the drafting of the Constitution of the United States and our present form of government. (George Washington was unanimously selected president of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia on May 25, 1787.)
(Adapted from Robert Madison’s Walking with Washington, available in Alexandria museum gift shops.)
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