Office of Historic Alexandria

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200th anniversary of Lafayette’s visit to Alexandria celebrated with concert Tuesday night

By Vernon Miles
Portrait of Marquis de Lafayette by Ary Scheffer (National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution)

The Office of Historic Alexandria will celebrate Marquis de Lafayette, the acclaimed Hero of Two Worlds, with a concert and lecture marking 200 years since the city first threw its arms open to a hero of both the American and French revolutions.

Lafayette, a French nobleman and military officer, served under George Washington throughout the war and commanded Continental Army troops at the siege of Yorktown. Lafayette was also a prominent voice early in the French revolution, though he was later driven out of the country by more radical factions.

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Office of Historic Alexandria is raising rental fees at six venues

By James Cullum
The Alexandria Lyceum (Staff photo by Airey)

It’s about to get pricier to host events in buildings operated by the Office of Historic Alexandria (OHA).

On Wednesday, along with passing the fiscal year 2025 budget and considering other fee increases, City Council will consider OHA’s proposal to adjust renting out space at the following venues:

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Irish folk music group playing at fundraiser in Old Town this weekend

By Vernon Miles
The Irish Breakfast Band (image via Art on the Avenue/Facebook)

Didn’t get enough Irish cultural celebration at the St. Patrick’s Day Parade this weekend? A group of musicians are celebrating Irish folk music at a concert in Alexandria this weekend.

The Irish Breakfast Band — a group consisting of around 15 musicians with a variety of fiddles, flutes, hammered dulcimers and more — is playing at the Lyceum (201 S. Washington Street) this Saturday (March 9) from 7-8:30 p.m.

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Temporary exhibit at Freedom House Museum details life of enslaved child at D.C.’s Gonzaga High School

By James Cullum
Searching for Truth in the Garden from Gonzaga High School in D.C. is a new traveling exhibition at Freedom House Museum until April 15, 2023 (via City of Alexandria)

A new temporary exhibit at Freedom House Museum until April documents the life of a teenager enslaved at Washington Seminary in D.C.

“Searching for Truth in the Garden” reveals a story of Gabriel, a 13-year-old boy who was enslaved at the school — later renamed Gonzaga College High School — in 1829.

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New Alexandria holiday ornament celebrates Potomac Yard’s rail history

By Vernon Miles
Potomac Yard ornament (image via Office of Historic Alexandria)

The Office of Historic Alexandria has debuted its annual holiday ornament: a solid brass decoration depicting Potomac Yard’s rail yard history.

The 3 x 2.75 inch ornament features a steam-powered locomotive in the foreground and the Capitol Building in the background. The ornament is $25.

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Alexandria wants Freedom House Museum exterior to resemble slave pen origin

By James Cullum
1315 Duke Street after March 1863 by Andrew Russell (or Mathew Brady), image via City of Alexandria

Freedom House Museum in Old Town is looking to replicate how its property looked in the mid-19th century, when it was the headquarters of the largest slave-trading operation in the United States.

The proposed project at 1315 Duke Street would restore portions of the museum building exterior to how it looked between 1828 and 1861. After being deferred over the summer, it goes back to the city’s Board of Architectural Review next Wednesday, Nov. 15.

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Alexandria Community Remembrance Project says more can be done to memorialize the city’s first lynching

By Vernon Miles
The Marshall House in 1861, near where a mob of white men began a campaign of violence in 1865 (image via Office of Historic Alexandria)

While the city is making strides to honor the victims of two Alexandria lynchings, a member of the Alexandria Community Remembrance Project noted in a recent meeting that a third victim — the first recorded in the city — has been neglected in part due to a technicality.

Thanks in large part to the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), a non-profit based out of Alabama working to commemorate victims of lynching, the city has started to do more work to commemorate the victims of lynchings in 1897 and 1899. In particular, however, the EJI focuses on lynchings between 1877 and 1950, while Alexandria’s first recorded lynching occurred over ten years before that period started.

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Upcoming symposium celebrates 293 years of Alexandria’s waterfront history

By Vernon Miles
The Old Town Alexandria waterfront (staff photo by Jay Westcott)

Alexandria’s waterfront turns 293 this year and, may we just say, it doesn’t look a day over 200.

A symposium called The Alexandria Forum is returning next month to look back those nearly 300 years of history at the edge of the Potomac River. This year’s theme is The Waterfront Revisited: Birth and Rebirth, 1730-2023.

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