FINAL REPORT OCTOBER 2017 D S OCUMENTARY TUDY AND A E RCHEOLOGICAL VALUATION 3640 W A , FOR HEELER VENUE A , V LEXANDRIA IRGINIA PREPARED FOR: S C IENA ORPORATION 8221 S R P NOWDEN IVER ARKWAY C , M 21045 OLUMBIA ARYLAND R. CHRISTOPHER GOODWIN & ASSOCIATES, INC. 241 EAST FOURTH STREET, SUITE 100  FREDERICK, MD 21701 Phoenix Mill 3640 Wheeler Avenue, Alexandria, Virginia L Modern view of Phoenix Mill building (Siena Corporation) ocated along Wheeler Avenue in Alexandria is a tall, unassuming brick building with a high-peaked roof. The building’s unique many-paned windows hint that the building may be more than it looks. Built in 1801, the building is the last standing grist mill in the City of Alexandria. The four-story brick structure replaced an earlier mill that had burned to the ground in exactly the same spot just months before. The original mill structure had been built sometime between 1770 and 1789 by William Hartshorne and his partner, George Gilpin (Fairfax Deeds Book R-1:353; Wigglesworth 1976/1977:49). Hartshorne was the sole owner of the mill when fire devastated it in 1801. Hartshorne rebuilt the mill structure, naming it Phoenix Mill. Phoenix Mill was a four-story tall merchant mill that operated four pairs of millstones. The building measured 40 feet wide by 55 feet long and reportedly produced not only flour and feed, but also ground lime for plaster (Wong 2015). The Mutual Assurance Company (1803) valued the mill at $12,000. Hartshorne used his mill as collateral for an $11,400 loan from Pennsylvanian Mordecai Lewis. When Hartshorne defaulted on the loan in 1812, the property was sold at public auction to repay the debt (Fairfax Deeds M-2:141-143). Thomas Wilson was the successful bidder for the mill property in 1813. He subdivided the R. Christopher Goodwin & Associates, Inc. Siena Corporation Frederick, Maryland Columbia, Maryland property for the benefit of his heirs in 1823, Notice of Sale leaving the mill lot (Lot #2) to David and   Hannah Wilson and William and Martha "That  Valuable  new  Mill  and  Farm  now  occupied  by  William  Hartshorne,  known  by  Brown (Fairfax Deeds Book U-2:407, 410A). the  name  of  Strawberry  Hill,  situated  on  Neither couple apparently had an interest in Holmes's Run and the Little River Turnpike  operating the mill, for the mill was rented to Road in the County of Fairfax about three  local millers for the next 30 years. miles from Alexandria; the tract contains  236  acres,  of  which  30  are  in  young  By 1854, the mill was again for sale at thriving  timber,  70  in  good  meadow,  the  public auction. Now called the Brick Water greater part of which may be watered from  Mill, the mill was advertised as being able to the Creek and Mill Race ‐ and the residue  is well improved arable Land. There are on  grind 100 barrels of flour per day. It had four the  premises,  one  peach  and  two  apple  “burrs” or millstones and sat just “yards” from orchards, a productive garden of two acres  the railroad and turnpike (Alexandria Gazette, handsomely  laid  off  ‐  A  framed  dwelling  House two stories high, 30 feet by 20 with  January 4, 1854). two wings, a large Kitchen, a pump of good  The Watkins’ family purchased the mill water  at  the  door;  Stables,  Stone  Spring  at auction in 1854. They later purchased an House, &c. Also a large well‐finished new  adjoining 27-acre parcel to increase the size of Brick Mill 55 feet by 45, four stories high  with three pair of large Burr and one pair  the mill property to 83 acres. Like the previous of  country  Mill  Stones,  capable  of  owners of the mill, the Watkins’ rented the manufacturing ten thousand barrels of flour  mill to local millers. annually. The stream is large and constant,  and  affords  a  fall  sufficient  for  water  Renamed Dominion Mill, the mill is wheels 19 feet in diameter.   shown on a 1865 map showing the Civil War of   ‐Alexandria Gazette, July 7,1812  Washington (below). It sits between the Orange & Alexandria Railroad and the turnpike, just south of Fort Williams and north of Cameron Run. When the Union occupied the Alexandria area during the Civil War, Union General Winfield Scott ordered the removal of all trees “within 10 miles of the railroad” to deny the element of surprise to would-be Confederate raiders (Lancaster and Lancaster 1992:89). This barren landscape is captured in a period photograph (right). During the Civil War, the Orange & Alexandria Railroad was the only cargo and passenger line that connected Orange County, Virginia, with ports in Alexandria. The mid-nineteenth century saw changes in both the mill property and the mill building. In Phoeni x Mill Detail from US War Department (1865) Military Map of NE Virginia, showing Forts and Roads (Library of Congress) R. Christopher Goodwin & Associates, Inc. Siena Corporation Frederick, Maryland Columbia, Maryland 1866, the Alexandria Water Company rerouted its intake canal to cross the lower part of the mill property. Phoenix Mill’s tailrace now emptied into the Water Company canal rather Undated Civil War-era photograph showing cleared land around Phoenix Mill (Image from Davis 1985) than into Cameron Run. By 1871, the Alexandria & Fredericksburg Railroad (formerly the Orange & Alexandria Railroad) had condemned part of the mill property for their new right-of-way. This Locomotive on the Orange & Alexandria Railroad, Virginia again altered the tailrace for the mill. (1862) (Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress) Sometime after 1870, a second overshot wheel was added to the mill. Reportedly made by the Jamieson and Collins foundry in Alexandria (Wong 2015), the new metal wheel increased the mill’s output from 35 hp to 80 hp. The land’s value also increased from $1,500 in 1870 to $5,000 in 1878 (Land Tax 1870, 1878). The Watkins family sold the mill in 1888 to pay estate debts. John Brown purchased the 83 acres that included the mill, then known as Old Dominion Mill, for $6,500 (Fairfax Deeds Book H- 5:50). Brown defaulted on the deed and the mill Phoenix Mill was again sold. Frank Hill purchased the mill in (rena med 1896 (Chataigne 1888). Like those before him, Dominion Mill) Hill leased the mill to local millers who oversaw mill operations. When Hill sold the mill and its land six Detail from Hopkins (1878) Atlas of fifteen miles around years later, he appears to have sold the mill Washington showing the mill as Dominion Grist Mill building separately. Charles Cockrell purchased R. Christopher Goodwin & Associates, Inc. Siena Corporation Frederick, Maryland Columbia, Maryland the land around the mill and farmed the property (Fairfax Deeds Book L- 6:659) Newton Carr, who boarded with Cockrell, operated the mill and may have overseen the replacement of the mill’s original wooden wheel in 1909 with a Fitz 1-X-L metal wheel (Census, Population Schedule, Falls Church District 1910:209; Wong 2015). By 1930 the mill had ceased operation and most of the land Cockrell purchased had been subdivided and sold. The photo (below right) shows the mill and surrounding lands as they appeared in 1927. Samuel Bell, who at some point had acquired the mill building, purchased two parcels from Cockrell Above: Undated mid-nineteenth century photograph of Phoenix Mill building, in 1954. He then sold the combined mistakenly labeled as Cloud’s Mill (Source: William Smith Collection, Alex- properties to the Industrial andria Public Library) Maintenance Corporation in 1958 Below: Aerial Photograph taken in 1927 showing the Phoenix Mill and mill (Alexandria Deeds 466:492-493). The races (Source: Alexandria Archeology 2016) Corporation made many changes to the property, including adding a large wing onto the mill building. It may have been around this time that the mill’s head and tail races, still visible in the 1927 photograph (right) were filled and the property paved. Head Race Siena Corporation recently Wheele r Ave purchased the Phoenix Mill building. Phoenix Mill They plan to adaptively reuse the building mill building, removing the non- historic additions and adding Tail R ace landscape elements that will echo Alexandria Water the building’s historic past as a grist Company canal mill. The mill will again be a reminder of the milling industry that flourished along the banks of Cameron Run less than a century Railr oad ago. R. Christopher Goodwin & Associates, Inc. Siena Corporation Frederick, Maryland Columbia, Maryland Documentary Study and Archeological Evaluation for 3640 Wheeler Avenue, Alexandria, Virginia ___________________________________ R. Christopher Goodwin, Ph.D. Principal Investigator by Martha R. Williams, M.A., M.Ed., Kathleen M. Child, M.A., and Katie L. Kosack, M.A. R. Christopher Goodwin & Associates, Inc. 241 E. Fourth Street, Suite 100 Frederick, Maryland 21701 October 2017 for Siena Corporation 8221 Snowden River Parkway Columbia, Maryland 21045 Abstract This documentary study and archeological ginia (Virginia Department of Historic Resources assessment was conducted on behalf of [VDHR] 2011); and City of Alexandria’s Archeo- Siena Corporation, in support of the per- logical Standards (1996). mitting process for proposed redevelopment for A review of available historic documents, 3640 Wheeler Avenue, in the City of Alexandria, previous cultural resources surveys conducted in Virginia. The work was conducted pursuant to the vicinity of the project area, client-provided a Scope of Work for a Documentary Study and geotechnical data, and client-provided data on Archeological Evaluation (dated March 3, 2016) current conditions indicate the project area has generated by Alexandria Archeology in response suffered moderate to severe subsurface distur- to the project. The study was designed to as- bance from past historic development activities. sist Siena Corporation to comply with the City of Although the historic Phoenix Mill is located Alexandria’s Archeological Ordinance No. 3413 on the property, the land adjacent to the mill has (1989), Section 11-411 of the City’s Zoning Or- been deeply cut and filled to create the current dinance (1992), and Section 106 of the National landscape. Geotechnical soil borings indicate be- Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) of 1966, as tween 5-12.5 feet of fill material overlies subsoil amended (USDI NPS 1983). deposits within the project area. While fill mate- Consultation regarding the scope of the doc- rial has the potential to preserve archeological re- umentary study was conducted with Dr. Garrett sources, the fill material extends significantly be- Fesler, staff archeologist with the City of Alex- low the natural surface grade. Due to the aggres- andria. All work was conducted in accordance sive nature of this disturbance, it is unlikely that with standards established in the Secretary of significant prehistoric or historic deposits related Interior’s Standards and Guidelines for Arche- to the pre-modern development of the property ology and Historic Preservation; Guidelines for remain. Conducting Historic Resources Survey in Vir- ii R. Christopher Goodwin & Associates, Inc. Contains Privileged Information -- Do Not Release