Answering the Question, “Where Did We Come From?” Through the Collaborative Efforts of the Fort Ward/Seminary African American Descendant Society and Archaeologists in Alexandria, Virginia
By Mary Furlong and Adrienne Terrell Washington
Draft December 28, 2012
“We’re still here” has been the theme of the efforts of the Fort Ward/Seminary African American Descendant Society to incorporate the history of their more than 140-year-old community into the public interpretation of Fort Ward Park and Museum in Alexandria, Virginia. However, “where did we come from?” remains an important question about the origins of this (archetype African American) community (similar to those established by freedmen and women during Reconstruction) which has yet to be answered through archaeological and historical research. Many of the experiences of the Fort families mirror significant events in the history and culture of the African American experience from slavery and the Civil War through the Jim Crow segregationist era to the Civil Rights movement, all in the shadow of the nation’s capital.
“The Fort” community was an African American community located on and surrounding the grounds of Fort Ward, on the edge of the City of Alexandria in the Falls Church District of Fairfax County, Virginia. Before retrocession in 1847, this area once shared borders with the nation’s capital when portions of Alexandria, Virginia were allocated to form the original federal city. Later in 1861 Fort Ward was constructed as part of the Defenses of Washington, which was a network of 68 Union Army fortifications that encircled the US capital city during the American Civil War (1861-1865) to protect the nation’s capital from Confederate attack. However, the Union forts also attracted an influx of enslaved people seeking refuge from their former southern masters under the protection of the 1861 and 1862 Confiscation Acts. Alexandria’s population swelled with African Americans and Quaker abolitionist during this period despite having two of the biggest slave trading ports on the eastern seaboard. According to Alexandria city records, in number of “colored” persons in nearby Alexandria County increased sharply from 1860 when there 2,801 African Americans living in Alexandria to 1870 when that number increased to 7,310 (44 percent of the population.) Some of the names of these residents show up in the list of blacks buried at the Contraband Cemetery which is being reclaimed as a historic site, and they are connected to families who lived in the Fort community, such as Rachel Terrell, wife of Phillip Terrell, who was listed in the records as “living near the Seminary around 1867.”
The Fort Ward community is officially recorded as beginning in 1879, when Burr and Harriet McKnight Shorts were the first African Americans to purchase a portion of the land on the grounds of Fort Ward after it was decommissioned 145 years ago. The late purchase date also reflects the delay in the sale of the land due to a title dispute of its 40 acres (Hooe v. Hoof) which was not settled in court until 1872. However, this 1879 purchase date does not likely delineate the beginning of the Fort community, the relationships between community members or their relationship with the land surrounding Fort Ward, including the neighboring Virginia Theological Seminary (VTS) and Episcopal High School (EHS) campuses. Some evidence suggests that African Americans worked and lived at Fort Ward as contrabands while it was still active and at the neighboring Virginia Theological Seminary before and during the war. Some were enslaved people who included those on loan from the Mt. Vernon plantation to build Aspinwall Hall on the grounds donated by Martha Washington’s sister; others were free people, or contrabands, who labored on the grounds as cooks, drivers, laborers, laundresses, and domestics as well as nursemaids and nannies when the Union Army took over the school and turned it into the Fairfax Seminary Hospital to treat wounded soldiers at what became known as “Camp Seminary.”
Today, after 88 years of homeownership and building schools and churches on the properties, the Fort families, which include Caseys, Woods, Craven, Randalls, Wanzers, Terrells, Adams, Johnsons, Jackson and others, were relocated and fully merged into the nearby Seminary community primarily through lengthy and litigious eminent domain processes, and Fort Ward is now owned by the City. Members of the Fort Ward/Seminary African American Descendant Society and the historians and archaeologists who work at Fort Ward Park and other Defenses of Washington Parks have all suggested different, sometimes conflicting, founding narratives for The Fort community. Each one of these different explanations for the founding of The Fort community not only provides insight into the community’s early years, but how different sources of information about the past are valued and used by descendant community members, historians, and archaeologists.
For example, the descendants put great stock in oral histories and oral syntax. They can point to examples where the written record is inaccurate which was the case when one probate record listed heirs to a parcel of the Shorts/McKnight property as grandchildren when in fact they were the children of the family member in question. Descendants also refer to the culturally informative 1909 Bailey v. Bailey divorce case as circumstantial evidence about the community’s origin. Among those whose oral testimony is in the transcripts are Birney McKnight Terrell and her brother, Searles McKnight. When asked when they first came to know Mrs. Bailey, Birney responds that she first knew her as a child when she came to the Seminary to work from the superintendent; Searles responds that he met Mrs. Bailey when she came her shortly after the war. Both answers suggest to the descendants that the McKnights were already living either near on or on the Fort or VTS properties before or during the Civil War.
Another of these origin stories, favored by many of the descendant community members, is that the founding members of their community were originally enslaved workers living on or very near Fort Ward before the outbreak of the Civil War. There are several pieces of evidence that suggest that this was a possibility. Many of the members of the founding families of The Fort were listed in the 1870 federal census and other official records as living in the area prior to the first purchase of property at Fort Ward by African Americans. For example, Burr Shorts is listed as register to vote in 1867 in Fairfax County (Cartwright 2012). He and his wife Harriet Stuart McKnight Shorts, both appear in the 1870 census as living in the Falls Church District of Fairfax County. Several other members of the Shorts and McKnight families appear on the same page of the 1870 census. Of these, siblings Birney and Samuel McKnight were listed in the 1870 as domestic servants for Cassius Lee, cousin of Robert E. Lee, who was a watchful trustee of neighboring VTS and owned a plantation called Menokin adjacent to Fort Ward. Gen. Lee visited Menokin after the war. During the visit recalled by Cassius’s son, Cazenove, “[Gen. Lee] pointed to Fort Wade [sic] which was in the rear of our home,” to explain why he did not ‘take that fort.” The proximity of the rear of Menokin to the Fort community, which is west of the home, suggests to descendants that it may have been slave quarters at some point. For other accounts, Cassius Lee’s wife, Anne Eliza Gardner Lee, was a prolific writer who sent frequent letters to her friend Mrs. Samuel F. DuPont, also known as Sophie, who is a member of the Cazanove family, in which she describe her life at Menokin including one reported account in which she describes a servant with a large family who came rushing to announce the arrival of the Union soldiers at Ft. Ward. The letters and photos of the Lee/Cazanove families are part of an extensive collection at the Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library in Delaware and should provide more insight on the Fort families working the Menokin household.
Historical documents that include the names of members of The Fort community living specifically on the property that is now Fort Ward Park that predate the Civil War have yet to be found. However, descendants suggest that this is because their descendants were held in bondage in the area, likely at Menokin. Descendants cite what they have described as “circumstantial” evidence to make these conclusions. Descendants suggest that it is likely that Birney and Samuel McKnight might have remained as servants for the Lee family and the Lee/Stuart/Carter/Cazenove clan because they had been previously been enslaved there and that other members of the McKnight family may have been in the area because they too were once enslaved by the Lees and Carters. Census, birth records and family Bibles indicate that numerous members of the Fort and Seminary residents appear to have migrated from the Prince William, Loudoun, and Fauquier counties areas of Virginia and may have been enslaved at some point by the Lee/Stuart/Carter/Cazenove clan who owned plantations in that area and throughout Virginia. For example, James Montgomery Peters, father of 19th century Fort landowner and pig farmer John Peters, ran away from his master, James Carter of Aldie, Va., in Prince William County near the Oak Hill plantation of President James Monroe, when his brother overheard Carter talking about selling “Jim” A teamster who was familiar with the route leading to the bustling Alexandria seaport, James Peters escaped in time and joined the 1st regiment of the US Colored Troops commissioned on Mason Island in Washington, DC. Another piece of evidence that the descendants refer to is the use of the similar names, such as Cassius used by both members of the Lee and McKnight families. Harriet Shorts’ maiden name is Stuart, also spelled Stewart, and is the first name of a Lee cousin, Harriette Stuart Cazenove. Ann Harriotte is also the name of one of Cassius Lee’s daughters. Some descendants see these similar names as more than a coincidence, but a reflection of a deeper connection between these two families. Harriette Stuart Cazenove purchased 8 acres of land from a VTS professor adjacent to the campus in June 1856 after her husband died, according to Seminary Hill historian David Cavanaugh. She named the property “Stuartland.” Her brother placed an ad in the Alexandria Gazette on Jan. 26, 1858 stating: “wanted to hire for the present year, for Mrs. Harriet Cazenove, residency of the [Seminary] Hill, Theological Seminary, Fairfax County, Virginia, a man and woman, slaves without encombrances. The woman, a cook and washer, the man to attend garden and stable.” The similarity of names also extends to places. Oak Hill, Oatlands and close derivates are reflected in the Fort families’ choice to name the Baptist mission, church and school they established, first as Oak Hill, then as Oakland.
Another origin story, is the possibility that The Fort community originated as a contraband camp. This origin story, suggested by historians and archaeologists for several African American communities associated with Defenses of Washington forts, is considered a possibility worth exploring at Fort Ward. Contraband was a term assigned to escaped slaves who sought refuge in Union occupied forts throughout the South during the Civil War. The contraband policy at Fort Monroe, Virginia – which came to be called “Fort Freedom” – was developed under the leadership of Major General Benjamin Butler, who made the legal argument that slaves who were being used by the Confederate military for labor could be held by the Union military as contraband of war. The contraband policy, known as the First Confiscation Act of 1861 and the Confiscation Act of 1862, did not grant enslaved people freedom, but it did prevent the military from having to return enslaved people to their owners. The policy was also designed to allow for the Union army to benefit from the free labor of enslaved people, particularly young, able men, more than 200,000 of whom like Fort family forefathers James Montgomery Peters and William Wood eventually joined the instrumental US Colored Troops.
Because of the conditions of war and the implementation of the contraband policy, the African American population of the Washington, DC, area including Alexandra, swelled during the Civil War. Contraband settled in small groups associated with the some of the Defenses of Washington forts as well as in a large camp on the northern edge of DC known as Camp Barker (Johnston 1993). Although military documents have not yet been uncovered that verify the presence of contraband at Fort Ward, there are diaries, including one written by a Fairfax Seminary Hospital nurse, Jane Stuart Woolsey, noting in Hospital Days Reminiscence of a Civil War Nurse, how she looked out upon the “contrabands” surrounding the area with their “poor little huts hung upon the edges of the camp and were scattered over the fields all the way to the city.” And there were letters and journals, including one from a Union soldier writing in “Life in the Union Army” about his observations about Cassius Lee’s “odious” distaste for the soldiers passing by his farm… “when they were at work upon this fortress, called Fort Ward…” He also mentions “he, his farm and Negroes.” Abolitionist Harriet Jacobs also wrote in September 5, 1862 The Liberator of the “Life Among the Contrabands,” at the convalescent hospital. Even poet Walt Whitman in Specimen Days wrote of his visit to the Seminary Hospital and described the scene there.
The story of the creation of The Fort community that has been traditionally embraced by historians studying the area is that the community was not created until several years after the end of the Civil War. These historians argue that the community began in 1879 when Burr and Harriet Shorts first purchased property in the area of Fort Ward. Some historians have suggested that this land was available for purchase by the Shorts and later, by other members of The Fort community, because the property was in dispute as a result of the 1872 Hooe v. Hoof court case between two Dutch merchants living in Alexandria. Another explanation is that the families rented or leased land until they were able to secure the funds to purchase when the land became available.
In addition, the peripheral location of the Fort Ward to Alexandria may have contributed to its availability to the founding members of The Fort community. Fort Ward is approximately 3 miles from the center of Alexandria and was outside of the Alexandria city limits until the mid-20th century. The peripheral location to the Alexandria’s city center and to nearby Washington, DC may have made the land surrounding Fort Ward less desirable to white settlement because businesses would not have been located in The Fort area during the late 19th century. Although the families maintained small farms, the hilly, clay-filled land was also not conducive to large scale planting which is why there were no huge plantations in the immediate vicinity. In addition, the impact of the construction and occupation of a fort would likely have had negative impacts on the land, making it a less desirable area for settlement.
In addition, the pattern of independent African American communities being created on the edge of the city can be seen throughout the Washington, DC area. In fact, beginning in the 1860s and expanding in the 1880s the majority of African Americans either settled on the periphery of the City or in alley dwellings (Johnston 1993). The communities located on the periphery of the city often took the form of semi-rural, suburban neighborhoods which relied on one primary source of employment. For The Fort community, The Seminary and Episcopal High School served as the primary source of employment for The Fort community.
How can archaeology be used to help verify each of these explanations of the origins of the The Fort community? In order to answer this question, we must first discuss the archaeology research that has been conducted at Fort Ward and the limitations of archaeological research.
Several archaeological investigations have been conducted in Fort Ward Park. Most recently archaeological excavations were conducted in 2010, 2011, and 2012. The artifacts from the 2012 excavations are still being processed by Alexandria Archaeology and therefore only a limited amount of data is available at this time (Fesler 2012). In addition, archaeological information is restricted to the excavations conducted within the boundaries of Fort Ward Park. Therefore, if early settlements of the The Fort community were outside of the modern day park they may not ever be identified.
However, the archaeology of Fort Ward Park can be used to help identify the origins of The Fort community. The plan to do so is as follows. First, the artifacts collected during the 2010, 2011, and 2012 excavations will be examined to see if any of them pre-date the original 1879 purchase of property by the Shorts family in order to determine if The Fort community members were already living on the property prior to the outbreak of the Civil War and the construction of the fort. The context of these early artifacts will have to be established in order to identify if these early artifacts are associated with the military occupation of the site, an associated contraband settlement, or an early domestic occupation, possibly slave quarters.
To see if these artifacts can be associated with a contraband settlement, they will be compared to the pattern established by archaeologists Stephen McBride and Kim McBride (2011) at Camp Nelson and the Home for Colored Refugees in Kentucky. Although, in a different region, the extensive archaeological research conducted here allows for meaningful comparisons. Some of the patterns suggested by McBride and McBride (2011) include few animal bones within contraband trash because of a reliance on the military provided rations and reworked metal objects from bullets and other associated military items.
Likewise, the spatial organization of The Fort community will help determine if there are any structures on the property that predate the construction of Fort Ward or if housing was constructed contraband during the course of the war. The locations of such buildings, either in front of or behind the fort lines, will help determine their use and time of construction. Buildings that predated the construction of the fort would most likely only been allowed to remain standing if they were behind the fort lines, otherwise they would obstruct sight and firing lines. Buildings constructed during the war, would have been built behind the protective fort and those built after the war, could be built on either side of the fort or even on top of the earthworks themselves.
In addition, immediately after the war and the decommission of Fort Ward, the fort itself would have provided supplies, likely unintentionally, for the creation of the community. Johnston (1993: 165) describes how some freemen in the Washington, DC area “fashion(ed) ‘shanties’ from timber and cloth scavenged from former army camps and building sites.”
Although these origin stories may seem in conflict with each other, it is also possible that each one plays a part in the creation of The Fort community. In actuality The Fort appears to be a community composed of members who arrived at different times, some of whom may have lived in the area prior to the Civil War and others who arrived during later migrations. Throughout it’s nearly 100 year occupation, The Fort grew, attracting new residents who both bought and rented homes in the area. They donated and supplies land for a school as early as 1898 which was replaced in 1926 by a larger school, one funded by Sears & Roebuck President Julius Rosenwald, that existed until the late 1950s. That school is now the site of the famous Alexandria T.C. Williams High School, of “Remember the Titans” movie fame. The self-sufficient community also establish churches, Episcopal as well as Baptist, whose congregations are still thriving today. In recent years, through the dedication of descendants, community volunteers and city leaders and employees, the goal of restoring the Fort families’ history through signage and literature, finding lost graves and African American structures and resources have been helped immensely through the efforts of archeologists and historians to show that the community is “still here.” The next step and ultimate challenge for these professionals and experts, however; is to solve the haunting mystery of which Fort Ward origin story actually answers the question, “where did we come from?”
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