Alexandria Old Town Market Square - "The Washington Payne Fight" (Malo mori quam foedari)

From Alexandria's very earliest days to the present, the Market Square has been the established center of the town. It was founded in 1749 by an act of the House of Burgesses. That year, half-acre lots were sold at auction and the streets were laid out in a grid plan. Two half-acre lots were set aside for Market Square. 

In 1752 construction began on the Fairfax County Court House, for this was the year Alexandria became the county seat. Above is a drawing signed "MAC" estimated to be around 1827-1852 and shows what the Market House and City Hall looked liked at the time. The one below is an aerial view from 1852 - 1871

I found a diagram of the area in The Alexandria Chronicle from the Alexandria Historical Society which shows the lay of the land. 

Over the years changes have been made to the buildings and and a few renovations including a major one in 1982-1984. Below is what the Alexandria City Hall looks like now and in the foreground to the right is the Market Square which basically is a big concrete slab with a water fountain feature, which was obviously closed for the season. 

So why did I visit this particular square? Historians at both the Virginia Room in Fairfax as well as the Alexandria library believe this is the very same square where William Payne once knocked George Washington down with a stick.

The story of the Washington Payne fight originally was told by Parson Weems in his book "The Life of Washington", written 10 years after the death of Washington and is summarized as follows. (This is also where the original story of Washington chopping down a cherry tree when he was 6 years old). 

A particularly hotly contested election was reaching its climax in Alexandria in December of 1755. 

Three men - George William Fairfax, William Ellzey and incumbent Colonel John West - were running to fill Fairfax County's two seats in the Virginia House of Burgesses. 

George Washington was a staunch supporter of Fairfax while William Payne headed the friends of Ellzey. Sharp words were exchanged in the Market Square and the twenty-three year old Washington said something which offended Payne, eight years his senior. Whereupon, Payne, despite begin a much smaller man (his granddaughter later described him as "5' 5" tall, quite slender, not a military man at all") struck Washington with his hickory walking stick and knocked him to the ground. 

The Colonel of the Virginia Regiment, Virginia's most distinguished soldier, publicly knocked down! Some of Washington's officers wanted to settle the score with Payne then and there. But Washington averted, and he retired to his room where he composed himself and wrote Payne a note saying he wished to meet him the next day. Payne fully expected to be challenged to a duel, but, much to his surprise, Washington apologized and asked Payne for forgiveness. The offer was quickly accepted, the crisis averted and the two men became good friends. 

Immediately after the war when the conquering hero (Washington) was returned in peace to his home with laurels of victory green and flourishing on his head, Payne felt a great desired to see him and with his son Devall he set out for Mount Vernon. Washington met him at the door with a smiling welcome and presently led him into an adjoining room where Mr. Washington sat. "Here, my dear". "Here is the little man you have so often heard me talk of, and who, on a difference between us one day, had the resolution to knock me down, big as I am. I know you will honor him as he deserves, for I assure you he has the heart of a true Virginia."

Parson Weem's biography of Washington, while extremely popular and influential, is a notoriously unreliable source. The book, full of factual errors, myths and moralizing vignettes, generally portrays a priggish perfect Washington. Reputable historians almost instinctively shy away from citing Weems as their source. Nevertheless, as the most renowned Washington scholar, Douglas Southall Freeman, acknowledges, this is one Washington tradition that seems to be well founded.

Bishop William Meade found the tradition strongly help by the Payne family in the 1850's. A family member indicated the William Payne in the Alexandria vestry book (I was able to find this book at Pohick Church) was the same William Payne who knocked George Washington down. When Bishop Meade began to criticize the man for too much self complacency in recounting an act of violence, the descendant quickly replied, "Oh, No! He was right. For General Washington the next day sent him an apology, instead of a challenge as his friends had anticipated. In fact the Payne family tradition was strong enough and old enough to include the passing down from generation to generation the very cane which Payne purportedly used to strike Washington. I myself am still trying to track this down but have been unable to find anyone who has it or knows about it.

Whether it was true or not who knows. I will tell you that the staff at mount Vernon cherish this book because of the Cherry tree story and it is highly regarded as one of the favorites. I found another article as to a new explanation of how the incident happened which explains Washington publicly dishonored William's younger brother Edward. 

The Payne family moto is "Malo mori quam foedari", which roughly translates to "Death before dishonor"

The Fairfax Resolves - "Defining our Constitutional Rights"

July 5th 1774 George Washington and others from Fairfax County met in Alexandria to appoint a committee to draft a statement that would, as Washington described it, “define our Constitutional Rights”. The Committee of Safety, as they were called, were formed all over the colonies and were made up of several prominent Fairfax residents, they became the shadow government that took control of the colonies away from the royal officials who because increasingly helpless.

In researching the Fairfax Resolves I noticed that most online documents only include the first 24 Resolves and not the 25th. I found the complete copy of the Fairfax Resolves at Gunston Hall (home of George Mason). The original is at the Library of Congress. Resolve 25 is one of the most import (well to me at least), it is a list of all the people on the committee who signed the resolves.

       Siblings William Payne Jr and Edward Payne were among George Washington and George Mason who signed the Fairfax Resolves.

Note: Information below taken from the Fairfax Resolves Booklet provided by the Fairfax County courthouse.

In the heat of late July, 1774, two prominent citizens of Fairfax County make their way to Williamsburg to attend an outlaw convention. George Washington and Charles Broadwater carry with them the “resolves” detailing Fairfax County’s opposition to the most recent actions of British Crown and Parliament. The “Fairfax Resolves” were a small but significant part of the drama that paved the way for the uniting of Britain’s American colonies and ultimately the Colonies’ declaration of independence from England in 1776.

1774 had been a turbulent year in the Colonies. Reacting to the Boston Tea Party and the growing revolutionary fervor in Massachusetts, the British closed the Port of Boston, dissolved the Massachusetts legislation and instituted a series of measures that became known as the Intolerable Acts as punishment. Outraged at the treatment of Massachusetts, the Virginia House of Burgesses formally protested the Boston Port Act which closed Boston to all shipping. The royal governor promptly dissolved the House to express British displeasure that Virginia dared to support its northern neighbor and question the actions of the Crown.

Deciding not to retire meekly, the now dispossessed members of the House decided to hold a convention of Virginia’s counties on August 1, 1774 to respond to British actions. The members dispersed to their counties to determine where their residents stood and to receive instructions for the Convention.

Fairfax residents met and on July 18, 1774 and approved the Fairfax Resolves. With George Washington serving as Chairman of the drafting committee and assisted by several prominent Fairfax residents, including George Mason, the Resolves clearly delineated the mistakes, depredations and crimes of the Crown that violated the rights of free Englishmen.

The Fairfax Resolves were the most detailed and comprehensive of any of the Virginia Counties and included resolves against taxation without representation and the importation of slaves. In addition, Fairfax called for the establishment of a Congress including all colonies. George Washington and Charles Broadwater were elected to present the resolves at the Convention charging them to “…present these Resolves as sense of the people of this county upon the measures proper to be taken in the present alarming and dangerous situation of American.”

The Fairfax Resolves were part of the framework uniting the shipping and mercantile interests of Massachusetts with the agricultural, plantation economy of Virginia. The joining of Virginia and Massachusetts in common cause was necessary to unite all the colonies which, in turn, permitted July 4, 1776 to happen.

In its “Top Treasures” exhibit, the Library of Congress describes the Fairfax County Resolves as the first clear expression of the constitutional rights of the British American colonists as subjects of the Crown.


If you wish to read an online transcription of the complete lists of the Resolves (including who signed it) see here: http://usfoundingdocuments.blogspot.com/2011/05/fairfax-county-virginia-resolutions.html

What did this all look like when it was happening: https://presidentgeorgewashington.wordpress.com/2010/03/13/washington-co-authors-fairfax-resolves-with-george-mason/

"General Washington Last Guard of Honor"

I visited the newly opened Fred W. Smith National Library located at Mount Vernon. The library opened in 2013 and is a center for researching George Washington, colonial America, and the Revolutionary and founding eras. 

The staff at the library was fantastic to work with. They provided me stacks of information on the Fairfax Resolves, Pohick Church and the funeral of George Washington.

I was able to find several gem stones in the piles of paper. They had an original Columbian Centinel and Massachusetts Federalist newspaper dated January 1st 1800 about George Washington's Funeral. On the front page was a drawing of George Washington's casket and how the funeral procession was formed. Right there to the left of the head of Washington was Colonel Payne one of the six Pall Bearers. 

I was also excited to find an old Pamphlet entitled "General Washington's Last Guard of Honor". In 1909 the Mount Vernon chapter of the Daughters of the Revolution set out to honor the pall bearers of George Washington by attempting to find each of the pall bearers tombstones. They were unable to find any of them. The pamphlet included a 2 page bio of Colonel William Payne

Since they were unable to find any of the tombstones they then decided to dedicate a plaque in honor of them. I was excited to find out this plaque was on the East side of the Christ Church in Alexandria only about 20 minutes away, which I immediately had to drive to. 

Christ Church is another historic church in which Washington and Payne attended. Here on the east wall near one of the entrances is the memorial plaque.

Pohick Church - Vestrymen Washington, Fairfax and Payne

In 1732, the Virginia General Assembly established Truro Parish, defining it as the lands in the colony above the Occoquan River, extending to the western frontier. As the only church within these boundaries, Pohick became the Parish Church of the newly formed district. Colonist residing within the parish soon elected twelve men to serve on the governing board known as the Vestry.  It was within the whitewashed pews and under the cedars of the old Colonial Churches of Virginia (Pohick being one of the most historic) that there grew up the sturdy independence of thought and action that blossomed into the Revolution.

During the Colonial period, Pohick Church was the congregation of many of our country's most prominent families, including the Washington's, Mason's and the Fairfaxe's. It was also the church of my 5th and 6th great grandfather William Payne Sr and William Payne Jr as well as my 5th great grand uncle Edward Payne.

All three Payne's were vestrymen at the church along with George Washington and George Mason. From the early days of the Colony vestrymen had assumed civil functions that corresponded roughly to those of today's country commissions. In the words of Thomas Jefferson, they were the twelve "most discreet farmers, so distributed through the parish that every part of it may be under the immediate eye of some one of them." Their duties included not only the building and maintaining of suitable churches. They were to seek out and provide for the aged and sick and poor. They were responsible for binding out as apprentices the orphans, of whom there were many on account of plagues and Indian massacres. They were responsible also for illegitimate children born of indentured servants working out their bonds. Once every four years the vestrymen required the farmers of the parish to procession the lands; that is, the owners of adjoining farms were to walk their boundaries in company with a vestryman renewing blaze marks and resetting stones to forestall, in so far as possible, the land quarrels so common in a pioneer county. To carry out their various responsibilities, the vestrymen were empowered to levy taxes on all tithables in their parish. The vestrymen thus were the local representative of the people. From their number almost invariable were chosen the delegates to the House of Burgesses. Meeting every few months to oversee the spiritual and moral welfare of their parishes, to decide on the location of new churches and the number of pounds of tobacco to be levied per tithable, the Vestrymen trained themselves in the responsibilities of self-government and learned the art of give and take so essential to the democratic process.

One of the only surviving artifact  is this baptismal font, which experts from the Asmolean Museum in Oxford identified as a large Medieval mortar. Likely dating from the eleventh or twelfth centuries, its large size suggests that it was taken from a monastery kitchen in England. The date 1773 was added when the original wooden church was erected. After the original church burned down this brick church was erected not far away. During the civil war the union solders striped everything inside of the church out and used it for firewood. The church has been reconstructed several times there is even some original Union soldiers graffiti on the walls. The baptismal font was found in a nearby farm field in which the farmer was using it for a horse trough.

In the early days of the church people would buy pews as a way to sponsor the church. George Washington bought two pews, of course they were way up front. Along side Washington was George Mason. Today they have plaques like the one below on the doors of the pews listing who original purchased them. 

A pamphlet of the church has says the 8 pews to the right were reserved for "The Most Respectable Inhabitants and Housekeepers." 

To both mine (and the women giving me a tour) surprise we discovered that Pew number 27 (one of the 8 pews mentioned above) was purchased and sponsored by Edward Payne (my 5th great grand uncle).

And his plaque

In 1776 Edward Payne was ordered to erect a new church in present-day Fairfax and it was called "Payne's Church".

If you are interested in more history of the Pohick church visit there website at http://www.pohick.org/history.html

Payne Family Cemetery

"Red House" (now called "Cedar Hill") is two miles northeast of Leedston, a small settlement on the Rappahannovk River, in Westmoreland County, Virginia. It was the ancient seat of the Payne Family.

The first Payne owner of the land on which Red House stood was "Mr. John Payne of Rappahannock", born in 1625 , in England.

About one hundred yards south of the residence is the ancient family burial ground, the antiquity of which is indicated by the inscription of the oldest gravestone now in existence there, that of Daniel Payne, born 1728, whose epitaph reads "buried with his ancestors."

The last owners sold the home and the land in 1860 stipulating in the deed that "it is expressly understood that the grave-yard on the said land is not included in this conveyance, and is reserved with a convenient right-of-way thereto to the grantors, their heirs and assigns, and all appurtenances whatsoever belonging or in any wise appertaining thereto."

Since that time, ownership of the land has passed through several hands, and the old grave-yard has gone the way of all private burying grounds in remote places and on alien property. Members of the family of the last persons buried at Red House have made repeated efforts to maintain a wire fence around the more recent graves. But with passing of the elders, the scattering of the younger generation and the increasingly general use of public cemeteries, the condition of the Red House grave-yard finally reached a point where even traces of its existence were vanishing. For this no one can be justly blamed.

In June of 1934, a stream of bulletins calling for help was started. these appeals were addressed to all discoverable descendants of the immigrant, John Patne, the founder of Red House.

The response to these 324 calls was prompt and generous, and work on the restoration began in November of 1934.

A wall was built around the remaining graves and measured 24 feet by 40 feet. It is made with re-inforced concrete with brick coping, and is broken at regular intervals with eleven brick posts. An opening on one end is enclosed by an ornamental wrought iron gate. In the inner face of the wall opposite the gate, is a set bronze tablet.

Driving down the dirt road in the rain is not recommended as I almost got stuck in the mud. Parking about a half mile away in a church parking lot I had to walk through the mud. Good thing I stopped at Walmart in Fredricksburg just before to purchase an umbrella and rain boots, note they have a no hassle 90 day return policy that I was happy to use on the way back. ;) 

Payne's Mill

In 1758 my 6th great grandfather William Payne II leased from Henry Fitzhugh a small piece of land on the Accontink Creek in Fairfax County Virginia to setup a Mill which was called "Payne's Mill". John Browne the author of "The story of Ravensworth" wrote an excellent article about Payne's Mill (Much of the information is taken from John's site).

Payne's Mill was a grist mill that processed corn and wheat. Colvin Run Mill in Fairfax County is what Payne's Mill might have looked like.

The original deed is in the Fairfax County court records.

This land was part of larger land grant known as Ravensworth.  Ravensworth was the largest colonial landgrant in Fairfax County – 24,112 acres (37.7 square miles), about one-half the area of nearby Washington, DC in 1685.

The land was repeatedly carved into smaller and smaller parcels through inheritance, sale and subdivision. The light green almost triangle shape on the right side of this colored map was Ravensworth.

In the upper right hand corner of Ravensworth you will find the piece of Land William Payne II owned, along with his son William Payne III and son Sanford Payne. The Mill is represented by a "M"

The picture below is right about where the "M" (Mill) symbol is on the map.

This Google Map overlay shows the boundaries of Henry Fitzhugh Land. Payne's Mill was on the bottom left right on the Accotink Creek. 

Event though I almost fell in and I scratched up my good ankle, I had to go down to the creeks edge and put my fingers in and felt the cool stream trickling by. 

On May 27 1782 William Payne II left the land to 2 of his sons, William Payne III (my 5th great grandfather) and brother Sanford Payne.

In this very same will on the next page William states that he leaves his 10,000 acres of land warrants to be divided equally among his children in the "Back Inhabatance" (his spelling). This land that he is referring to is now known as Kentucky (Kentucky didn't become a state till 1792).

Some more pictures.

Deep in the woods I found three stones lined up in a row, it appears some of them were cut or flat faced, I could see anything else under the snow on them, Not sure what they are.

And here is a little shaky video.

Today there is a public trail that leads through the land and there is a community center on the north side with a swimming pool overlooking the creek.