Andrew Wales has the distinction of being Alexandria,Virginia’s first commercial brewer and also the firstbrewer in the District of Columbia when Alexandria wasincorporated into the district in 1791. Wales brewed inthe Port City for a remarkable twenty-eight years from1770 to 1798. Researching an eighteenth century brewer comes with

its challenges. There is little in the records that we couldcall “personal” about either Andrew or Margaret Wales,such as diaries or letters. We have no images of the cou-ple, nor do we know when and where they married. Noris there a record of them having children: Wales willedhis property to his niece. We know little about Andrew’searly life, such as when or even why he immigrated toAmerica. But we do know he learned the trade of brew-ing in Scotland and he was literate. Wales was born in Scotland around 1737 and came to

the American colonies before 1765. From 1765 to 1769he worked at John Mercer’s Marlborough Brewery inStafford County, Virginia and then moved to Alexandriain 1770 to start his own brewery.

Wales proved to be an adaptable businessman, andwhile he was never wealthy, he and his wife Margaretreached the ranks of the upper-middle class as localmerchants. Fortunately, there is a significant documentary record

of the brewer’s time in America; however, much of it istransactional in nature, such as property deeds, newspa-per articles, church records, journals, wills and trusts,and trustee papers, as well as the meticulous records ofGeorge Washington, who did business with Wales forthree decades at three different locations in Old Town.

Contemporaries often spelled the brewer’s name“Wailes” or even “Wayles.” We also know that Waleswas a Tory who opposed the American Revolution, butone who remained in America after independence andwas actively engaged in local civic life.

What follows is a history of Andrew and MargaretWales’s life in Virginia. Their nearly three decades inAlexandria began a tradition of local brewing that con-tinues today, and they contributed significantly to thedevelopment of Alexandria’s waterfront and its successas the Port City.

Wales at MarlboroughAndrew Wales learned to brew while in Scotland, and

that skill likely was the reason for his migration toAmerica. We pick up Wales’s documentary trail at theMarlborough Brewery in Stafford County when he wasabout twenty-eight years old. The ruins of the Marlbor-ough plantation are northeast of Fredericksburg, on thePotomac River just south of Aquia Creek.

John Mercer (1705–1768) was a retired lawyer whosought to make his Marlborough plantation more prof-itable by building a large brewery. He noted that the Vir-ginia colony annually imported English ale worth£30,000 sterling. He thought that he and perhaps otherVirginians could meet this demand for good beer. Mer-cer invested £8,000 and purchased forty slaves to growbarley. Mercer hired “one Wales, a young ScotchBrewer” on the recommendation of Philip Ludwell Leeof Stratford Hall in 1765. Mercer wrote in a 1767 letter that, “Wales affirmed that he had some years the chargeof a brewhouse at Edinburgh.” Mercer built a house for

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TheAlexandria Chronicle

A publication of monographs about historical Alexandria, Virginia.

ALEXANDRIAAA HISTORICAL SOCIETY,YY INC. 201 South Washington Street • Alexandria, Virginia 22314Editor: Linda Greenberg Spring 2015 No. 2

Andrew Wales:

Alexandria’s First Brewer

by Garrett Peck

Wales and his wife Margaret, who lived in it rent free,and then spent another £100 altering the malt house toWales’s specifications. (George Mercer Papers 190,193) Mercer was perhaps not quite sure that Wales was up

to the task so he hired a master brewer, William King,who found fault with Wales’s design. King unexpect-edly died just three weeks later. King’s nephew, WilliamBailey, then showed up with a letter of recommendationas a brewer, and Mercer hired him. (George Mercer Pa-pers 191)Wales was not happy about this situation. He had gone

from being the master brewer to being King’s assistant,and now Bailey was to be the brew master. In a step thatshows both Wales’s confidence in his skills as a brewmaster and perhaps his unwillingness to work for others,he approached Mercer. He “insisted that he could makeas good beer from his malt as Bailey could from any ofhis making & desired he might brew his own,” Mercerwrote his son George. Mercer gave Wales permission tobrew a little beer on the side, but Bailey was in chargeat Marlborough, and he would do most of the brewing.(George Mercer Papers 191) Bailey’s beer was ready for market in spring 1766. An

advertisement appeared in the Virginia Gazette on May30 announcing the availability of ale, porter and strongbeer at the Marlborough Brewery. Mercer promised thatthis beer would be as good as any found in the world,“as nothing but the genuine best MALT and HOPS willbe used.”

In fact, the beer turned out to be awful, and no onewould buy it. Mercer attempted but failed to distill itinto whiskey. Andrew Wales’s beer, on the other hand,was quite good. “That brewed by Wales was the onlybeer I had that Season fit to drink,” Mercer lamented.Yet “the quantity brewed by Wales was so small that it

barely paid his wages of £40 & the charge of his & hiswive’s maintenance was so much out of my pocket.”(George Mercer Papers 191)

By the following year Wales had been promoted tobrew master, but the brewery again failed to turn aprofit. The barley crop was meager, and “a considerablepart of the beer & ale proved bad, which Wales excusedby alledging great part of the barley sprouted in the fieldas we had an extreme wet harvest,” Mercer wrote.(George Mercer Papers 191) Wales was probably rightabout the barley: as we shall see, many plantations inthe Mid-Atlantic tried and failed to grow the crop.

The brewery was meant to be a profit center for theMarlborough plantation, but instead proved a seriousdrain on Mercer’s finances. Concerned about his risingdebts, Mercer renegotiated the terms with Wales. “Hethereupon proposed to be answerable for any beer or alethat shou’d prove unmerchantable in consideration ofbeing allowed five percent of the net proceeds of all thatwas sold,” Mercer wrote. Wales had provided a guaran-tee for his product – but he also showed his entrepre-neurial side in asking for a cut of the sales. (GeorgeMercer Papers 192)

Wales produced good beer, but the volume was onlya fraction of what Mercer had hoped for. Mercer hopedto produce beer from 10,000 bushels of barley annually,but he was only able to obtain 2,000 bushels – and thebrewery required much more manpower than expected.It was all greater cost with diminished revenue. (GeorgeMercer Papers 192)

The business earned one notable customer: GeorgeWashington of Mount Vernon ordered a cask of Wales’sbeer in April 1768, paying nearly £4 for it. The follow-ing January, Washington noted that he owed money forpurchasing 54 gallons of Strong Beer, as well as 52 gal-lons of ale – all of it brewed by Wales. On August 2,1769, Washington provided a £15 promissory note toWales for ale (he noted in his November 1771 cash ac-counts that he still owed more than £6). These were thefirst transactions between the two men in a business re-lationship that would last three decades. (PGW ColonialSeries)

John Mercer died in October 1768, and the Marlbor-ough estate was liquidated a year later to pay his enor-mous debts. Wales remained at Marlborough through1769, brewing more beer and guaranteeing its quality.The brewery advertised in the Virginia Gazette (Novem-ber 23, 1769): “Mr. Wayles, the brewer, has brewed fourcrops, and has always made good liquor.” Wales accom-panied Captain Thomas Casson on a sales trip up theRappahannock River to vouch for the beer’s quality.“He is so confident of his success, that he has agreed topay for all that is not good,” the advertisement prom-

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Wales Alley in Old Town is named after Alexandria’s firstbrewer, Andrew Wales. In the background is the ca. 1795Fitzgerald Warehouse, the oldest building on the Alexandriawaterfront. Garrett Peck

ised. The Marlborough Brewery was an expensive failure.

John Mercer borrowed thousands of pounds for the ven-ture, and in the end it was all for naught. Andrew Walesgained experience, but he was an employee, not anowner. He moved on. Wales would start over in Alexan-dria, the twenty-year old port that lacked a single brew-ery – and he would never work for someone else again.

Wales Comes to AlexandriaWhen Alexandria was founded in 1749, Water Street

(now Lee Street) was aptly named: it ran along the Po-tomac River. A shallow, crescent-shaped cove curvedinto Alexandria between Oronoco Street in the north andDuke Street (Point Lumley) in the south. George Wash-ington’s 1749 survey map noted that the water in thisshallow cove was only four to five feet deep. This wasa problem for early merchants, as they couldn’t get shipsinto the shallows. (Riker, Shephard)

Andrew and Margaret Wales arrived in Alexandria inlate 1769 or early 1770 and found the young portbustling with fellow Scottish merchants, Irish workers,and African slaves. Wales rented space in the TownWarehouse, which stood on Point Lumley at the foot ofDuke Street, and began commercial brewing. His nameshows up in the records of the Board of Trustees asowing rent in February 1770. (Proceedings) (As of2015, the Town Warehouse is the site of the Art Leaguebuilding, at the corner of Duke and South Union Streets.It will be demolished and redeveloped into a hotel.) Later that year, Wales alerted the public in the Virginia

Gazette on July 26, 1770 that an indentured servantnamed Michael Tracey had run away. An indenturedservant was an investment for an employer, who spon-sored his passage to the colonies. The servant was ex-pected to work without pay until the debt was paid off.Wales offered forty shillings reward to anyone who se-cured and returned Tracey within Virginia, or threepounds if found beyond the border. There is no wordthat Tracey ever returned.The following year, Wales took a young boy as an ap-

prentice, as was noted in a Fairfax County court onMarch 20, 1771: “Ordered that the Churchwardens ofFairfax parish bind John Parker seven years old appren-tice to Andrew Wailes who is to learn him the trade of aBrewer and to read and write.” That same day, Walesserved on a jury in a case involving a debt – it was thefirst of many juries he would serve on in the comingdecades. (Historical Society 15; see also Alexandria,Virginia Hustings Court Orders)

Andrew and Margaret Wales were members of thePresbyterian congregation (now known as the Old Pres-byterian Meeting House, or OPMH, still at 323 S. Fair-fax Street). The church was formally established in1772, two years after Wales arrived in Alexandria. Thecongregation built its meeting house in 1775. The build-ing we see today was reconstructed after a fire in 1835.

Wales did not rent space in the Town Warehouse forvery long. Less than two years after launching the brew-ery, the couple acquired their first property in Alexan-dria. Robert Adam sold part of Lots 56, 57 and 58 toAndrew and Margaret Wales on December 3 and 4,

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George Washington’s 1749 survey map of Alexandria laid out the city’s lots and noted the shallow wa-ters between Duke and Oronoco Streets. Point Lumley, Lot 57, and later Lot 56, would become sitesfor the Wales Brewery. Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division.

1771 (Hustings Court Deeds, Book D: 300), and thenprovided them a mortgage for £331.17.6 on December10 (Fairfax Deed Book K: 302). Lots 57 and 58 stoodbetween Fairfax and Water streets; across the street wasa small sliver of Lot 56 on top of a bank that droppeddown to the river.

We know little about Margaret Wales, not even hermaiden name, or whether she married Andrew in Scot-land or in America. She may have been a woman ofsome means. Most property deeds in Alexandria’s earlyhistory just list men, but in the Wales’s case, both An-drew and Margaret are listed, indicating a joint tenancy.She may have provided money or collateral that enabledthe couple to buy the property that eventually becamethe Wales Brewery. Although the Waleses bought their land in December

1771, it would be another two years before they movedthe brewery, possibly because of financial problemswhile renting at the Town Warehouse. The records ofthe town Board of Trustees note that Andrew Walesowed £37.17.8 and had fallen behind on his rent in1771. The Proceedings of the Board of Trustees men-tions that the trustees ordered “distress” – allowing alandlord to seize property or material equivalent to whatwas owed — from the tenant and sell it to make up thedebt – “be made upon the effects of Andrew Wales inthe Town Warehouse on point Lumley for the arrears ofrent due from him for the said warehouse.” No date isgiven, but it is recorded in the 1772 section. (Proceed-ings) The Waleses probably built a house on Lot 57 before

moving the brewery there. We find record of Wales leas-ing their home on Water Street to Joseph Courts, whoopened a tavern. The cash flow emergency may haveprompted the Waleses to temporarily move. (VirginiaGazette, November 26, 1772)

Yet Wales persevered, bringing beer to market andgaining customers. George Washington, who had firstpurchased beer from Wales in 1768, continued as a cus-tomer. In December 1772, Washington noted in his cashaccounts that he had paid “Mr Andw Wayles” more than£8 for Strong Beer. (PGW Colonial Series) On December 2, 1773 Wales notified the town Board

of Trustees that he would be ending his lease in theTown Warehouse on January 1. He was ready to relocatethe brewery to his own land just two blocks away. (Pro-ceedings)

The Wales Brewery SitesWhen the Wales Brewery opened at its second location

in 1774, it stood in Lot 57 along Water Street (now LeeStreet), close to the waterfront where dockworkers andship crews could purchase beer, and where ships off-

loaded barley for Wales to brew. It was a profitable lo-cation – in fact, Wales brewed there for fourteen years.(The site today is the garden behind the Athenaeum.) The Wales Brewery was a complex that eventually ran

more than two blocks east from Fairfax Street to theAlexandria waterfront and reflected Wales’s diversebusinesses. It had a number of structures, probably offrame (wooden) construction, housing the brewery, adistillery, a retail store, storage facilities for beer andgrain, a tavern, and possibly the Wales home. The sitewas never static: it would change over the years asWales bought and sold property. After a fire burneddown the brewery in 1788, Wales used the opportunityto rebuild the complex in Lot 56, a block to the east. Thewaterfront was being extended into the Potomac River,so the new brewery location kept Wales close to thedocks and ships.

Wales faced a number of challenges in making hisnew, larger and more ambitious brewery a success. Hav-ing moved out of the Town Warehouse and opening thebrewery on their new property in 1774, Andrew andMargaret may have realized that they had more landthan they needed or that their expenses were too high.They may have even fallen behind in their payments toRobert Adam, who sold and mortgaged the property tothem. In any case, they decided to subdivide their landand sell off the northern portion. The Waleses sold halfof their lots to Robert McCrea, Robert Mease andMatthew Mease on July 28, 1774 for £350, a sumgreater than what they had paid for all the lots less thanfour years earlier. They agreed to build an alley betweentheir properties. (Fairfax Deed Book M: 4) This wouldbecome Wales Alley.

Wales apparently never made good on the mortgagepayment, and Robert Adam declared the property for-feit. Adam ended up selling the subdivision to McCreaand the two Meases on August 11, 1775. (Fairfax DeedBook M: 21)

Possibly fearful that they would lose the brewery,Wales rented a large piece of property from JohnAlexander on December 19, 1774. It stood in Lot 148at Wilkes and Royal Streets and was large enough tohouse a brewery. However, just two months later Walessub-let the property to William Hunter. (Fairfax DeedBook M: 105) The financial crisis seems to have beenaverted, as the Waleses managed to hold on to the prop-erty, albeit with a smaller footprint.

Andrew and Margaret’s initial purchase in 1771 in-cluded a sliver of land in Lot 56, which was possiblythe best investment they ever made. The shoreline cutdiagonally through the lot, but starting in 1782 the wa-terfront was extended more than 400 feet into the Po-tomac River, creating a large swath of new land through

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infill. The Wales’s lot extended eastward with the newshoreline, and their property was greatly expanded as aresult. As you walk east along Wales Alley and crossLee Street, you may notice a short but sharp drop in el-evation. This marks the original riverbank down to theshoreline: everything east of that is infill. And lookingsouth, you’ll see the third location of the Wales Brew-ery, roughly where the parking spaces stand behind thetownhouses. The best description of the Wales Brewery at its third

locale (1788–1802) is from a 1797 newspaper adver-tisement listing the property for sale. Wales described itas a lot “extending from Water to Union Streets” (Lot56) with a dwelling house, the brewery and the distillery– all “under the same roof” – and with the accompany-ing out houses. On the east side facing Union Streetwere two houses: one a tavern, the other a store. On thewest side facing Water Street (now Lee Street) was apossibly vacant lot measuring thirty-eight feet along

Water Street, and sixty feet along Wales Alley.(Columbian Mirror, March 18, 1797)

Another description of the Wales Brewery appearedin the Alexandria Advertiser on October 29, 1802 (andnearly identically reprinted in the National Intelligenceron November 15). The description is an advertisementfor the sale of property from the deceased John Fitzger-ald, who had purchased part of the brewery from Wales:

One half of a Brewery, commonly calledWales’s Brewery, with the necessary instru-ments and utensils for carrying on that busi-ness, and the ground appertaining to theBrewery; the whole of the Brewery is nowunder a demise at 600 dols per annum. A pieceof ground immediately joining on the Brew-ery, fronting on Water Street and a twenty footalley, extending on Water Street above fortyfeet, and upon the alley 150 feet.

This wasn’t the only Wales property in Alexandria.Andrew and Margaret jointly bought part of Lots 28 and29 (Queen Street at Fairfax Street) in 1772, which theyowned into the late 1790s. (Fairfax Deed Book K: 245,247) Whether they lived there or at the brewery isn’tcurrently known.

In November 1783, Wales rented part of GeorgeGilpin’s property on Lot 62, a 40 foot by 44 foot lot onPrince Street for $80 (silver) annual rent. This was largeenough to be a store or a spacious house. Wales contin-ued renting this into the 1790s, but for what purpose,the record doesn’t show. (Fairfax Deed Book O: 110)

Wales’s BeerUntil the arrival of the Alexandria Water Company in

the mid-1800s, people drew water from wells that werereadily contaminated by privies around every home intown. In addition, significant quantities of animal waste5

The Wales Brewery’s three sites in Old Town Alexandria.Glenn Wallace

Wales purchased the future brewery property in Decem-ber 1771. The top illustration shows the property from1771 to 1788. The lower one is the property after 1788.

from backyard chickens, horses and pigs created a swillthat was the perfect source of cholera and other waterborne diseases. Beer was the answer. Fermentationkilled pathogens in water, making it safe to drink. Beerwas an everyday staple of eighteenth century life.Beer is made with four key ingredients: malted barley,

hops, water and yeast. The malt, hops and water areboiled together into “wort,” which is then cooled. Bar-ley malt is high in sugar, which fuels fermentation whenyeast is added to the wort. Yeast turns the wort into beer,converting the sugars into alcohol and carbonation (car-bon dioxide). Hops have cone-shaped flowers whichadd aroma, flavor, and serve as a preservative.

A November 1789 Wales Brewery advertisement inThe Virginia Gazette and Alexandria Advertiser indicatethe type of beer produced: English-style ales.

The Wales Brewery produced two types of popularEnglish ales of the period: strong beer and small beer(Wales did not offer George Washington’s favorite beer,porter). Strong beer was more flavorful and higher inalcoholic content; it was, made from the first boiling ofthe wort. It was sometimes aged for as long as a year.

Small beer was lower in alcohol and cheaper to pro-duce, as it used recycled ingredients – the leftovers frommaking strong beer. Tim Holt, editor of the Journal ofthe Brewery History Society, explained in an e-mail thatsmall beer was a “drink made from wort of the second(and more rarely, third) mashing of a good quality malt.It was also comparatively lightly hopped.”

Eighteenth century brewing commenced in the falland continued through the winter. It would have beentoo hot to brew in the Virginia summer; instead, Waleswould have laid up stocks of beer and sold it year round.This would also explain why Wales diversified his busi-ness with the store and tavern and property rentals, soas to create year-round income.

Early beer recipes are difficult to find, as formulas

were proprietary and considered trade secrets. One ofthe more famous beer recipes is from George Washing-ton, who penned instructions “To make Small Beer” in1757:

Take a large Siffer full of Bran Hops to yourTaste. Boil these 3 hours. then strain out 30Gallns into a Cooler put in 3 Gallns Molasseswhile the Beer is Scalding hot or rather drawthe Molasses into the Cooler & Strain theBeer on it while boiling Hot[.] let this standtill it is little more than Blood warm then putin a quart of Yest if the weather is very Coldcover it over with a Blank[et] & let it work inthe Cooler 24 hours then put it into theCask—leave the Bung open till it is almostdon[e] woring—Bottle it that day week it wasBrewed. (PGW Colonial Series)

Washington substituted molasses to provide the sugarthat fed fermentation. For starch, Washington used bran,a by-product from milling wheat flour. Mount Vernon’sformer preservationist, Dennis Pogue, suggests that thisbran-and-molasses beer wouldn’t have been particularlypalatable, and it would be low in alcohol. It was mostlikely a beverage served to Washington’s slaves and in-dentured servants as a reward for their labor (FoundingSpirits 18–19)Andrew Wales’s beer was doubtless better than Wash-

ington’s. He was, after all, brewing a commercial prod-uct that had to be appealing to paying customers. Evenhis Small Beer would have been brewed with better in-gredients such as barley. Given the difficulties of grow-ing barley in the mid-Atlantic, Wales probably importedmuch of the necessary grain. His brewery was advanta-geously situated near the Alexandria waterfront wheremerchant ships could bring barley right to his doorstep– and leave with a barrel of beer for the crew.

George Washington and the Brewer in Alexandria Andrew Wales had a business relationship with

George Washington for three decades, starting withWashington’s 1768 purchase of beer that Wales hadbrewed at the Marlborough Brewery. Mount Vernonjust south of Alexandria, was a town that Washingtonhad not only helped survey, but visited frequently andconducted business with many local merchants such asWales. In November 1785, Bataille Muse, George Washing-

ton’s rent collector for his western lands, penned a letterto Washington from Berkeley Springs. Muse noted thathe would “Lodge at Mr. Andrew Wales, about the 10thof next month,” indicating that he would visit Washing-ton and stay at Wales’s tavern. Wales acted as Muse’s

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local agent in Alexandria, holding and forwarding ac-counts for Muse, who often traveled. Muse even offeredto borrow money from Wales for Washington, as hewrote Washington on January 3, 1787: “Should you bein want of money Please To inform me by next Post andI will draw on Mr Andrew Wales For one hundredpounds in your Favour — I wish for Timely notice thatHe Mr Wales may Provide with Certainty.” Wales wouldalso sell “distressed” commodities, such as butter, flour,and even horses that Muse had seized from tenants forfailing to pay rent, and doubtless collected a cut of thesales. (PGW Confederation Series) As Alexandria’s brewer, Andrew Wales had ready ac-

cess to barley through his trade contacts and served asa grain wholesaler for the region. Many of the localplantations, including Mount Vernon, brewed their ownbeer, but found it difficult to grow barley in Virginia’sdamp, humid climate and cold winters. George Wash-ington was anxious to attain some barley, as he pennedin a letter to Thomas Peters on December 4, 1786:“There is not, I believe a bushel of Barley of any kindin this neighbourhood for sale — A Mr Wales whoBrews in Alexandria procures all of this he can.” (PGWConfederation Series) It is likely that Wales importedbarley from other regions. For three years, Washington experimented with grow-

ing barley, but his efforts were never successful. Hisdiary entries in 1786, 1787 and 1788 are full of refer-ences to the planting and growing of barley. He notedin a March 23, 1794 letter to William Pearce:

I do not, in the first place believe Spring Bar-ley is to be had in that part of the Country, aslittle of it is grown there; and in the next place,it is not likely it would succeed, as I tried ittwo or three years unsuccessfully. If it is to behad at all, it is most likely to come fromWayles the Brewer in Alexandria; and youmight, as Oats are scarce, make another ex-periment, if Seed is to be had. How does theWinter Barley look? (PGW Confederation Se-ries)

Heavy rains ruined Washington’s spring barley cropin 1788, and Washington sought to purchase barley fromPhiladelphia. Then he changed his mind. On September16, 1788, Washington wrote Clement Biddle, his busi-ness manager in Philadelphia:

If you have not already purchased the WinterBarley I would not wish you to do it, for Ithink it is very probable that I may be able toget the quantity which I shall want of the

Brewer in Alexandria [Andrew Wales] in ex-change for Spring Barley, or if I should be dis-appointed there, that I can obtain it uponbetter terms & perhaps of a better qualityupon James River than at Philadelphia, as youobserve that the crops of it have generallyfailed, and none has yet been seen that is fitfor seed.

Two weeks later, on October 2, Washington againwrote Biddle, “In my last letter to you I requested thatyou would not put yourself to any trouble in procuringWinter barley for me as I expected to get a supply fromthe brewer in Alexandria.” (PGW Confederation Series)Wales provided the barley for Washington, albeit later

than the soon-to-be President wanted. Washingtonpenned in his diary on November 14, 1788: “The sow-ing of ten Bushels of Winter Barley, East side of fieldNo. 6 between the Corn was just finished (for an exper-iment) — being delayed till this time for want of theBarley, from Mr. Wayles [sic].” (PGW ConfederationSeries)It was advantageous for Andrew Wales to have a high

profile customer such as George Washington, a wealthyplanter, Revolutionary War hero, and later president ofthe United States. From the documentary record, theirrelationship was transactional: When Washingtonneeded barley, Wales provided it. When Washington’scollections manager Muse needed a clearinghouse foraccounts and “distressed” property, Wales offered hisstore and tavern. As a businessman, Wales got the ben-efit of being associated with one of the best-knownAmericans of the eighteenth century.

Andrew Wales: Brewer, Tory The American Revolution divided Alexandria’s loy-

alties. Even though George Washington consideredAlexandria his hometown, and other prominent support-ers of independence such as George Mason livednearby, many of the local merchants understood thattheir trade ties were with England. Not all of Alexandriasupported independence; in fact, there was a substantialundercurrent of Loyalist or Tory sympathy.One of the strangest incidents in Andrew Wales’s life

involved a prison escape of nine Loyalists and Britishsailors and soldiers from the Alexandria jail on theevening of April 25, 1777. We’re not certain of Wales’sinvolvement, of his innocence or of his guilt. Much ofthe documentary record from the time is circumstantialor heavily biased — yet it seems likely that in someway Wales was involved.

Much of the incident is recorded in Nicholas Cress-well’s journal. Cresswell came to Virginia from England

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in 1774, hoping to start a farming venture. It was poortiming, given that it was the eve of the American Rev-olution. Cresswell, an argumentative young man, satbetween the two camps, Loyalists and Rebels, and alien-ated both.

Cresswell helped set the Alexandria prison break inmotion. Determined to leave Virginia for England,Cresswell arrived in Alexandria on April 20, 1777, thendeparted four days later in the company of a young Scotnamed Collin Keir, who Cresswell said was AndrewWales’s nephew. Sometime after 10:00 p.m. the follow-ing evening, nine Loyalists and prisoners of war escapedfrom the local jail. Dunlap’s Maryland Gazette on April29, 1777 offered a $100 reward for their capture, pro-viding a complete list of the escapees: George Blair,John Cunningham, John Duncan, Bartlett Goodrich,William Nicholls, Captain James Parker, Josiah Rogers,John Rothery, and John Todd (or possibly Dodd). Thesame ad was repeated in the competing MarylandGazette two days later. The nine fugitives had help from local Loyalists who

facilitated their escape, armed them with weapons, pro-vided them with horses, and ferried them across the Po-tomac River to Maryland. Guided by a local Tory,Thomas Davis, they traveled overland to isolated CedarPoint, east of where Nanjemoy Creek enters the Po-tomac River. Here they were to meet Cresswell andKeir on April 26, who would be waiting with a pilot boatto take them to the Chesapeake Bay and the RoyalNavy. High winds interfered with their plan, and Keircouldn’t make it to shore. They missed the rendezvous.(Cresswell150)

The nine escapees and their guide Davis were at acrossroads. The countryside would be alerted, and theyhad no boat in which to escape. Eight of the men weredetermined to press on but two others turned back.Cresswell learned about this nearly two months later inNew York when the escapees arrived safely. Herecorded in his diary on June 18, 1777: “He [John Doddor Todd] informs me that they all got off safe, but Davis,the guide, and a Scotch Sergeant who was so muchdispirited, at not finding us at Ceder Point agreeable toour promise that they immediately returned, and deliv-ered themselves to the mercy of the Rebels.” (Cresswell168)

Abandoned by their guide, the remaining eight menpushed on for Lookout Point at the very end of the Po-tomac River. There they seized a sloop, then a largerpilot boat that took them across the Chesapeake to theEastern Shore of Maryland. (Virginia Gazette, May 9,1777) They trekked to the Delaware coast “by travelingin the night and through the Woods,” Cresswellrecorded. They seized another boat and sailed out to

meet the warship HMS Roebuck to complete their es-cape. It was a harrowing adventure that brought theeight men to freedom. (Cresswell 168)

Meanwhile, the guide Thomas Davis returned toAlexandria, where he found himself in a great deal oftrouble. He was no ordinary conspirator. Davis had for-merly served as the deputy adjutant of the 1st VirginiaRegiment and had initially supported the American Rev-olution, but he turned against the cause and conspiredto help the nine men escape. After abandoning theprison break, Davis and the “Scotch Sergeant,” BartlettGoodrich, returned to Alexandria and confessed thenames of their co-conspirators. They identified seventownsmen, including Andrew Wales.

Ebenezer Hazard, the surveyor general of the Conti-nental Post Office, the precursor to the U.S. Postal Serv-ice, was traveling south through Alexandria at the timeof the prison escape, and he faulted a much broader con-spiracy in his diary. “Some Tories lately formed a Planfor burning Alexandria and murdering the Inhabitants,& then seizing a Gondalow which lies in the River &going with her to the Enemy; but their Plan was discov-ered, & they are now in Gaol here,” he penned on May22, 1777. The next day, he wrote further: “The Torieswho intended to destroy Alexandria are sent off today,in Irons, to Williamsburg, to be tried. Two of themwhose names are Wales & Hepburn, are Men of someProperty: — there are seven in all; — no Americansamongst them.” (Journal of Ebenezer Hazard, 401–402) This was still fairly early in the American Revolution:

the United States had declared its independence fromGreat Britain only ten months earlier, and anyone bornin England even if they were Scottish, such as AndrewWales and William Hepburn, might be under suspicion. From the tone of Hazard’s journal, he considered the

accused guilty, and many in Alexandria probably did aswell. However, Hazard was only an observer and knewnothing about the men or their loyalties; he was only re-peating what he had heard, both hyperbole and rumor,during his day in the Alexandria area. Would Wales andHepburn — two upstanding businessmen — wish todestroy their own property and murder inhabitants? Itseems unlikely. On the other hand, had they helped Loy-alists escape from the jail? The answer is quite possiblyyes.

On May 30, the Virginia Gazette reported the defen-dants’ arrival in Williamsburg: “Wednesday ThomasDavis (late Adjutant Davis) and six other Tories and trai-tors, mounted in a waggon, under a proper guard, mak-ing a very decent appearance, passed down the street ontheir way to the public gaol, from Alexandria, wherethey are to remain for trial.” Like Hazard’s journal, thesemen were presumed guilty.

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From the safety of New York City, Nicholas Cresswelllearned about the charges against Davis and Wales, al-though the newspaper he read provided false informa-tion. He recorded in his journal that the men were triedon May 30, which was actually the day they arrived inVirginia’s capital Williamsburg. “Wales, Chisum, Davisand Murdo was condemned to be hanged on the Fridayfollowing. Muir, Kilpatrick and Heppurn to be impris-oned for Five years and all their property to be apropri-ated to the use of the State of Virginia,” he wrote in hisjournal on June 18. Cresswell proudly noted that therewas a $200 bounty on his and Collin Keir’s heads foraiding the prison break. Keir joined the British Army,while Cresswell sailed back to England that summer,ending his American adventure in bitterness and disap-pointment. He did not stay to find out what really hap-pened at the conspirators’ trial. (Cresswell 168)

The accused, including Andrew Wales, were held inthe Williamsburg jail for more than two months untiltheir case was brought before a grand jury in early Au-gust. It could not have been a comfortable time, giventhe heat and humidity of Williamsburg in summer. Fourof the accused – Philip Dow, William Hepburn, GeorgeMuir, and Andrew Wales – were acquitted on a techni-cality: the main witness and fellow conspirator, ThomasDavis, was forbidden from testifying. The defense at-torneys successfully moved that Davis had been earlierconvicted of a crime, so he couldn’t testify either on hisown behalf or against the other accused. Without theirstar witness, the prosecution’s case unraveled. Daviswas convicted of treason, “but discharged on a motionin arrest of judgment,” the Virginia Gazette reported onAugust 8, 1777. The article didn’t mention what becameof the three other men accused.

John Parke Custis witnessed the trial and afterwardswrote his step-father, General George Washington, in aletter dated August 8, 1777:

You will no doubt be surprized to hear of theAcquital of Davis and his Accomplices, It hasindeed astonish’d every One here, except theJudges, & the Lawyers who defended theCriminals, I was present at the Trial, and wasclearly satisfied from the Evidence that Daviswas guilty….It is now determined that relea-seing Prisoners of War, from their Place ofconfinement, is not Treason against the State,this Judgement in my Opinion does not reflectmuch honour, on the Talents of our Judges…”(PGW Revolutionary War Series)

Acquitted by the jury, Wales returned to Alexandria afree man, but found that he was no longer welcome. He

was vilified for his role in helping the prisoners escape.He moved to another nearby port town, Bladensburg,Maryland, where he became a trader, and there he con-tinued to support the loyalist cause. He remained inBladensburg for several years, not returning to Alexan-dria until near the end of the war. It isn’t known if Mar-garet joined him, or if she remained in Alexandria.Amazingly, Wales never had his property seized; how-ever, he had taken a loyalty oath, which may have pro-tected his belongings. On June 21, 1780, Prince George’s County magistrate

Josiah Beall wrote Maryland Govern Thomas Sim Leea letter that fills in many gaps about our understandingof Andrew Wales’s loyalties during the revolution.(Beall spelled the name “Wailes.”)


Wailes is one of those fellowes who was ac-cused with Assisting [illegible] the Goodricks& some Other prisoners in making their Es-cape
 from Alex” some years ago, and thoughhe was Acquited of the
 charge in Virginia,The People in Alex were so fully convincedof 
his Guilt in that & Other Villenys, thatthey drove him from thence; 
And he on tak-ing the Oath to the State has been suffered tolive
 since that, in Bladensburgh. But fromwhat I can learn of the
 fellows beheavior, heis as vile a tory as any in America [emphasisadded], he is now
 become one of the greatesttraders in Town, and by his artfull conductseems to be gaining some influence over theweak unthinking
 People, and has of late be-come a companion & high in Esteem
 amongthe Torys of the first rank, having been latelyAdmitted as I
 understand to a very high En-tertainment kept by them, some say
 to cele-brate the Kings birth day, Others on the Newsof the surrender of Charles Town [Charleston,South Carolina], which seems to have beenthe real & true
 cause of their feastivity,(Council of Maryland, v.43, 521)

Beall wrote Governor Lee again on December 3, 1780,claiming to have quelled a potential riot in Bladensburgthat wanted to tar and feather Andrew Wales. Wales hadasked Beall for protection, and Beall provided it, choos-ing to follow his duty in protecting Wales, even thoughhe believed in the man’s guilt. The magistrate noted thatlocals were fond of Wales (“tho a person who I believeis no friend to America”), but with the high inflation ofthe Revolutionary War era, merchants like Wales werecharging high prices, and this in turn spawned the riot.“This is occasioned it seems by the Exorbitant prices9

they are selling their goods at, and Especially Salt,which is now selling at £200,” Beall wrote. (Council ofMaryland, v.45, 197)

Wales Returns to AlexandriaWe aren’t certain when Wales returned to Alexandria

from his Bladensburg exile, but it was probably in 1781.We know this from the impressment of Wales’s horse.In 1780, the Virginia legislature authorized commission-ers to impress private property in support of the war ef-fort. With the Yorktown campaign under way in thesummer and fall 1781, commissioners issued vouchersfor property they borrowed.

For example, they impressed a horse from AndrewWales for fourteen days for the Marquis de Lafayette’sarmy. In February 1782, Wales presented his voucher tothe Fairfax County court and was paid £3.50 for use ofand “for damage done the horse.” (Court Booklets 5) The victory of the Americans at the Battle of Yorktown

in October 1781 effectively ended the War of Independ-ence. Though the peace wasn’t signed for another twoyears, the war was over. With the end of hostilities, com-merce and seaborne trade returned to Alexandria, as didAndrew Wales.

Wales somehow made peace with his Tory leaningsand remained in America – and his neighbors madepeace with him. He got back to brewing beer in Alexan-dria. In fact, Wales became actively involved in localcivic affairs, especially anything related to commerce.He frequently signed petitions, served on numerous ju-ries, was a member of a local church and a volunteerfire company, paid his taxes, and served as executor forseveral peoples’ estates. His store near the Alexandriawaterfront was a hub of commercial activity, and in factWales was much more than a brewer: he was a prosper-ous member of the city’s merchant class. On May 27, 1782, Wales signed a petition asking the

state legislature to permit the city to fill in the shallowsof Alexandria’s harbor. (Legislative Petitions 6) TheGeneral Assembly approved. Over the next severalyears, Alexandria moved the waterfront more than fourhundred feet closer to the deeper water of the shippingchannel. About two blocks were filled in as the Potomacshoreline was extended and straightened. New dockswere built further into the river. It was a bustling timefor the port city as trade resumed with the Caribbeanand Europe. It was also a good time to be in the brewingbusiness. (Riker; Shephard) In August 1782, Wales and a number of men from the

Alexandria militia petitioned to receive a cut of theprize-money from a captured British sloop, as they hadspotted the ship. A committee ruled on August 28 thatthey weren’t entitled to prize-money. (Cox 51) After

Wales’s loyalist activities, his request for prize moneymay seem questionable. Perhaps he thought that byjoining the militia he had redeemed himself in the eyesof his fellow citizens and that as a Loyalist he could en-gage in profit taking at the expense of a British mer-chant. Wales signed many legislative petitions, of which most

pertained to commerce. He signed a November 1786 pe-tition, along with dozens of the town’s leading mer-chants, calling for a lowering of import duties toVirginia, as people were buying more products like dis-tilled spirits, salt and sugar from Maryland where theywere cheaper. (Legislative Petitions 13–15) The nextday, he signed a petition calling for new tobacco inspec-tors. This was a controversial topic, as that same day an-other faction launched their own petition to block anynew tobacco inspectors. The legislature decided not toact on either petition. (Legislative Petitions 15–17) In 1788, Wales signed a petition calling for inspection

of bread and flour. (Legislative Petitions 28–29). In1790, he and others called for the improvement and re-pair of Fairfax Country roads that led to Alexandria(Legislative Petitions 34–35). In October 1792, the mer-chants of the town, including Wales, petitioned to es-tablish the Bank of Alexandria, the first chartered bankin Virginia, to be capitalized at $150,000. The followingyear, they asked for the bank’s capitalization to be dou-bled,and again to be increased to $350,000 in 1795.(Legislative Petitions 39–40; 41–43; 47–48) The origi-nal Bank of Alexandria building still stands on N. Fair-fax Street at the corner of Cameron Street.

Wales signed his last petition on December 7, 1798.Alexandria sought exemption from paying taxes to erectFairfax County public buildings. “These buildings willbe of no service to the town [of Alexandria] and FairfaxCounty contributes nothing for the Alexandria publicbuildings,” the petition complained. (Legislative Peti-tions 53–56)

Not all of the petitions that Wales signed were com-mercial. On June 20, 1785, James Madison publishedthe treatise Memorial and Remonstrance Against Reli-gious Assessments, written to ensure the Anglican (Epis-copal) Church did not continue as a state church afterVirginia Governor Patrick Henry pushed an assessmentbill to establish church taxes. Religious dissenters suchas Baptists and Presbyterians rallied around Madison toprotest the bill. Petitions to the General Assembly cir-culated the state. Being a Presbyterian, Wales signed theFairfax County petition, which is dated November 3.The public outcry helped sink the bill. (Memorial)

In October 1786, the members of Alexandria’s Pres-byterian Church, now the Old Presbyterian MeetingHouse congregation, including Wales, petitioned the

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legislature for the right to incorporate. (Legislative Pe-titions 11–12) Wales signed a November 1787 petitionthat called for the reform of the poor laws, including theestablishment of a plantation outside of Alexandriawhere the poor could grow crops. (Legislative Petitions25–28)

Andrew Wales was much more than a brewer. Herented his store to merchants who needed space but notan entire building, or when merchants needed temporaryspace, such as after a ship sailed in full of preciouscargo. We find notices in The Virginia Journal andAlexandria Advertiser of Philip Poyer selling Barbadosrum and spirits (September 7, 1785) and of WilliamBuddicom offering dry goods just arrived from Liver-pool aboard the brigantine Alexandria, both of whomused Wales’s store near “Captain Harper’s Wharf,”which was just steps to the south. (November 10, 1785) Owning more than two contiguous blocks of the city,

Wales had numerous structures on his property. He tookon renters, such as Elizabeth Hannah, who operated aboarding school for young women out of a house sherented from Wales. (Virginia Journal and AlexandriaAdvertiser, January 17, 1785)

Wales continued to build new structures and evenmoved his own home several times. A December 13,1787 advertisement in The Virginia Journal and Alexan-dria Advertiser noted that William Farrell had opened a“HOUSE of ENTERTAINMENT,” probably a tavern,on Water Street in what had been Andrew Wales’s homeopposite the brewery. Andrew Wales had employed at least one indentured

servant and an apprentice, but it isn’t known if he em-ployed others. Wales was a slave owner; however, thedocumentary record doesn’t indicate how many individ-uals he owned, or how he treated them. Nor did slavesappear in his will. One of his slaves was killed in an in-dustrial accident at the brewery. The Virginia Journaland Alexandria Advertiser reported on November 23,1786: “On Tues. Evening [November 21], a blind NegroFellow, named WILKES, belonging to Mr. AndrewWales, Brewer, fell into the Cooper which had boilingWater in it, and so scalded him that he died the nextMorning.” The local community rallied to prevent the execution

of a slave named Will who was convicted and sentencedto death for breaking and entering into a home and steal-ing money. Dennis Ramsay petitioned Virginia Gover-nor Henry Lee in July 1792. Among the dozens of menwho appended their names were Andrew Wales andReverend James Muir, the minister at the PresbyterianChurch. The governor pardoned Will, who was thenshipped to the West Indies. (Calendar 616–18, 624)Wales served as one of the executors for Robert Lyle’s

estate. In 1791, Wales, the other executors, Lyle’swidow and children were summoned to the RichmondHigh Court of Chancery over a dispute with Robinson,Sanderson and Rumney who owned a dry goods storeand warehouse on Prince Street, over debt from the de-ceased and how the executors had handled the estate.(Virginia Gazette and Alexandria Advertiser, June 23,1791) Charles Lee, a prominent attorney in Alexandriaand son of Governor Henry Lee, represented the execu-tors. His notes from the case survive, but they don’t in-dicate an outcome. (Charles Lee Notebook)

Disaster struck the Wales Brewery: on January 24,1788, when a fire consumed the brewery and the adjoin-ing residence. Breweries of the period were often builtof wood, and fires were common. The Norfolk andPortsmouth Journal reported that, “Mr. Wales is sup-posed to have sustained a loss of upwards of 2000[£].”Prompt action on the part of the townsfolk and fire de-partment kept the fire from spreading.

The fire was reported in a number of newspapersaround the country, but there is no record whether thelocal paper of the time, The Virginia Journal andAlexandria Advertiser, recorded it. The period of the fireis missing from the records. The fire would have destroyed not only the buildings

and the brewing equipment, but also the stocks of beerthat Wales planned to sell throughout the year. Thiswould have been a major loss. However, we do find ad-vertisements for the Wales Brewery the following year,indicating that Wales continued his business neverthe-less. Wales rebuilt the brewery a block east on Union Street

in Lot 56. With the extension of the waterfront into thePotomac River, the old brewery site was now twoblocks inland, so relocating the brewery placed it closerto the new shoreline. Tax records from the 1790s statedthat the brewery was near Union Street, the newly builtstreet that paralleled the waterfront. (Virginia RecordsIndex v.2, 393)

A July 10, 1789 deed for John Fitzgerald includes thishand-sketched map. Andrew Wales’s property (markedA. Wales and A.W.) is shown on the bottom row, stretch-ing from the Alexandria waterfront westward beyondWater Street. (Fairfax Deed Book Y-1: 85)

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Andrew and Margaret Wales continued to resize theirproperty based on their needs. After the brewery fire of1788, they no longer needed Lot 58 and sold it to Mar-cus McCausland three years later. (Hustings CourtDeeds D: 300) In 1794, they sold Lot 57 to JonahThompson for £375. (Hustings Court Deeds E: 296) Theentire Wales Brewery complex was now situated on Lot 56. As the Potomac River shoreline was filled in, Lot 56

was extended eastward toward the river. The Walesproperty extended further and further, but it was possi-bly more than the couple needed. On August 24, 1796,Andrew and Margaret Wales sold the Potomac Riverside of Lot 56 to Jesse Simms for £600, with a stipula-tion: “Simms not to intentionally stop up the Trunk [thealley] from the Brew house to the River.” (Hustings Court Deeds G: 493)

The End of the Wales EraCompetition emerged in the local brewing market as

Alexandria’s commercial activity picked up. In 1792,James Kerr opened the Potomac Brewery at the foot ofOronoco Street on the County Wharf. It produced strongale, mild ale, table beer and whiskey and even offeredbottles of beer for home delivery. The brewery and dis-tillery would operate for fifteen years. (Columbian Mir-ror, December 15, 1792; Alexandria Advertiser, March14, 1793, May 16, 1793) A short-lived competitor was the Union Brewery, lo-

cated at the southwest corner of Union and Wolfestreets, which operated from 1794 to 1797. Across theriver in the new City of Washington, Cornelius Coning-ham opened the Washington Brewery in 1796 on the siteof what is now the Reflecting Pool. Wales no longer hadthe commercial brewing market to himself. Four or five decades of brewing must have taken a toll

on Andrew Wales. In 1797, he was sixty years old anddecided it was time to retire from the business. He putthe brewery up for sale. Health concerns may haveprompted this: his wife Margaret died of consumptionon March 3, 1799.

Even as he was winding down his brewing career,Wales was burdened with the duty of serving as the ex-ecutor for the estate of his friend, Samuel McLean.McLean had significant debts, and in 1796, Wales peti-tioned the state legislature for permission to sellMcLean’s lot in town to pay these debts. (LegislativePetitions 48) Wales would deal with the McLean estateliterally until his own death in 1799. (Columbian Mir-ror, October 24, 1799).

Rev. Dr. James Muir, the minister at PresbyterianChurch, kept a record book of all the baptisms, mar-riages, and funerals that took place at his church.

Among the funeral entries for 1799 were both Andrewand Margaret Wales, showing their death dates andcauses of death:

3 Mar 1799 Wales, Mrs. Margt., 62 yrs., con-sumption23 Nov 1799 Wales, Andrew, 62 yrs., decline

Andrew and Margaret were interred in the BurialGround around the church, but no grave marker indi-cates where they were buried. Interestingly, this wasthree weeks before George Washington’s death on De-cember 14. The first president’s public memorial servicein Alexandria was likewise held at the PresbyterianChurch. (Early Church Records 151)

Given his local prominence as a merchant, distiller,and leader of the community, it is surprising that Wales’sdeath was not mentioned in any of the Alexandria news-papers. Perhaps this was a vestige of ill will towardWales stemming from his role as a Tory during the Rev-olutionary War, more than twenty years before. Theoversight is particularly notable given that Wales’s deathwas marked in other cities, although he was incorrectlydescribed as a “native of Holland”. (Massachusetts Mer-cury, December 6, 1799) Wales had signed his will in 1799, though without ap-

pending the day or month. Not having any survivingchildren, he left his estate, including property with rentalincome, to his niece, Margaret Low, her husband

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Andrew Wales advertised his brewery for sale inthe Columbian Mirror in March 1797.

Thomas, followed by their children. He appointed JohnBoyer and Thomas Vowell, Jr. as executors. (HustingsCourt A: 302)

Boyer and Vowell ordered a full inventory of theWales estate. Along with the remaining land holdings,the brewer and his wife had a considerable number ofhousehold items: books, clothing, furniture, and even abilliards table. The inventory was valued at £182. Thisput Andrew and Margaret Wales in the ranks of thetown’s upper middle class and shows that they wereprosperous merchants. They also left behind no debts.(Hustings Court A: 334) The Wales Brewery continued to operate, but only for

a few more years. John Fitzgerald, a major landownerand merchant in Alexandria who had built the FitzgeraldWarehouse around 1795, acquired a half interest in thebrewery. Fitzgerald himself died just two weeks afterWales and was deeply in debt, and that put the WalesBrewery’s future in question. William Lacey and Dr.Cornelius Coningham, the first brewer in the City ofWashington and owner of the Washington Brewery,briefly assumed management in 1798. They renamed itthe Alexandria Brewery as a counterpoint to the Wash-ington Brewery. In addition to small and strong beers,Coningham sold “table beer.”(Alexandria Times, De-cember 1, 1798; January 1, 1799) William Billington took over operation of the Alexan-

dria Brewery in 1799 with a five-year lease. Less thantwo years later, he put the brewery up for sub-lease, butapparently found no takers. Billington moved to thecompeting Potomac Brewery, which remained in busi-ness until 1807. (Columbian Mirror, November 9, 1799,January 21, 1800; Alexandria Times, May 26, 1801)

The Alexandria/Wales Brewery was closed by 1802,the same year that the executors of John Fitzgerald’s es-tate put his property up for sale (Alexandria Advertiser, October 29, 1802). Fortunately Alexandrians weren’tdeprived of beer: Isaac Entwisle opened a brewery nearthe waterfront at Union and Wolfe streets in 1805. The Entwisle Brewery witnessed the Royal Navy’s occupa-tion of the city in August 1814 during the War of 1812.Later known as Irwin’s Brewery, it burned down in1854. It is the first brewery in Alexandria to appear ona map. The site is one block south of the Robinson Ter-minal site, which (as of 2015) is slated for redevelop-ment.

Wales AlleyThe Wales Brewery buildings are long gone. Most if

not all of the buildings were built of wood, which weretorn down and replaced with more permanent brickstructures. But there is one surviving feature from An-drew and Margaret Wales’s property: Wales Alley. Itwas laid out in 1774 as the northern boundary of theWales lot and is named after the brewer. The alley ex-tends two contiguous blocks, from Fairfax to Unionstreets, and is today partly paved with cobblestones. Itis not known if these are original.

The best-known portion of the alley today, the thirdsegment running past the Fitzgerald Warehouse, wasn’toriginally called Wales Alley, but rather Fitzgerald andlater Irwin Alley. Wales never owned it. John Fitzgeraldput an easement on the thirty-foot wide property in1789, several years before he built the warehouse, inorder to maintain access to a dock. A 2013 VirginiaSupreme Court case validated that the easement wasstill legal. Even Wales Alley has seen some changes. Early maps

of the city show that the original alley was broken intotwo distinct sections on Lots 57 and 58. Some time agoWales Alley was realigned because when you walk overthe ground today, the alley is a straight line. In 1791, the Waleses sold Lot 58 to Marcus McCaus-

land of Baltimore (Hustings Court Deeds D: 300). Mc-Causland in turn sold it to Bryan Hampson, a successfulretailer, for £500 in 1797. (Hustings Court Deeds I: 110)Hampson built a house and store of Flemish bond brickaround 1805, several years after the Waleses’ death,though the house (120 S. Fairfax Street) is sometimesreferred to as the Wales House. (HABS VA–468)

The Bryan Hampson House stands north of today’sWales Alley. Wales’s property was south of the alley. Itmay have been Hampson who realigned Wales Alley byshifting the Lot 58 section southward. The Lot 57 sec-tion, along which the Wales Brewery stood at Water/LeeStreet. This is thus the alley’s oldest segment, dating to

13

A close up of an 1862 Coast Survey map showsAlexandria landmarks, including Irwin’s Brewery(lower left-hand corner, above Smith’s Foundary).Wales Alley is drawn on the map (upper right), butnot labeled. This was a copy of an 1852/1853 map:Irwin’s Brewery had burned down in 1854. Libraryof Congress Prints & Photographs Division

1774. Wales Alley may be the only physical remnant of An-

drew Wales’s brewery, but he was the first in a long lineof brewers who have kept beer glasses full in Alexanria.

About the AuthorGarrett Peck is an independent historian, tour guide, andauthor of six books, including Capital Beer: A HeadyHistory of Brewing in Washington, D.C and Prohibitionin Washington, D.C.: How Dry We Weren’t. He extendsspecial thanks for the generous assistance with this ar-ticle to George Combs, Don Dahmann, Bill Dickinson,Linda Greenberg, Elaine Hawes, Anne Irving, Tim Holt,Dennis Pogue, Ted Pulliam and Glenn Wallace.

Sources A Man Apart: The Journal of Nicholas Cresswell, 1774-1781, Harold B. Gill Jr. and George M. Curtis, III, edi-tors. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2009.

“Advertisement,” Alexandria Advertiser, October 29,1802.

“Advertisement.” The National Intelligencer, Novem-ber 15, 1802.

“Alexandria, January 24,” Norfolk and PortsmouthJournal, February 6, 1788.

Alexandria Hustings Court Deeds. Special Collections,Kate Barrett Waller Branch, Alexandria Library. Alexandria Times— “Alexandria Brewery,” January 1, 1799. — “At the Alexandria Brewery,” December 1, 1798. — “Dwelling-house & Brew-house,” May 26, 1801.

Charles Lee Notebook of Virginia Cases, ManuscriptMS 76.7, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library, ColonialWilliamsburg Foundation.

Columbian Mirror— “Alexandria Brewery,” November 9, 1799. — “Alexandria Brewery,” January 21, 1800. — “A Brewery and Distillery,” March 18, 1797. — “To Be Sold, For Ready Money,” October 24, 1799— “Wanted to Purchase,” December 15, 1792; January9, 1793.

Cox, Ethelyn, Chronology of Alexandria HistoryThrough the Revolutionary War, manuscript, SpecialCollections, Kate Barrett Waller Branch, Alexandria Li-brary, 1971.

“Died,” Massachusetts Mercury, December 6, 1799.

Fairfax Deed Books (various), Special Collections, KateBarrett Waller Branch, Alexandria Library.George Mercer Papers Relating to the Ohio Companyof Virginia, Lois Mulkearn, editor. Pittsburgh: Univer-sity of Pittsburgh Press, 1956. Historical American Buildings Survey, WalesHouse/Hampson House, HABS VA–468, February 16,1959. The Historical Society of Fairfax County, Virginia, Inc.Volume 12, 1971 – 1973. Hustings Court, Complete Records (Wills, Bonds, In-ventories, Etc.), Book A, 1786 – 1800.

Journal and Correspondence of the Council of Mary-land, 1779–1780, volume 43, Maryland State Archives.

Journal and Correspondence of the Council of Mary-land, 1780–1781, volume 45, Maryland State Archives.

“The Journal of Ebenezer Hazard in Virginia, 1777,” ed.Fred Shelley, in Virginia Magazine of History and Bi-ography 62 (1954): 4.

Colonial Series (7 July 1748 – 15 June 1775), The Pa-pers of George Washington Digital Edition, ed.Theodore J. Crackel. Charlottesville: University of Vir-ginia Press, Rotunda, 2008.

Confederation Series (1 January 1784–23 September1788), Volume 3 (19 May 1785–31 March 1786), ThePapers of George Washington Digital Edition, ed.Theodore J. Crackel. Charlottesville: University of Vir-ginia Press, Rotunda, 2008.

Revolutionary War Series (16 June 1775–31 May 1779),Volume 10 (11 June 1777 – 18 August 1777), The Pa-pers of George Washington Digital Edition, ed.Theodore J. Crackel. Charlottesville: University of Vir-ginia Press, Rotunda, 2008.

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“A Memorial and Remonstrance,” petition, November3, 1785.

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dria: Alexandria Library, Lloyd House, 1983.

“One Hundred Dollars Reward,” Dunlap’s MarylandGazette, April 29, 1777.

“One Hundred Dollars Reward,” Maryland Gazette,May 1, 1777.

Calendar of Virginia State Papers and Other Manu-scripts Preserved in the Capital in Richmond, Coveringthe Period from 1652 to 1869, Volume 5. William P.Palmer and Sherwin McRae, editors. Richmond: Leg-islature of the Commonwealth of Virginia, 1875–1893.

Peck, Garrett. Capital Beer: A Heady History of Brew-ing in Washington, D.C. Charleston, SC: The HistoryPress, 2014.

Pippenger, Wesley E. Alexandria City and ArlingtonCounty, Virginia Records Index, v. 1 – 2. Westminster,MD: Willow Bend Books, 2001.

Pippenger, Wesley E. Alexandria, Virginia HustingsCourt Orders, Volume 1 – March 9, 1780 to July 21,1787.

Pippenger, Wesley E. Legislative Petitions of the Townand County of Alexandria, Virginia, 1778–1861. West-minster, MD: Family Line Publications, 1995.

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Riker, Diane. “The Fitzgerald Warehouse: The EarlyHistory of an Alexandria Landmark,” AlexandriaChronicle, Summer 2007.Shephard, Stephen J. “Reaching for the Channel: SomeDocumentary and Archaeological Evidence of Extend-ing Alexandria’s Waterfront,” Alexandria Chronicle,Spring 2006.

Virginia Gazette— “Extract of a Letter from Fredericksburg, August 5,”August 8, 1777. — “Run Away on Saturday Night Last,” July 26, 1770. — “This is to Give Notice,” November 26, 1772. — “To Be Sold at the Marlborough Brewery,” May 30,1766. — “To Be Sold, at the Brewery at Marlborough,” No-vember 23, 1769. — “Williamsburg,” May 9, 1777. — “Williamsburg,” May 30, 1777.

Virginia Gazette and Alexandria Advertiser— “Andrew Wales Has For Sale at His Brewery inAlexandria,” November 10, 1789 — “J. Kerr Has for Sale,” March 14, 1793. — “J. Kerr Has for Sale,” May 16, 1793. — “Virginia at a High Court of Chancery,” June 23,1791.

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The Virginia Journal and Alexandria Advertiser— “Elizabeth Hannah Informs,” January 17, 1785. — “Just Arrived in the Brigantine Alexandria,” Novem-ber 10, 1785. — “Just Imported,” September 7, 1785. — “On Tuesday Evening,” November 23, 1786. — “To Be Sold,” January 25, 1786. — “William Farrell,” December 13, 1787.

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Wright, F. Edward and Wesley E. Pippenger, EarlyChurch Records of Alexandria City and Fairfax County,Virginia. Westminster, MD: Family Line Publications,1996.

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TheAlexandria Chronicle

A publication of monographs about historical Alexandria, Virginia.

ALEXANDRIAAA HISTORICAL SOCIETY,YY INC. 201 South Washington Street • Alexandria, Virginia 22314Editor: Linda Greenberg Spring 2015 No. 2

Wales Alley today, looking west from Lee Street(formerly Water Street). The second WalesBrewery site, 1774-1788, would have been on theleft and is now the garden behind theAthenaeum. Garrett Peck

This issue of the Alexandria Chronicle describesAlexandria’s early brewing history beginning when An-drew Wales arrived in the Port City about 1769-1770.His story and how beer was made and sold in colonialVirginia is told in detail by Garrett Peck, historian andbeer aficionado.

In the next issue of the Chronicle we learn that GeorgeWashington appreciated both Andrew Wales’s beer aswell as Madeira wine. Richard Klingemaier, local his-torian, explains the intricacies of the Madeira trade andits importance to George Washington and colonial Vir-ginia. What was unanticipated in the 18th century washow the change from sail to steam-powered ships wouldaffect the sale of Madeira in the 19th century.

The mission of the Alexandria Historical Societyis to promote an active interest in American historyand particularly in the history of Alexandria andVirginia. For information about society lecturesand awards presentations and for past issues of theAlexandria Chronicle, please visit the society’s website: www.alexandriahistorical.org. The Chronicleis published through the support of the J. Patten Ab-shire Memorial Fund.

Nonprofit Org.U.S.Postage paidAlexandria VAPermit No. 64

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