ALEXANDRIA, VA – The Friends of Alexandria Archaeology will host a Java
Jolt presentation featuring Dr. Steven Shephard, Assistant City
Archaeologist, on Saturday, January 24. Shephard’s lecture, “Reaching for
the Channel: Some Documentary and Archaeological Evidence of Extending the
Alexandria Waterfront,” will begin at 10 a.m. at Gadsby’s Tavern Museum,
134 North Royal Street. Admission is free, but reservations are required.
Please reserve your space by calling 703.838.4242.

When Alexandria was founded in 1749, the town was laid out on a crescent
bay between West’s Point and Point Lumley. There were sandy flats along the
shore behind which rose banks, or bluffs, probably fifteen to twenty feet
in height. The street that intersected the shoreline was called Water
Street (later renamed Lee Street) and did not connect through at the
center. The owners of waterfront lots could fill in the water along their
shoreline to expand their property, which was undertaken from the 1750s to
the present day.

The majority of the bay was filled during the period of the 1760s through
the 1780s. Unfortunately, there is only one scale map during this time,
dating to 1763. The next map dates to 1798. Much of the fill soil was taken
from the banks, eventually causing the land along the waterfront to lose
elevation, but extended it out into the bay and toward the ship channel.
Various methods were used to create this land, including the sinking of old
ship’s hulls, building cribbed wharfs, or depositing fill behind bulkheads.
Though there are few records documenting this process, we are able to give
some insight into this significant change in land form from deeds
indicating the creation of waterfront lots, visitors accounts of the banks
and the bay, various tidbits in newspapers, testimony in court cases and a
few accounts in the City Council Minutes.

Glimpses into the methods used in creating land along the waterfront have
also resulted from archaeological investigations. Buried remnants of 18th-
century stone and wooden wharf structures, debris-covered surfaces of
wharves, and artifacts included in fill have been uncovered.  Even evidence
of the prehistoric sites that once existed on the banks has been found.

Dr. Steven Shephard’s Power Point talk will present some of the intriguing
documentary and archaeological findings relating to the “banking out”
process with the hope of offering a better understanding of this 18th-
century transformation of the Alexandria waterfront.

Please call Gadsby’s Tavern Museum to reserve your space, 703.838.4242. The
Alexandria Archaeology Museum and Gadsby’s Tavern Museum are owned and
operated by the City of Alexandria.

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