Prior to the founding of Alexandria, there were two primary landowners in the area—Dame Margaret Brent who had obtained a patent in 1654 for a 700-acre plot, and English ship captain Robert Howson, who had received an overlapping grant from Virginia Governor William Berkeley in 1669. Within a month, Howson sold his land to Scottish merchant John Alexander. By the 1700s, tobacco plantations had started popping up along the Potomac. Hugh West constructed a tobacco warehouse at what is now the foot of Oronoco Street and with the Tobacco Inspection…
