The Lee Street Site: What Did Alexandria Look Like

Visit this exhibit in the Alexandria Archaeology Museum
Page updated on November 22, 2024 at 5:15 PM
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A Community Digs its Past: The Lee Street Site

The Lee Street exhibit reveals the archaeological process and the history of Alexandria as seen through the lens of the Lee Street Site (archaeological site 44AX180) and several other waterfront sites.

Preserved on the Lee Street Site was a cross-section of Alexandria's history from its founding in 1749 into the 20th century. Eighteenth-century wharves remained intact below remnants of a bakery, taverns, and residences that had sprung up on the bustling waterfront. The block was later used by the Union Army as a hospital support facility for the huge influx of soldiers during the Civil War. These layers of time were preserved under shallow foundations and a paved parking lot. The exhibit weaves together the story of the wharves, taverns, bakery and Civil War privy excavated at the corner of Lee and Queen Streets with the step-by-step process of archaeology from research and excavation to lab work and conservation.

What Did Alexandria Look Like?

exhibit panel

 

What Did Alexandria Look Like?

­The Lee Street Site is a cross-section of Alexandria’s history from its founding in 1749 to today. 

Map showing the location of the Lee Street Site in relation to the Alexandria Archaeology Museum.
­The Lee Street Site (44AX180) was excavated in 1997 before redevelopment. ­The red line shows the original 1749 shoreline before manmade fill created new land to the east.

Early Alexandrians built wharves and new land along the banks of the Potomac River. ­These features remained intact below remnants of 19th century residences and businesses, which had sprung up on the bustling waterfront of the international port. Evidence of Union Army occupation serves as a reminder of the arrival of troops during the Civil War.

Layers of different soil colors and types
Archaeologists documented the color and texture of each soil layer of the Lee Street Site. This six-foot-deep stratigraphic profile shows the oldest layers of manmade fill at the bottom, evidence of the 19th century in the middle, and the modern fill at the top.

The paved surface of the parking lot that covered the Lee Street Site protected these layers of time. Professional archaeologists and community volunteers excavated and documented the site before the construction of townhouses and an underground garage.

Archaeologists excavate the Lee Street Site.

The city is always changing. The Lee Street Site holds clues to over 250 years of Alexandria's history.

View of Alexandria from the waterfront, transitioning from the 18th century through to the 21st century.

This image combines illustrations of Alexandria from the 1700s to the 1900s.: 

  • Far left, 1760s: Illustration by Elizabeth Luallen.
  • Middle left, 1836: Woodcarving of ship awaiting slaves on the Alexandria waterfront. American Anti-Slavery Society broadside, 1836. 
  • Middle right, 1863: Bird's eye view of Alexandria, VA, 1863. Charles Magnus, Library of Congress.
  • Far right, 1900: Alexandria waterfront with ferry boat, 1900. 

The Lee Street Site Exhibit

City Archaeologist, Eleanor Breen, talks with contract archaeologists at the Robinson Landing Site (44AX235).

1. What is Alexandria Archaeology?

This City of Alexandria public archaeology program and museum exists because the community recognizes the importance of preserving and interpreting the area's unique history.

Foundations of a bakery at the Lee Street Site (44AX180)

2. What is Urban Archaeology?

The ground beneath modern Alexandria contains a record of the lives of Native Americans, European colonists, enslaved and free Black people, and later immigrants. Buildings, parks, and pavement preserve the buried evidence of the everyday lives of past town residents. 

A researcher looks over maps and books.

3. What Do Archaeologists Do?

Artifacts like bottles, buttons, and bones and features like building foundations and privies show what happened in a particular place and time. Archaeologists use this evidence to learn about people’s lives.

Layers of different soil colors and types

4. What Did Alexandria Look Like?

The Lee Street Site is a cross-section of Alexandria’s history from its founding in 1749 to today.

Watercolor of Alexandria in the 18th century showing tall ships on the Potomac and a small port town in the distance.

5. 18th Century - Building a Bustling Port

You are standing on manmade land that helped create a successful port.

A black and white photo shows buildings along the waterfront with the masts of tall ships in the background. The Jamieson Bakery building is a three-story building with loft, circled in the foreground.

6. 19th Century - The Rise of Industry

Buried foundations show the industrialization of the waterfront.

Photo taken from Shuter's Hill, the site of the George Washington Masonic National Memorial, looking east. Alexandria is visible in the background. The foreground shows lines of army tents with archways marking the roads between them.

7. Civil War - Fighting for Freedom

The fight to end slavery permanently changed life in Alexandria.

A stylized archaeological map of the Lee Street site showing the exposed brick foundations of a tavern.

8. The Archaeological Site

Historical documents and archaeological evidence work together to answer questions.

An archaeologist uses tweezers and a removeable glue to add small paper labels to the base of a ceramic artifact

9. The Archaeology Lab

From studying bones to buttons, the lab is where true discovery happens.

Pieces of leather shoes are laid out on brown paper to be photographed with a scale.

10. Conserving Fragile Artifacts

Conservators triage history, caring for every artifact.