alexandria – Page 2

Yes, while I was wandering around the cemetry finding the grave of the female stranger, I did find a few more interesting ones while I was at it. I’m only including the photo of Elsie though. She lived from 1894 – 1918. I couldn’t find any of her history.

Meanwhile, over the course of the weekend I’ve picked up some bargain items for my house. In fact there’s not too much else I need now. Went to an estate sale on Saturday – it was pretty alarming, the whole house was opened up and everything in there was for sale. People were throwing things everywhere. If you found something you wanted you had to guard it with your life, as if you turned away for a moment it would disappear. The house had belonged to an old physician and his wife, and they had obviously been gifted hoarders, who were big on Christmas decorations and buying useless things from the shopping channel.

I picked up some more useful items (including a bed and sofa) from a guy who is moving interstate on Wednesday, and needs to get rid of the stuff before he goes. There’s a lot of that here, people seem to be continually coming and going, and all of the bigger items just aren’t worth packing, so they just sell them for whatever they can get.

It was September 1816, and the port town of Alexandria, Virginia, was recovering from occupation by British soldiers after the North American War of 1812. A man and his wife disembarked from a ship in port, and went to stay at the City Hotel (later to become Gadsby’s Tavern). The lady was ill, and a doctor was called for. As days passed and her condition continued to deteriorate, her husband summoned the doctor, hotel staff and the owner’s wife, and asked them to swear an oath to never reveal the couples identities.

The lady died in the room shortly afterwards, and was buried in Alexandria’s St. Paul’s cemetry, with an elaborate funeral costing in excess of $1500. Meanwhile, her husband, with money owing to a variety of businessman around Alexandria for funeral costs as well as medical care and boarding, mysteriously disappeared. However, all of those who swore the oath never revealed the identities of the strangers.

There have been various suspicions about her true identity, including the idea that she may have been one of the Royal English Family on a tour of the country, or a local girl who had disappeared in 1812. There’s even an alternate version of the story, which puts the woman arriving first, with a few servants with whom she conversed in French. Her husband arrived four days later, and an hour after his arrival, she died in his arms.

Her gravestone can still be read quite easily, despite it’s age.

The inscription says:

To the memory of a FEMALE STRANGER
whose mortal sufferings terminated
on the 14th day of October 1816
Aged 23 years and 8 months.

This stone is placed here by her disconsolate
Husband in whose arms she sighed out her
latest breath and who under God
did his utmost even to soothe the cold
dead ear of death.

How loved how valued once avails thee not
To who related or by whom begot
A heap of dust alone remains of thee
‘Tis all thou art and all the proud shall be

To him gave all the Prophets witness that
through his name whosever believeth in
him shall receive remission of sins.
Acts. 10th Chap. 43rd verse

The lines of the third paragraph comes from Pope’s Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady, but in the poem they are preceeded by the lines:

So peaceful rests, without a stone, a name,
What once had beauty, titles, wealth, and fame.