Braddock
On April 15,1755, John Carlyle wrote to his brother George “their was the Grandest Congress held at my home ever known on the Continent.” This legendary conference of five colonial governors was called together by General Edward Braddock, the Commander-in-Chief of His Majesty’s Forces in North America, who had been sent to the colonies to oversee the escalating French and Indian War.

 

 

 

 

Throughout this period, Great Britain and France fought over land claims in the trans-Allegheny region. Braddock convened the colonial governors to discuss the financing of an upcoming campaign against the French. Braddock asked the governors to collect funds from the colonial assemblies for the expedition. The ensuing debate over the financing of the campaign was one of the earliest examples of the friction between Britain and her American colonies which would eventually result in the American Revolution.
 
General Braddock left Alexandria, never to return. He died in Pennsylvania in battle against the French, but Alexandrians never forgot his visit. For many years after both Braddock and Carlyle had died, the house was remembered as the Braddock House.