John Carlyle (merchant)
Encyclopedia
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
merchant
Merchant
A merchant is a businessperson who trades in commodities that were produced by others, in order to earn a profit.Merchants can be one of two types:# A wholesale merchant operates in the chain between producer and retail merchant...
who immigrated to British
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
Colony of Virginia and became a leading landowner and social and political figure in Northern Virginia
Northern Virginia
Northern Virginia consists of several counties and independent cities in the Commonwealth of Virginia, in a widespread region generally radiating southerly and westward from Washington, D.C...
. He was a founding trustee and the first overseer of Alexandria, Virginia
Alexandria, Virginia
Alexandria is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of 2009, the city had a total population of 139,966. Located along the Western bank of the Potomac River, Alexandria is approximately six miles south of downtown Washington, D.C.Like the rest of northern Virginia, as well as...
.
Born in Annandale
Annandale, Dumfries and Galloway
Annandale is a strath in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, named after the River Annan. It runs north-south through the Southern Uplands from Annanhead to Annan on the Solway Firth and in its higher reaches it separates the Moffat hills on the east from the Lowther hills to the west...
, Dumfriesshire
Dumfriesshire
Dumfriesshire or the County of Dumfries is a registration county of Scotland. The lieutenancy area of Dumfries has similar boundaries.Until 1975 it was a county. Its county town was Dumfries...
, Scotland, Carlyle was the second son of William Carlyle, a surgeon in Carlisle, Cumbria
Cumbria
Cumbria , is a non-metropolitan county in North West England. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local authority, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumbria's largest settlement and county town is Carlisle. It consists of six districts, and in...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, of a landed Scottish family from Dumfrieshire descended from the Lords Carlyle of Torthorwald
Lord Carlyle of Torthorwald
The Lordship of Parliament of Carlyle of Torthorwald was created in the Peerage of Scotland around 1473 for Sir John Carlyle. In 1638, the sixth lord resigned the lordship to the Earl of Queensberry....
and Rachel Murray of Murraythwaite, Dumfriesshire. He immigrated to Virginia in 1741 as a factor
Factor (agent)
A factor, from the Latin "he who does" , is a person who professionally acts as the representative of another individual or other legal entity, historically with his seat at a factory , notably in the following contexts:-Mercantile factor:In a relatively large company, there could be a hierarchy,...
(agent) of English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
merchant William Hicks. He established himself as a merchant at Belhaven, settlement that had grown up around a tobacco warehouse on the bluff overlooking the Potomac River
Potomac River
The Potomac River flows into the Chesapeake Bay, located along the mid-Atlantic coast of the United States. The river is approximately long, with a drainage area of about 14,700 square miles...
that would become Alexandria in 1749.
Carlyle quickly met with financial success and, in 1747, married Sarah Fairfax, cousin of Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron
Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron
Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron was the son of Thomas Fairfax, 5th Lord Fairfax of Cameron and of Catherine, daughter of Thomas Culpeper, 2nd Baron Culpeper of Thoresway....
, from one of the most influential families in Virginia. From 1751–53, he built his house, now Carlyle House
Carlyle House
Carlyle House is a historic mansion in Alexandria, Virginia, United States, built by Scottish merchant John Carlyle in 1751-53. It is situated in the city’s Old Town on North Fairfax Street between Cameron and King Streets....
, in Alexandria and he also owned thousands of acres of land throughout Virginia, including three plantations. His business ventures included trading with England and the West Indies, retail operations in Alexandria, a foundry
Foundry
A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal in a mold, and removing the mold material or casting after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals processed are aluminum and cast iron...
in the Shenandoah Valley
Shenandoah Valley
The Shenandoah Valley is both a geographic valley and cultural region of western Virginia and West Virginia in the United States. The valley is bounded to the east by the Blue Ridge Mountains, to the west by the eastern front of the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians , to the north by the Potomac River...
, milling, and operation of a forge
Forge
A forge is a hearth used for forging. The term "forge" can also refer to the workplace of a smith or a blacksmith, although the term smithy is then more commonly used.The basic smithy contains a forge, also known as a hearth, for heating metals...
. He also undertook a number of civic and religious positions typical of a man of his status.
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Robert Dinwiddie
Robert Dinwiddie was a British colonial administrator who served as lieutenant governor of colonial Virginia from 1751 to 1758, first under Governor Willem Anne van Keppel, 2nd Earl of Albemarle, and then, from July 1756 to January 1758, as deputy for John Campbell, 4th Earl of Loudoun...
, major and commissary of the Virginia forces in the French and Indian War
French and Indian War
The French and Indian War is the common American name for the war between Great Britain and France in North America from 1754 to 1763. In 1756, the war erupted into the world-wide conflict known as the Seven Years' War and thus came to be regarded as the North American theater of that war...
. He was politically well-connected at the time and was friends with future President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
George Washington
George Washington
George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...
. In 1755, Carlyle's house was the initial headquarters for Major-General Edward Braddock
Edward Braddock
General Edward Braddock was a British soldier and commander-in-chief for the 13 colonies during the actions at the start of the French and Indian War...
in Virginia during the French and Indian War. The Congress of Alexandria
Congress of Alexandria
The Congress or Council of Alexandria was a 1755 meeting of Major-General Edward Braddock, commander-in-chief of the British Army in North America and governors of five of the constituent colonies...
convened at the house, most likely in the dining room, and here Braddock decided to make an expedition
Braddock expedition
The Braddock expedition, also called Braddock's campaign or, more commonly, Braddock's Defeat, was a failed British military expedition which attempted to capture the French Fort Duquesne in the summer of 1755 during the French and Indian War. It was defeated at the Battle of the Monongahela on...
to Fort Duquesne
Fort Duquesne
Fort Duquesne was a fort established by the French in 1754, at the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers in what is now downtown Pittsburgh in the state of Pennsylvania....
which would result in his death. He was urged not to undertake the expedition by Washington who was then a volunteer aide-de-camp
Aide-de-camp
An aide-de-camp is a personal assistant, secretary, or adjutant to a person of high rank, usually a senior military officer or a head of state...
to Braddock.
Following the death of his wife Sarah on 22 January 1761, Carlyle married Sybil West, daughter of prominent Alexandrian Hugh West.
Around 1770, Caryle constructed a plantation house and summer residence in what is now Fairlington, Arlington, Virginia first called Torthorwald (after his family's ancestral home
Torthorwald
Torthorwald is a village in Dumfries and Galloway, south-west Scotland. It is located east of Dumfries on the A709 road to Lochmaben.The area was the property of the de Torthorwald family until the end of the 13th century, when the estate passed by marriage to the Kirkpatricks. In 1418, William de...
in Scotland) and later changed to Morven (a mythical land of the Gaels
Gaels
The Gaels or Goidels are speakers of one of the Goidelic Celtic languages: Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx. Goidelic speech originated in Ireland and subsequently spread to western and northern Scotland and the Isle of Man....
in an Ossian
Ossian
Ossian is the narrator and supposed author of a cycle of poems which the Scottish poet James Macpherson claimed to have translated from ancient sources in the Scots Gaelic. He is based on Oisín, son of Finn or Fionn mac Cumhaill, anglicised to Finn McCool, a character from Irish mythology...
poem) which stood until 1942. He used this plantation as a stud farm and operated a grist mill on Four Mile Run
Four Mile Run
Four Mile Run is a stream in northern Virginia that starts near Interstate 66, at Gordon Avenue in Fairfax County and proceeds southeast through Falls Church to Arlington County in the U.S. state of Virginia...
above what is now Arlandria.
Carlyle died in 1780 and is buried at the Old Presbyterian Meeting House
Old Presbyterian Meeting House
The heritage of the in Alexandria, Virginia, dates from the early eighteenth century. Scottish Presbyterians were among the early European settlers of Northern Virginia and were involved in establishing Alexandria as a port in 1749...
in Alexandria.
John Carlyle's only son to survive beyond childhood was George William Carlyle, born in 1766. He served in the cavalry (3rd Continental Light Dragoons under Lt. Col. William Washington, a cousin of George Washington) and was killed in South Carolina
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...
in the American Revolutionary War
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...
Battle of Eutaw Springs
Battle of Eutaw Springs
The Battle of Eutaw Springs was a battle of the American Revolutionary War, and was the last major engagement of the war in the Carolinas.-Background:...
on 8 September 1781 at age 15, less than one year after the death of his father. John Carlyle's grandson through his daughter Sarah Carlyle, John Carlyle Herbert, inherited Carlyle House in 1781. Had George William Carlyle lived, he would have been entitled to the dormant baron
Baron
Baron is a title of nobility. The word baron comes from Old French baron, itself from Old High German and Latin baro meaning " man, warrior"; it merged with cognate Old English beorn meaning "nobleman"...
age as Lord Carlyle
Lord Carlyle of Torthorwald
The Lordship of Parliament of Carlyle of Torthorwald was created in the Peerage of Scotland around 1473 for Sir John Carlyle. In 1638, the sixth lord resigned the lordship to the Earl of Queensberry....
, after the death of his first cousin Joseph Dacre Carlyle
Joseph Dacre Carlyle
Joseph Dacre Carlyle was an English orientalist, born in Carlisle, England, where his father was a physician.In 1775 he went to Cambridge, and was elected a fellow of Queens' College in 1779, taking the degree of Bachelor of Divinity in 1793...
who died without a son in 1804.