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Moving - Alexandria, Virginia

Are you planning on moving in or out of Alexandria, VA, in the near future? Are you looking for a local mover with full service capabilities? You are in the right place. Movers USA can offer exactly what you need. We can handle your complete moving job. Our services include packing, crating, moving and storage.

While you are answering those questions in your mind, please enjoy a brief history of the community you are considering as your next home, Alexandria, VA.
 

A Brief History of Alexandria, Virginia

The shoreline of the Potomac River where Alexandria is located today has been a useful and popular spot for centuries, long before the modern community was founded. Just upriver from Alexandria, the river tumbles over a series of cataracts known as Great Falls , its last obstacle to the Chesapeake Bay . These falls form a barrier to fish traveling upstream to spawn each year, which in turn makes the area just downstream a good fishing ground for local people.

Native American artifacts that have been found in various places around Alexandria can be dated as early as 8,000 B.C. and as late as 1600 A.D., during which time various groups used the area as a fishing camp. Exploring the Chesapeake Bay in 1608, John Smith sailed up the Potomac River and contacted many different people along both banks. When Smith neared this point, he met at least two groups that we now refer to as the Tauxenents and the Nacotchtanks, both part of a larger affiliation known as the Conoy chiefdom. These people made up just a small percentage of the thousands of Native Americans who inhabited the region and enjoyed its rich resources of fish and game. After Smith?s visit, it would be many years before white settlement would expand into this part of tidewater Virginia .

During the first few decades of the 18th century, plantations were gradually established along both sides of the Potomac River and settlement began to spread further into northern Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley . When Fredericksburg was founded in 1728, it was the northernmost town in Virginia but was still located in the tidewater, where tobacco production was profitable. By the time Fairfax County was established further north in 1742, many of the county's residents lived several miles inland, away from the river and from commercial ties to the outside world. Many of them found that grains like wheat and corn could be raised more profitably than tobacco in this upland area, but they desperately needed a trading place where they could gather their crops for export and could buy manufactured merchandise from abroad. Just to the north of the spot where Great Hunting Creek entered the Potomac River, a tobacco warehouse and some other small buildings had stood for some time on steep bluffs overlooking a small but deep bay. Philip and John Alexander farmed much of the surrounding land and Hugh West oversaw the warehouse along with a ferry and tavern. In 1748, these men joined with merchants John Carlyle, William Ramsay, John Pagan and others to petition the General Assembly for the creation of a new market town. By July of 1749, the community was laid out, named "Alexandria" in honor of the Alexander family.

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