Look east toward the Potomac, your gateway into Alexandria. This is one of the original settlements of the city of Alexandria, located about eight miles from the United States Capitol and lying across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. It once formed the far southern part of D.C. and was the oldest district of the capital until it was ceded back to Virginia in 1846. The neighborhood sits in the eastern and southeastern area of Alexandria along the Potomac and is laid out on a grid plan of substantially square blocks.
The area was first called Belhaven, believed to honor the Scottish patriot John Hamilton, 2nd Lord Belhaven and Stenton. In 1779 the town was formally named Alexandria after Captain Philip Alexander II (1704–1753) and Captain John Alexander (1711–1763), who donated the land to help the town develop. Much of the land here came from a grant by Sir William Berkeley, awarded to the English ship captain Robert Howson, and was shortly sold to John Alexander for 6,000 pounds of tobacco.
By 1732 Philip and John Alexander farmed much of the surrounding land. Picture the grid of square blocks stretching from your feet to the Potomac's edge.