Jones Point Park and the Wilkes Tunnel
Type of Exercise: Cycling/Biking
Biking Stats:
Distance: 14.31 mi
Duration: 1 hr 16 mins
This evening I took a quick trip up the Mount Vernon Trail to Jones Point Park, which lies within the City of Alexandria. Among its many super-cool features is a lighthouse which lies next to the first federal monument erected! What is it? Is it a statue dedicated to George Washington’s powdered wig? Is it a hut where the revolutionary army cooked their first piece of hard tack?
No. It’s not any of those…
BUT (in relation to the above) what if I told you that Washington DC has shrunk SIGNIFICANTLY since it was laid out by surveyors? Have you ever wondered why Washington DC looks like a diamond with a chunk bitten out of it? Check out this map below…
So sure, a lot of states have weird shapes (and DC isn’t a state…yet), but this may blow your mind: Washington DC used to be a complete diamond, which included parts of Arlington and Alexandria Virginia. When the congress passed the Residence Act in 1790, George Washington was allowed to designate 100 square miles for the nation’s capital city somewhere along the Potomac River and anywhere between Alexandria, VA and Williamsport, MD.
Washington chose the furthest point South he could go, so that the bustling port of Alexandria would be included in the nation’s capital. Also, I can’t help but think it was rather convenient that his own home, Mount Vernon, was only about 18 miles South along the river! C’mon George!
A team was sent to find a starting point for the boundaries of this capital city somewhere in Alexandria. Benjamin Banneker, a surveyor and astronomer, is said to have laid on his back and calculated this starting point by the passage of stars over a given point at specific times. The beginning of Washington DC as we know it today was in Alexandria, VA at what today is called Jones Point Park.
Stones made from aquia granite were laid at one mile intervals (10 on each side) to mark this boundary between Columbia, Virginia, and Maryland. These stones, the boundary stones, were the very first federal monuments erected by our country and the VERY first one of those was placed in Alexandria at the tip of Jones Point. Though many of the stones have been moved or destroyed, a replacement stone believed to have been placed in 1794 is still there at Jones Point Lighthouse, and you can view it through a small glass hatch. Unfortunately, that stone has been worn by exposure to the elements over the last 226 years, but you can still see it there in all of its stony goodness. I took pictures to prove it! You can read more about these stones, see pictures of them, and see where they are on a google map here.
I have to give credit to a good friend of mine, Ben, who blew my mind like an airport windsock when he told me this for the first time. Since then, I’ve been traveling around the area looking for them and taking pictures of them. I have an album on Facebook.
The land that Virginia once gave to the federal government was ceded back in the 1830s by petition from Alexandria to the state of Virginia to enact a retro-cession (or 19th century “take backsies”), because Alexandria was experiencing an economic decline and further feared an abolitionist congress. The City of Alexandria made a significant amount of money from the buying and selling of African slaves. The city, fearing that the abolitionist congress would endanger that trade, opted to go with a much more accommodating arrangement with the state of Virginia.
So if that wasn’t cool enough, let’s talk about the land use underneath the Wilson Bridge. Jones Point Park extends underneath the bridge and provides a TON of space for recreation. When I was there today, there were combat classes, yoga, dance aerobics, and folks playing basketball. There’s plenty of space, so none of these activities were anywhere close to being “near each other.” There’s also a full-on street replica urban cycling course painted onto the pavement for practicing urban biking! The course contains fake bike lanes, double yellow lined roads and quite a few different kinds of intersections that you might encounter! The local Washington Area Bicyclist Association (of which Jessi and I are members) uses it for training courses.
There’s also a full bathroom facility (nicest on the trail I’ve seen) and 2 really awesome playgrounds for the kiddos. Moving away from underneath the bridge, there are discovery trails containing the tracks of various animals in the pavement. Kids can “trot like a fox” or “lumber like a bear” on their way from playground to playground by placing their hands and feet on the tracks. There’s also a beautiful river vista (of course) and an old lighthouse next to a large grassy field.
Alexandria is a seaport town. The adjacent Potomac River runs down to the Chesapeake Bay, which empties into the Atlantic Ocean. In the late 19th century, Alexandria was an especially busy port and a lighthouse was erected to guide ships. The lighthouse was one of the very first “unified design” lighthouses, in which the keeper would live at the lighthouse. It was finally completed and lit in 1856. The lantern originally burned whale oil until it was replaced by a gas lantern. For a time, the light installed at Jones Point glowed red, and during this time, it became a red light zone with floating brothels and gambling. This is according to a wayside near the lighthouse.
The area was originally inhabited by the natives, and evidence of their lives has been found in the form of pottery shards, arrow heads, and shadows of their dwellings in the soil. There’s a curious story of The Remarkable Margaret Brent (1601-1671), from Mary’s City, MD, who was granted a land patent at Jones Point (then known as Piper’s Island). It was her charge to cut back the forest and farm tobacco, which she did via indentured servants and slaves. All landowners at the time were basically required to grow tobacco. They needed to produce a cash crop for their benevolent lords. Brent was also an attorney to Lord Baltimore and an early suffragette, who demanded TWO votes for herself: one as a landowner, and the other as Lord Baltimore’s Attorney! HA! A monument and wayside near the lighthouse documents this story.
During the American Civil War, a cannon battery was built at Jones Point. Battery Rogers overlooked the river into hostile territory and protected the nations capital. During the first world war, ships were constructed at or near Jones Point. One of the large wooden rudders recovered from excavations is on display underneath the bridge. It is MASSIVE.
I didn’t have long before the sun would be setting, so I made may way into Old Town Alexandria a bit and biked over to another sight I wanted to highlight, the Wilkes Tunnel. This tunnel is located on Wilkes street and was once a part of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad. This railroad was built to send goods back and forth to places in Western Virginia. The Alexandria section was the Easternmost section of this railroad, which provided access to the port, allowing goods to be further shipped by river/sea. The tracks and tunnel remained in service all the way up until 1975…YES…1975! The original tunnel was too short for the large boxcars used after World War I, so they had to deepen the tunnel in order to provide more clearance. In my pictures, you can tell where the original tunnel ends and where the additional depth was achieved by the sudden end of the stone bricks. The tunnel is always damp whenever I use it, and the bend in the tunnel gives you a strangely eerie feeling, because for a short time, the “light at the end of the tunnel” is obscured by the bend. You’re completely surrounded in 150 year old tunnel construction…and the exit is not in sight. Naturally, I bike through it whenever I get the chance! Thankfully, it is lit. I have personally been through mile-long tunnels with no lights (Paw Paw for example), and the darkness has a strange almost claustrophobic affectation.
Having ridden through the tunnel, I biked my way back down along the river towards home. There was a chicken in the oven with my name on it, and there was a wife who graciously volunteered to watch it for us while I went on a 14 mile bike trip. I hope you enjoyed the trip! See you next time!
THESE BLOG ENTRIES ARE PART OF MY PARTICIPATION IN MILES FOR HOPE, A MONTH-LONG EVENT TO RAISE AWARENESS AND FUNDS TO HELP MISSING AND EXPLOITED CHILDREN.
