Mantel in the music room. Probably a later "improvement"
Carlyle was appointed collector of His Majesty's customs on the South Potomac in 1758, succeeding his father-in-law, William Fairfax. In 1762 he was importing race horses into the colony. These were imported, "just as they imported Madeira wine and other luxuries." One of the early Maryland gazettes of July 29, 1762 carries the following advertisement:
Imported by Carlyle & Dalton in the ship Christian, Captain Stanly, and for sale, three horses [Thorne's Starling: Smith's Hero, and Leary's Old England] and three mares [the other two being the Rock-mares Nos. 1 and 2] of full blood, viz: A ch. m. with a star and two white heels behind, eight years old: Got by Wilson's Chestnut Arabian: her dam by Slipby, brother to Snap's dam; and out of Menil [sic] the dam of Trunnion. Menil was got by Partner: out of Sampson's-Sister, which was got by Greyhound: her grandam by Curwen's Bay Barb: her g. grandam by Ld. D'Arcy's Arabian: her dam by Whiteshirt: out of a famous mare of Ld. Montagu's.
John Carlyle[77]
Alexandria, Va., July 1762.
In 1772 Carlyle took over the incompleted work on Christ Church and carried it to completion. In 1773 he bought pew No. 19. In 1774 he built the Presbyterian meetinghouse. In between times he was hunting at Belvoir and Mount Vernon, dancing at Alexandria assemblies, sitting as town trustee and gentleman justice, journeying to England and back, laying out and planting his garden, taking part in long, hot arguments with his family and neighbors in the ever-widening breach between the colonies and the mother country, breeding race horses, and joining in the frolics of the Jockey Club. Heir to a title old and honorable as it was, he ardently espoused the cause of the colonies. Too ill for active military service, he nevertheless served as a member of the Committee of Safety until his death in 1780, at the age of sixty.
John Carlyle divided his lands, named after the Scottish family holdings, Limkiln, Bridekirk, Torthorwald Taken, between his two grandsons, Carlyle Fairfax Whiting and John Carlyle Herbert. To his daughter, Sarah Herbert, he left thirty feet on Fairfax Street and one hundred feet on Cameron Street, to include his dryware house. The mansion and all other property were for a brief period the property of his only son.
In his will he expressed the utmost concern for the education of this boy, George William Carlyle, and urged his executors to spare no expense and to send him to the best schools. Alas, for the plans of men! The lad, fired by the talk of father and friends, was serving in Lee's Legion in 1781, and ere John Carlyle was moldering in his grave this boy of seventeen years, spirited, brave, heir to large estates, great fortune and honorable name, and to the title of Lord Carlyle, was dead at Eutaw Springs, led by that boy hardly older than himself "Light Horse Harry" Lee.
Enough of serious and sad history; let us in lighter vein go once more into the lovely paneled blue room where not only weighty conferences occurred, but where, in lace and satin, noble figures threw aside the cares of state and trod a measure to the tinkling of the spinet; where games of cards were indulged in and the pistoles changed hands. Let us go into the dining room with its fine Adam mantel and its mahogany doors, and visualize again the terrapin and the canvasback, the Madeira and Port so abundantly provided from that great kitchen below, and the most famous wine cellar of its day in Alexandria. Let us stroll in the still lovely garden where the aroma of box and honeysuckle mingle, and turn our thoughts once more to the inmates of this fine, old house. Built in the days when Virginia was a man's world, when men who wore satin, velvet and damask were masters of the art of fighting, riding, drinking, eating, and wooing. When a man knew what he wanted, and got it by God's help and his own tenacity, enjoying himself right lustily in the getting. Perchance Major John Carlyle, clad in Saxon green laced with silver, will be wandering up and down his box-bordered paths with his first love, Sarah Fairfax, watching the moon light up the rigging of Carlyle & Dalton's great ships at anchor just at the foot of the garden.