[Illustration: Washington identified this sketch: "Col^o Fitzgerald respect^g my Vacant Lot-in-Alexandria" and the notation under Prince Street is also in his handwriting. This rough draft seems to have been done by Fitzgerald pursuant to the General's letter to him, dated June 12, 1797. (_Courtesy Library of Congress_)] The little houses, known in Alexandria for many years as the Washington Tenements, fell to the lot of his nephew, Lawrence Washington, in the division of the estate. Now to explore the title for those whose time does not permit or whose inclination does not incite to delving into old and dusty records. In February 1767 Washington, in an irate letter to Carlyle & Adam, who had neglected to pay for some wheat, soundly berates them, complaining that in September 1764, he passed his bond for the wheat for "some lotts in Alexandria as payment," only to have the money demanded again with interest and "was at some pains to convince Mr. John Alexander of the unreasonableness of paying twice for the same thing."[170] [Illustration: The Washington Tenements] Writing to his friend, the Secretary of War, Henry Knox, in January 1785, he says, "... Rents have got to such an amazing height in Alexandria, that (having an unimproved lot or two there) I have thoughts, if my finances will support me in the measure, of building a House, or Houses thereon for the purpose of letting."[171] Later in that same year he confides to Knox that his finances were not equal to undertaking the projected building in Alexandria. Ten years later the lot was still unimproved, when Halley, who owned abutting property, was desirous of acquiring ten feet of Washington's land for an alley. The deal did not go through and a year later William Summers offered the owner three thousand dollars for the lot in question, which was declined. President Washington wrote Tobias Lear, his secretary, under date of March 21: I have no wish to part with the lot unless I can do it upon advantageous terms, and can dispose of the Money in a more productive manner. I had thoughts of building on it, but this would be attended with trouble, and perhaps a good deal of impositions; as it could not be properly attended to in the execution of the work. And besides workmens wages and materials are very high at this time.[172] Shades of a later postwar era!