Melissa Ann Hussey[194] after her graduation from the Charlestown Female Seminary, near Boston, made the grand tour with her father. This was not her first voyage, as he had entrusted her to Captain Creesy, master of the _Flying Cloud_ on a long journey from China. But on the occasion of this grand tour graduation gift, he directed the _Westward Ho_ up the Potomac and anchored in the then busy port of Alexandria. The city of Washington was not very sophisticated in those days, so the official and social set of the capital sought the theatres, taverns, and balls of Alexandria. Statesmen had apartments at the new and elegant Braddock House or Green's Mansions on Fairfax Street, and at this hotel the Captain engaged a suite for himself and daughter. [Illustration: To this house came the Portsmouth bride, Melissa Ann Hussey Wood, with parakeets and nonpareils] While in Alexandria, a romance developed which resulted, in 1857, in the marriage of Melissa Hussey and Robert Lewis Wood. Their wedding took place in New York, and the young couple returned to take up life in Alexandria. No colonial house was desired by this bride of nineteen. She must have something new and fresh and modern, and as though preordained, they came upon the large red brick house at Franklin and Washington Streets, much like those so well known to her in Portland, Longfellow's "beautiful town that is seated by the sea." With Melissa came to her new home a collection of rare birds in such numbers that the room over the kitchen was devoted to the cages of cockatoos, parakeets, parrots and nonpareils. Here these feathered friends in spectrum-hued plumage lived among the potted plants and charmed the little bride with their beauty and sweet tricks. Other appendages included a chimpanzee, and a small Chinese slave boy, bought by her father from one of the innumerable sampans in the harbor of Canton. "Chinese Tom" was reared and educated by Melissa Wood and after the War Between the States she gave him his freedom. For years he was the only Chinaman in Alexandria. Mrs. Wood's granddaughter remembers the visits of this man to her grandmother. He would station himself at the entrance to her door and a long conversation would go on between the guttural-voiced Oriental and the gentle little "Missey" whom he adored.