Some two hundred years ago a sturdy-bottomed little sailing ship riding at anchor in the port of Dumfries in Scotland, and bound for the port of Dumfries in Virginia, was boarded by a young Scotsman. No _parvenu_ voyager he, but a young man of settled background and promising future, educated for his calling and going out to take his place in one of the Scottish firms trading in Virginia. Our adventurer belonged to the Ramsay family of the noble house of Dalhousie, which goes back into Scottish history of the thirteenth century. King Edward I, in July 1298, spent the night at Dalhousie on his way to battle with William Wallace; and in 1400 Sir Alexander Ramsay defended the walls of Dalhousie against Henry IV. In 1633 William, Second Lord Ramsay, was created First Earl of Dalhousie. This young adventurer bore the name of the Second Lord, William. He was born in 1716 in Kirkendbrightshire in the Galloway district of Scotland, and he was destined to play no small part in his own particular sphere. He brought the integrity and industry of his native land to the new world shores, and was one of that band of Scotsmen of whom President Madison said, "Their commercial edicts served the colony as substantial legislation for many years."[57] These traits, added to vision, wisdom, sound morality and a tender nature, formed the character of the future first citizen of Alexandria. The year 1744 found William Ramsay settled in business with John Carlyle, trading under the name of Carlyle & Ramsay in the village of Belle Haven. This little settlement lay on the banks of the upper Potomac behind the Great Hunting Creek warehouse. Ramsay early sensed that the large harbor of Belle Haven with its deep water and fine approach was a better situation for a town than many then being agitated before the Burgesses. Forming friendships with Colonel Fairfax, Lawrence Washington, George Mason, George Johnston, and other large planters, he impressed them with the importance of this situation as a site of great promise for a city and a port.[58] When this dream became an accomplished fact it was a natural conclusion that William Ramsay was one of the seven men chosen by the Virginia Assembly for the purpose of laying out the town at Hunting Creek warehouse.[59] His faith in Alexandria was supported by his pocketbook. At the first auction of lots on July 13, 1749, he bought lots Nos. 46 and 47; and he never lost an opportunity to invest his hard and dangerously earned money in the soil of his begotten city. At the outbreak of the French and Indian War he was appointed (on George Washington's recommendation) Commissary in 1756. Many letters dealing with commissary affairs, and more interesting, the movement of troops, written from Rays Town are among the Washington papers.