Black Lives Next Door in Fairfax

Alexander conducted several land transactions in Fairfax County during his lifetime.

Alexander shows up as a taxpayer in the “Table of Tracts of Land for the year 1872” which shows that he owned 29 and one half acres of land purchase from “Baker and Frost.” Finding the deed filed in 1871 shows that these people were Valentine Baker and David Frost and their spouses, Mary and Jane who sold the parcel for one thousand and eighty dollars.[1] The Bakers and Frosts were all white according to the 1870 Census. Baker was a transplant from New Jersey who estimated his real estate value at $7,500 and personal property value at $1,500. His twenty-four year old son Oscar, who was also in his household, estimated his real estate value at $1,800 and personal property holdings at $200. The Bakers also had a twenty-two year old daughter and a thirteen year old son in the household as well as one Black male farm hand and one mixed-race farm hand. The census also helps us see that the Frosts were neighbors to the Bakers. Frost originally came from New York and estimated his real estate value at ten thousand dollars and personal property at eighteen thousand dollars. In addition to Frost and his wife the household consisted of four sons aged six to twelve one daughter aged four and one Black male farm hand, one Black women who was a domestic servant and a seventy year old white woman.[2] Alexander purchased an additional twelve and three eights acres from the Bakers in 1885 for three hundred dollars. Both Valentine and Mary died in their late sixties in 1887.[3]