She Sold Vegetables at Alexandria’s Market. Her Savings Bought Her Husband’s Freedom.

ALEXANDRIA, VA — Every market day, Sophia Browning Bell walked to Alexandria to sell her vegetables. She was enslaved.

But according to the testimony in a newly published Historic Alexandria study, Bell had what was known as a market garden — likely a small plot she was permitted to cultivate while enslaved — and she carried vegetables to the Alexandria market on market days. Over time, she saved $400 without her owner’s knowledge and entrusted the money to a Methodist preacher, who used it in 1801 to purchase her husband George Bell’s freedom. A few years later, George Bell purchased Sophia’s freedom.

Her story is one of the most powerful human threads inside Alexandria City Hall, Market Square, and Slavery: A Documentary Study, a 242-page report by historian Greg A. Beaman, Ph.D., published by the Office of Historic Alexandria as Alexandria Archaeology Publication No. 149.

And it comes at a moment when Alexandria’s most visible civic landmark is impossible to ignore.

Why City Hall Is Under Renovation

By now, most Alexandrians have seen the fencing, closures and construction activity around City Hall and Market Square.

Mayor Alyia Gaskins addressed the disruption directly in a video message today, saying the project has been “in the works for decades” because it has been more than 60 years since City Hall and Market Square received major upgrades.

“Those systems like our HVAC have run their useful life,” Gaskins said. “The fountain was leaking. Parts of the garage were crumbling, and there were areas of City Hall that were still not fully accessible to persons with disabilities.”

The City’s project page describes the work as a major renovation of the 153-year-old City Hall building, Market Square Plaza and the two-level underground parking garage. The project includes interior and exterior renovations, demolition of the existing 1960s structure, new construction infill, and demolition and replacement of the existing plaza and garage. Construction is expected to take more than two years.

City Hall is closed during construction, City services have been relocated, and the Market Square Garage is closed to the public during the renovation.

But Gaskins said the project is about more than long-overdue repairs.

“The Full Story of Our Community”

“What I wanted to talk about today, however, was our city’s commitment to making sure that we understand the full history of Market Square and City Hall,” Gaskins said.

When City Hall reopens, she said, the City wants the space to include “historic signage,” “interactive exhibits” and places where residents and visitors can understand “the full story of our community.”

That is where the new study comes in.

Historic Alexandria received a Commonwealth History Fund grant from the Virginia Museum of History & Culture in February 2025 to produce an in-depth history of Market Square. The City says the research will help guide future efforts to interpret the site’s complex history.

For more than 275 years, Market Square has been Alexandria’s seat of local government and a key economic hub. But the City’s announcement also describes it as a space connected to enslavement and racial oppression.

The report is accompanied by StoryMaps that use maps and images to tell the stories of enslaved and free Black people whose lives intersected with the square.

Sophia Browning Bell’s Story

Sophia Browning Bell may be the best place to begin.

The report says her story is one of the most publicly known accounts of enslaved people working toward freedom in the Alexandria market. According to the study, Bell sold vegetables in Alexandria every week until she earned enough money to purchase George Bell’s freedom in 1801.

The report is careful about what can and cannot be proven. Beaman notes that historians have not found direct records of the Alexandria Market for Sophia Browning Bell or of her manumission. Her connection to the market comes from an 1871 federal education report based on Congressional testimony from 1868.

That gap is part of the story.

The report says the lack of surviving documentary evidence shows how easily women of African descent were erased within the system of racial slavery.

Still, what survived is remarkable.

George Bell later became one of three men credited with establishing the first school for Black students in Washington, D.C., in 1807. That means Sophia Browning Bell’s market labor helped shape not only one family’s freedom story, but part of the early history of Black education in the nation’s capital.

Other Lives Beneath Market Square

Bell was not alone.

There was Gustavus Gibson, born enslaved around 1756, who bought his freedom in 1824. By 1830, Gibson was cleaning the Market House and lighting its lamps. After his death in 1831, his sons continued the work, and members of the Gibson family served the town and surrounding area around Market Square for roughly two decades.

There was William Lyles, born around 1795, who bought his freedom in 1824 and became known as a cook selling prepared foods at the market. His son, Richard H. Lyles, opened the Primary School on Princess Street in 1863 and served as pastor of Roberts Chapel Methodist Church, now Roberts Memorial Methodist Church. William Lyles was also the grandfather of Rozier D. Lyles, namesake of Lyles-Crouch School.

There was Rachel Harper, a Black cook remembered after her death in 1889 as a woman who had kept a cookshop in the Market House. Census records listed her as a “huckster” in 1860 and, by 1870, as a “cook in the market.”

And there were many others whose names appear in records because they were sold, punished, taxed, hired out or otherwise forced into public documents.

The Harder History of the Square

The study also documents the public sale of enslaved people at Market Square.

On Nov. 16, 1789, a large crowd gathered in front of the Fairfax County Courthouse in Alexandria to bid on the legal authority to enslave 60 men, women and children. The report identifies that auction as the largest known public sale of enslaved people to have taken place on Alexandria’s Market Square.

That history is part of what Gaskins said the City must continue to confront.

“As our city’s first Black female mayor, I think it’s critical that we are constantly finding ways to keep learning, telling our full history,” Gaskins said.

In her video message, she connected the Market Square work to other recent efforts, including the Community Remembrance Project marker recognizing the lynching of Benjamin Thomas and the reopening of Freedom House Museum.

The Alexandria Community Remembrance Project has researched and memorialized the city’s known lynching victims, Joseph McCoy and Benjamin Thomas. Thomas, a 16-year-old African American teenager, was lynched in 1899 at the southwest corner of King and Fairfax streets, opposite Market Square.

Freedom House Museum, located at 1315 Duke Street, honors the lives of enslaved and free Black people who were trafficked through Alexandria. The building was once part of the Franklin and Armfield Slave Pen, one of the largest domestic slave trading companies in the country.

“We’re going to keep telling our story,” Gaskins said.

A Renovation About More Than Bricks

That is why this City Hall renovation carries a deeper meaning.

When the building reopens, people may come to pay a bill, attend a public meeting, visit the farmers market or walk through one of Alexandria’s most recognizable public spaces.

But if the new interpretation follows the stories laid out in Beaman’s report, they may also encounter Sophia Browning Bell, Gustavus Gibson, William Lyles, Rachel Harper and many others whose lives unfolded on the same ground.

Market Square has long helped Alexandria tell stories about government, commerce and civic pride.

Now, as the block is rebuilt, the city has a chance to tell the rest of the story, too.