Built c. 1810–1820, it was first used as a private residence before being converted to the offices of the largest slave trading firm in the United States, started in 1828 by Isaac Franklin and John Armfield.

It has Federal-period styling, with windows and the entrance door set in segmented, arch openings, with gabled dormers at the roof level.

[10]: 292  The two-story extension to the rear of this house was part of the slave-holding facilities, which included high walls, and interior chambers that featured prison-like grated doors and windows.

Servants that are intended to be shipped will at any time be received for safe keeping at twenty-five cents a day.

Franklin and Armfield sold more enslaved people, separated more families, and made more money from the trade than almost anyone else in the United States.

His nephew Armfield handled the supply, sending agents door-to-door in Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware looking for enslaved people their owners might like to sell, and arranging transportation.

[19][20] Arriving at the Duke street office of the company on May 14, 1861, the Union Army discovered that "The firm had fled, and taken with them all but one of the humans that they sold as slaves — an old man, chained to the middle of the floor by the leg.

The dungeons on the ground floor, formerly used for refractory slaves, are horrible dens, without a chance for ventilation; they look like a row of gas retorts.

[5] After serving a variety of other uses, the main building is now used for Freedom House Museum, with exhibits devoted to the slave trade.

Isaac Franklin and John Armfield leased this brick building with access to the wharves and docks in 1828 as a holding pen for enslaved people being shipped from northern Virginia to Louisiana.

[27] The Office of Historic Alexandria partnered with the Northern Virginia Urban League in February 2018 in an effort to maintain and interpret the building.

The Urban League received $50,000 from the National Trust for Historic Preservation's African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund that same year.