 When Dr. Boteler, his father, died in 1836, Alexander Boteler inherited a plantation and house ("Fountain Rock") and significant debts, which he paid off with the assistance of his wife's inheritance as well as his grandfather Robinson.Boteler also throughout his life championed the new steamboat technology (which he witnessed as a boy on the Potomac River at Shepherdstown), and the inventor James Rumsey.His father and George Reynolds had also built a cement mill, crushing limestone common in the area for use building the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal nearby, as well as buildings in Washington D.C. and Georgetown downriver (or down the canal).