History of Norfolk County, Virginia : and representative citizens, 1637-1900, Part 49

Author: Stewart, William H. (William Henry), 1838-1912
Publication date: 1902
Publisher: Chicago : Biographical Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1054

USA > Virginia > City of Norfolk > City of Norfolk > History of Norfolk County, Virginia : and representative citizens, 1637-1900 > Part 49

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Although the church goes back to a very early date, none of the graves in the church- yard are earlier than 1700,-any stones there of prior dates were brought from elsewhere. Interments before that time must have been in private grounds. From about this time, however, until 1836 this was the regular ceme- tery of the borough.

The church was supported partly by taxes, the vestry having authority in law to levy them for its support, each taxable person being

charged 33 pounds of tobacco, and in case of delay or non-payment the sheriff was ordered "to Make Distress and Sail ;" partly by the hire of its slaves, the names of five of whom have come down to us: Davy, Soll, Ishmael, Sarah and Nell, their yearly hire ranging from £8 15s. for Davy to fi Ios. for Nell; and partly by the rents or produce of its Glebe, or farm, which was at one time a tract of 86 acres of land in the city here, a part of which was known to us as "The Point," the fashionable residential portion of the city. This particular glebe was sold by the vestry in 1734 and an- other glebe was acquired in its place. The former is often referred to as the "Old Glebe." We will say more about this tract later on. The minister was paid in tobacco, his salary being fixed by law at 16,000 pounds a year, which was the general compensation provided for ministers, just as general law now regu- lates the salaries of judges. The ministers be- longed to the department of religion, just as the judges belonged to the department of jus- tice. The amount of their salaries throws much light on the value of the original 50 acres bought from Nicholas Wise, he receiv- ing, therefore, for this tract an amount equal to only five-eighths of a minister's salary for a year. The washing of the minister's surplice cost 60 pounds of tobacco. We can tell from this that the general tax of 33 pounds for the support of the church was not very oppres- sive.

The vestries of the church in those days were bodies of considerable power, having con- trol over many subjects which we would now consider purely political. They exercised the chief authority in the parish ; they apportioned the parish taxes ; they appointed the church- wardens ; presented the minister for induction into office ; and acted as overseers of the poor. They were an oligarchical body, having power to fill vacancies in their own number. This form of church government continued up to the Revolution. Rev. Thomas Davis was the rector of St. Paul's when, on January 1, 1776,

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the 24-pound shot was fired into the wall from the frigate "Liverpool." and the church was burned with the rest of the town, only its walls remaining.

The success of the Revolution swept away the legal establishment of the church and the powers of its vestries. They were disliked by those not regular members of the Episcopal Church, and were considered incompatible with republican principles and with the free- dom of conscience and religion. Its glebes were confiscated by the State of Virginia, as being a portion of the property of the British Crown, to whose rights. by virtue of the re- sult of the war, the State had succeeded, and were granted out again by the State to private persons. For this unjustifiable proceeding Thomas Jefferson, then in full power in Vir- ginia, has been generally held responsible. The glebes should have been allowed to re- main the property of the congregations. for the support of their churches, though disestab- lished, as much so as the church buildings themselves. But this view, although strenu- ously insisted upon, and urged in the highest court, was not allowed to prevail.

The church building was restored by the year 1785. A few years later a deplorable dis- pute arose between rival factions for its con- trol and possession. Two parsons claimed it as theirs,-Mr. Whitehead and Mr. Bland. They divided the services, one appearing in the morning and the other in the evening. Mr. Whitehead finally withdrew from the unseemly contest, and left the church in possession of his unworthy rival, who was much more of a sporting character than an orthodox minister. We are not surprised to hear that within a short time after this the church fell into decay and was abandoned by its congregation. It was even occupied for a while by a colored Baptist congregation. It was at this time that Christ Church was founded by the Episcopal- ians, the original building of this church hav- ing been erected about 1800. St. Paul's came back again into the possession of its former

owners in 1832, when it was repaired and re- consecrated. and entered upon a new course of usefulness.

Shorn of lier power to tax, despoiled of her slaves and robbed of her Glebe, she continues to our day, more beautiful than ever before, a potent factor in the spiritual life of our city. Mantled with ivy and shaded by elms, the Old Church keeps guard over the dead of past gen- erations sleeping within her quiet fold, and watches over hundreds of to-day who love lier for her present and her past. Well may we say of her : "Esto perpetua."

In pursuing our walk out the main road we would find that Old Norfolk was divided into eiglit parts. There was, first, the 50 acres of the original town,-these we have left be- hind us; then there were six distinct tracts which we would pass, three on each side of the road; and lastly, there was the "Old Glebe," to the west, not on the road but far off in the country and quite out of the way. The three tracts on the west side of the road were the Samuel Boush tract, "Smith's Other Land," and the Newton property ; the three on the east were the Walke property, the Wilson Newton tract and "Boush's Pasture."

The largest of these was the Boush tract. This magnificent piece of property began at the corner of Cove and Church, at St. Paul's Church, ran northerly up Church to Bute, westwardly up Bute to a stone in its northern side, which may be seen to this day in the side- walk opposite the house numbered 276, then southierly midway between Boush and Duke streets to Town Back Creek, and eastwardly up its channel, or south side, to Cove street, and along it to Church street. In area it was 98 acres, and was granted by the Colony of Virginia, acting through Nathaniel Bacon, its Governor, on April 16, 1690, to William Por- teen, in consideration of his having imported two persons into the Colony. As he was en- titled to 50 acres for each imported person, we wonder how Mr. Porteen was finally satis- fied for those two-fiftieths of a person im-

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ported which was not settled for by this tract of only 98 acres.

Porteen, we are told, had become tlie owner of the 150 acres left over from Nicholas Wise's 200. Wise having sold to Charles Wilder, and Wilder having sold to Porteen, and he is said to have obtained one patent for all, his own 98 and the 150 he had purchased, and had them included in a patent for 248 acres. This is said to have included the 98 acres of the Samuel Boush property, 86 acres of the "Old Glebe," and 64 acres of what we can only call "Smith's Other Land," for want of a better name. But it is clear to the writer that the patent stated as that which covers these three tracts only includes the Boush property, the title to the other 150 acres, no doubt, really rests on the original patent to Wise, although Porteen may have afterward gotten another patent for all the 248 acres together, but we have never seen this patent.

This Samuel Boush tract of 98 acres in- cluded the whole or a part of these streets : Boush, Granby, Brewer, Bank, Cumberland, the west side of Church from Cove to Bute, the south side of Bute, Charlotte, Freemason, College Place and Washington street. On this property is built a large number of the oldest and handsomest residences in the city, and the value of the tract to-day would have to be expressed in millions. It includes the Gran- by Theater, the Monticello Hotel, stately dwell- ings, nearly all our churches and many of our stores. The legal right to all of this rests upon the following chain of title :

Colony of Virginia to William Porteen, patent, April 16, 1690.

William Porteen, descent to Daniel Porteen, his son. Daniel Porteen's executor, sale to Maximilian Boush.

Maximilian Boush, sale to Samuel Boush, mayor.

Samuel Boush, by will to his grandson, Samuel Boush, the third.

The land is thus described in the patent from the Colony to William Porteen :

"Beginning at a marked cedar on a point near the mouth of the Back Creek, being a cor- ner tree of the town bounds ( that is, at Town

Point), and crossing over the creek to a white oak on the Glebe land ( this must have been at the water's edge, midway between Boush and Duke streets), thence bounding on the Glebe land North-North-East 94 poles ( 1,551 feet) to a white oak (this point is now marked by the stone above referred to in the north side of Bute street, opposite No. 276), thence on the Glebe land, East by South 82 poles (1,353 feet ) to a pine (this was at the corner of Brewer and Bute), thence on the land of Ad- ams, East by South III poles ( 1,831 feet), to a dog-wood, thence 18 poles (297 feet, bring- ing the line up to Church street ), thence cross- ing over to a chincopin, another corner of the town land (this is believed to take the line down Church street to Cove), thence bound- ing on the bounds of the town land according to the courses thereof to the first mentioned cedar (that is, up Town Back Creek to Town Point, the place of beginning)."

The difficulties in interpreting these old deeds do not arise only on account of their antiquity. There were some contradictions and confusions in them from the beginning. The patent given above as of 248 acres to William Porteen is spoken of as "inclusive;" we have already stated that we do not think this was correct, and this is proved to be so by the statement in that patent that it was for the importation of two persons, which would include 98 acres, but not 248. Again, what becomes of the patent for 200 acres to Will- oughby, the first of them all? That took in the water front of the 50 acres, and went back "East-North-East into the woods," and would seem necessarily to have included in its boun- daries this 98 acres of Porteen's patent, to say nothing of his "inclusive patent" for the 248 acres, if such ever existed. Again, we are told that the Walke plan, of which we will speak later, was a part of this balance of 150 acres once due to Wise, and sold to Porteen. On the whole, it would seem that these 200 acres were very much like the oil in the widow's cruse.

Without stopping longer to unravel all

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the questions which might be raised as to the wording of these interesting documents. we know that this Boush tract of 98 acres came down, by the above chain of title, to the third Samuel Bouslı. He had a plat made of it by Gershom Nimmo, in 1762: laid it off into squares and lots, and sold a large portion of it. These lots were of generous size, and de- termine the lines of most of the property with- in its area at the present day, although they have been very generally subdivided by the owners into smaller and smaller lots, as their increasing value demands and modern con- veniences permit. With a map showing the shape of this tract and the branches of Town Back Creek before us, we can easily understand why the streets on it run as they do. The west line of the tract we might call its rear. It runs from the creek up to Bute street. equally distant from Boush and Duke. Starting with this, we can easily see why Boush street runs as it does. It is placed parallel to this rear line. and 160 feet from it, to give proper depth to the lots fronting on Boush. This street ran into Town Back Creek at about the distance of two squares below College Place, once called Green Boush street, and. later. Washington. The "Father of his Country" was not so well known when Green Boush street was first named. Then comes Granby, duly parallel with Boush, and stopping at the creek on the same line with it. Then comes Brewer. also parallel. but running into the creek much sooner, and stopping before it had done more than just get down to Wolfe street, that wretched. little, crooked and narrow lane un- worthy of the great hero for whom it was named. When we come to Bank street, how- ever, we have a variation. It was originally named Catharine, after Mr. Boush's wife. It does not run parallel with the other streets because it was placed so that it could go down as far as it could on a point of land between two branches of the creek, and was placed so as to give proper depth for lots on both sides. It stopped finally at the main body of the creek. about the corner of Cove. Having now

broken into the parallelism determined by the rear line. Cumberland is run at a different angle, and as nearly parallel to Church street as the crookedness of that old creek-ridden road would allow any straight line to run par- allel to it. Coming now to the cross streets, Bute was run along the northern line of the property. Charlotte was run so as to make right angles with Boush. Granby and Brewer, but in so doing it had to run obliquely with Bute, and form the "Flat Iron" triangle, usu- ally called a "Square." bounded by Bute, Granby and Charlotte. Then Knight, after- ward Grafton, and then Mason or Freemason, was run parallel to Charlotte. Green Boush came next, duly parallel with Freemason, while the Wolfe part of that street dodged around among the branches of the creek in a thoroughly disorderly manner. Had Mr. Boush anticipated what the future held in store for the city of Norfolk, and that this creek would disappear from the face of the earth and the city market be placed here. he would have saved the city an immense sum by making this a broad and straight street. And it would have cost him nothing to have done it. One branch of the creek ran up behind Granby street until it crossed over Freemason. Its position is marked to this day by the de- pression in that street between Granby street and Monticello avenue. Another branch cut off poor Wolfe street again between Bank and Cumberland. about where Avon comes into it. Such was the platting of the Boush property. If we had had to do it ourselves it is more than doubtful if we could have done it any better. At least it could be used as an argument against the blind cow theory.

Right here it might be well to say that most, if not all. of the old creeks can be easily recognized by the depressions of the land to- day. They were probably never filled up any too well to begin with. and then settlement in- variably took place. Our soil is so level that wherever you see any easily perceptible down- grade you may be sure that at the bottom of it and well up the sides there formerly was a

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creek. A fine illustration of this is seen on both sides of the corner of Wood and Chapel streets. Wood street is on a high ridge of land, which ran out between two branches of Newton's Creek. £ Looking up and down Chapel street from that corner it runs rapidly down hill in both directions. No creeks are to be seen there now, but the old plats show them to us, corresponding exactly with the de- pressions of the street to-day. The depressions of the present are the creeks of the past. Other instances are found at the corner of York and Dunmore; the corner of Freemason and Thomas; Granby street near the old "Stone Bridge;" the corner of Cove and Bank, and many others. It is these old creek beds that our high tides come over. They never affect what was originally high land.

Samuel Boush, the owner of this valuable property, valuable even in those early days, sold a large portion of it, but at his death there still remained a very considerable quantity which he still owned. This he divided by his will, lot by lot, according to the numbers of his plan, between his three sons, John, Robert and William. John was mayor of the town in 1791, as his great-grandfather had been be- fore him. He built for his home, on the old family property, the fine old house on Granby street, afterwards the property of Conway Whittle, and later of Gov- ernor Tazewell, but did not live to oc- cupy it. Its large and beautiful grounds, bounded by Granby street, College Place and Boush street, with the creek to the south, com- prised Io of the lots on the original plan. Rob- ert built for his home, on the same tract, in the year 1800, the house numbered 122 Boush street, with the large live oak in front of it, near College Place, and lived there until his death in 1809. The Boushes were very nu- merous and influential, socially and politically. They owned much other land in the city and county, and the early records are full of their transactions. Their descendants comprise a large part of the most prominent families in the city, but there are very few who bear that

name, as they are mainly descended from the female branches of the family.

Northwest of, and partially enveloping the Boush property, was the "Old Glebe." It is a beautiful tract of land, worth millions of dollars. It began at the stone on Bute street in front of the house numbered 276, and ran south between Duke and Boush, coinciding with the western line of the Boush tract, to Town Beck Creek, then going west and north, it swept around "The Point," going, after leaving the river, eastwardly up Glebe Creek to the head of one of its small branches which made in to the south between Magazine lane and Granby street, as it is now extended ; then it ran southeastwardly in a straight line to the corner of Brewer and Bute streets, at a very oblique angle with Bute street; then west- wardly along the north side of Bute street back to the stone. The old deeds inform us that the stone takes the place of "a marked tree," or "a white oak ;" and that at the corner of Brewer and Bute there was "a marked tree,' or "a pine," and that the line from the head of the branch of the creek was along "a line of marked trees," as was also the line along Bute. This tract contained 86 acres.

We believe that the following is the legal chain of title by which this magnificent piece of property is now held, which comprehends the most beautiful residential portion of the old part of the city :

"The Colony of Virginia to Capt. Thomas Willough- by, patent for 200 acres, 1636. Thomas Willoughby, sale to John Watkins, 1644. John Watkins, sale to John Norwood.

John Norwood, to Peter Michaelson, and others, sale, 1662.

Peter Michaelson to Lewis Vandermull, sale. Lewis Vandermull to Nicholas Wise, Sr., sale. Nicholas Wise, Sr., to Nicholas Wise, Jr., descent. Nicholas Wise, Jr., to Charles Wilder, sale, 150 acres. Charles Wilder to William Porteen, sale.

William Porteen to Daniel Porteen, descent.

Daniel Porteen, or his executors, to the vestry of Elizabeth River Parish, sale, 86 acres.

Vestry to Samuel Smith, sale, January 17, 1734, Deed Book 12, Norfolk County Clerk's office, Page 33. Samuel Smith to John Smith, descent.

John Smith to Josiah Smith, sale, 1747,-Deed Book 14, Page 107.

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Josiah Smith to John Smith, will,-Will Book I, Page 53.

This last John Smith, "Gentleman."-as he always took pains to tell us in his deeds,- sold the property off in lots of various sizes. as purchasers wished them. \ plan of the property had been made by Col. Lemuel New- ton. on November 10, 1710, and that plan and John Smith's deeds determine the shapes and sizes of all the lots on the whole or part of these streets: Botetourt. Dunmore, Suffolk or Yarmouth, as it was afterward called, Duke, the northern half of Boush, the western end of Queen, the southern end of James, the whole of York. and the western part of Bute and Freemason. The dates of his deeds are from about 1707 to 1800.

Let us see if we can follow the plan by which this property was laid off into streets. Beginning at the western end. it is perfectly regular, and all the streets cross each other at right angles until you come to Duke. The northern part of this is still regular, but the part south of Bute is at an oblique angle. There are two good reasons for this : The fact that the line of the Glebe property here was oblique, and the position of the creek which runs up on the west of this street. So this part of the street is also run parallel to the same line by which Boush street was run, and at such a distance from it as to give a reasonable depth to the lots on each side, on the east back to the Boush property and on the west back to this little creek, Glebe Cove. as it was called. But Mr. Smith was evidently ashamed of making this angle in this street, so, in order to have only straight streets on his plan. he actually gave these two parts different names. The northern part he called Princess and the southern part he called Duke.

At Bute street there is an angle in Boush street. This is due to the fact that these parts of Boush street are on different tracts. They also had different names. the northern part being called Amelia street. This northern part was on the Glebe tract and maintained the parallelism established by the other north and , formerly watery domain :

south streets on that plan, while the southern part was on the Boush plan, and ran parallel to its own back line.

The angle in Freemason street occurred just in the middle of the head of Glebe Cove, which completely cut the street in two. crossed it and ran into the middle of the square toward Bute, and, branching, also ran down toward Duke. West of this angle Freemason street is parallel to the east and west streets of the Glebe property. Its direction east of this angle was such as to make it coincide with, and form a continuation of, the Freemason street as laid out on the Boush plan.

The northern part of Boush, or Amelia, street stopped at a little branch of Glebe Creek, which cut its career short a little beyond the corner of Queen. Duke got but little further. .As for Brown, Dartmouth and Grace streets, they were not so much as heard of in those days.

Such was the platting of the "Old Glebe." Ilow difficult it is for us in these days, never having known this property in any other state than as a handsome, well-built-up portion of the city, to think of it as a farm. Beautiful houses have long since taken the place of the corn stalks and tobacco plants: streets and trolley poles have supplanted the marked white oak trees, but it is the same old property nev- ertheless.

Before we describe the other tracts let us say one parting word about our old friend,- Town Back Creek .- which bordered, in part, the three tracts which we have discussed. Its full name is preserved to us in the plat of the Glebe land. although it is more frequently spoken of simply as .Back Creek." for the sake of brevity. It includes everything west of Gran- by street. out to the river, between the old Newton house at the corner of Granby and Plume, and the high ground of the Tazewell property. Then it stretched eastwardly nearly to Church street, and northwardly across Free- mason, near the corner of Granby. The fol- lowing prominent buildings are erected in its The Monticello

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Hotel, the Haddington building, the City Mar- ket and Armory, the Ohef Sholom Temple, the church at the corner of Freemason and Granby, the United States Post Office, the Court House and the city jails. We are told that it "ebbed bare," and in 1765 was said to have never "been possessioned in the memory of man." To-day it has ebbed bare once for all, is very thoroughly possessioned, and is worth millions of dollars, although there are men yet living who remember not only soft crabbing, swimming and rowing in it, but even shooting wild ducks in its waters. It was crossed by two bridges, the old "Stone Bridge," near the Monticello Hotel, and by a wooden bridge on Bank street, near the Court House. It is responsible for the break in the eastern line of Granby street, at City Hall ave- nue, and for the angles in Brewer and Bank streets, which angles were formed by the mis- joinder of streets on the Boush plan to streets on the Town Lands. The old creek has gone, but on April 7, 1889, it rose once more in its might and stood three feet deep in the street at the jail building on the corner of Avon and Cove,-Town Back Creek had reclaimed its own.

Another of the eight original tracts, as we might call them, is "Smith's Other Land." This name is not official, but the deeds to the Glebe property speak of it in this way, and we have adopted the description for want of a better. The Smith referred to was Samuel Smith, a great man in his day, being both a vestryman and mayor, and it was in the deed of the Glebe property to him that its eastern boundary was spoken of as being a line run- ning along "the said Smith's other land." It was a tract of 64 acres, through the middle of which ran Queen street. It fronted on Church street from Bute to about half a square beyond Queen, at which point it left Church street at an oblique angle, and was bounded on the north by the Thomas Newton property and a branch of Glebe Creek. It was bounded on the west by the Glebe property, and south by Bute street. It has been built on in large part

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History of Norfolk County, Virginia : and representative citizens, 1637-1900, Part 49

Author: Stewart, William H. (William Henry), 1838-1912 Publication date: 1902 Publisher: Chicago : Biographical Publishing Co. Number of Pages: 1054

Author: Stewart, William H. (William Henry), 1838-1912
Publication date: 1902
Publisher: Chicago : Biographical Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1054