USA > Virginia > City of Richmond > City of Richmond > Virginia, especially Richmond, in by-gone days; with a glance at the present: being reminiscences and last words of an old citizen > Part 2
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. In 1757 a deed was made by Wm. Byrd, premi- sing that he intends shortly to leave the Colony and is desirous to provide for the maintenance of his wife and mother, and for the payment of his debts, and conveying to and placing under the management of Peyton Randolph, John 'Robinson, John Page, Presley Thornton, Charles Carter and Charles Turnbull all his lands in Chesterfield, Henrico, Lunenburg and Halifax, with the slaves and live stock thereon. Part of the property con- veyed in this deed was the subject of his lottery, which was drawn before the act of 1769 for sup- pressing private lotteries. The plan of the lottery
22
INTRODUCTION.
was put on record in the court of Henrico county.
At the date of the act of 1781, CHARLES CAR- TER was the only surviving trustee, and he was authorized by it to execute the deeds.
In 1782, an act was passed which conferred on Richmond the title of City, and incorporated it as such.
In 1788, the city was allowed a Representative in the House of Delegates.
The name and deeds of Nathaniel Bacon, called the rebel, but meriting the title of patriot, are recorded in history, and are retained in the east- ern and western limits of Richmond.
Bloody-Run by tradition obtained its name from a sanguinary battle with the Indians, where his conquest terminated hostilities with them, and Bacon's Quarter Branch, also by tradition, derives its name from his occupancy of the banks of that stream with his troops, when opposed to those of the Governor in 1676, and when his resistance to oppression preceded by a century that which re- sulted in Independence.
Bacon's Castle in Surry is a strongly built house which bears the marks of port-holes for musketry, and it is still a comfortable dwelling.
VIRGINIA,
ESPECIALLY
RICHMOND, IN BY-GONE DAYS. -
CHAPTER I.
LONG TIME AGO.
" Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And never brought to min' ? Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And days o'lang-syne ?"
THERE are few residents of Richmond at this day whose reminiscences of its localities, &c., have a more remote retrospection than mine ; impressed on my childhood, perhaps on my imagination ; and as the latter may occasionally prevail, I will not venture to assert that my descriptions and anec- dotes are literally correct,-they are so, as the qualification in court goes, "to the best of my knowledge and belief."
As far back as the year 1792, I think I remember the market-house occupying the site of the one just rebuilt (1855) on Main and
24
RICHMOND IN BY-GONE DAYS.
Seventeenth streets. The first edifice was an open shed supported on wooden posts, and the slope from it down to Shockoe Creek was a green pasture, and considered a common, much used by laundresses whereon to dry the clothes which they washed in the stream. A spring of cool water arose in the common on the south side of Main street, but the spot is now occupied by a building where fountains of fire-water are substi- tuted for the natural and pure element, and, I fear, it may be added, that the combined elements attract more thirsty bodies than the simple one did of yore, although the thirst is more apt to be increased than allayed by the fiery substitute .*
The creek was crossed by foot passengers on a narrow bridge, raised a few feet above the surface of the water, but horses cooled their feet by ford- ing it. When freshets occurred, the planks were removed from the bridge and a ferry-boat was sub- stituted, which conveyed vehicles, as well as man and horse, across the wide and sometimes deep stream.
At the mouth of the creek, where the gas hold- ers now rise and fall, was a wharf, built around a broad, flat rock (which has been blasted to accom- modate the gas), and this place was called the Rock Landing, where oyster boats and small craft resorted.
* This fountain has found a different outlet, 1860.
25
LONG TIME AGO.
Along the then elevated bank of the river, from about the rear of the present Union Hotel, a grassy walk, shaded by elm and other trees, ex- tended for a considerable distance, down to where Foster's rope-walk afterwards stood, and this was the fashionable promenade. Of late years, the clay which nourished those trees has been con- verted into bricks, the surface lowered many feet, and a large portion of it covered with buildings. Below this bank was a small branch of the river, separated from the main stream by a narrow strip of land, an island, on which grew a few large sycamore trees, about the site of the present dock. I remember a vessel, grounded probably in a freshet, in this narrow stream, and converted into a place of refreshment, which was reached by a platform from the shore, and resorted to by prome- naders. Its position was peculiarly favorable for the sale of oysters to those who sought recreation there.
The eastern end of this shaded walk terminated in a high and steep cliff, overhanging the river, which washed its base at high water, but at low tide admitted of a narrow walk on the sands. On the occasion of a severe ice freshet once, a great deposit of drift-wood, soil and sand formed a small island some hundred feet from this cliff. A Ger- man, named Widewilt, whose trumpet called the troops to horse, procured a land warrant and 3
-
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RICHMOND IN BY-GONE DAYS.
located it on this new-found land, and, to secure it against becoming a floating island, he drove stakes all round his slippery domain, and wattled them, so that future freshets might add further deposits ; and thus Widewilt's Island became a possession of some value as a fishery and a sand mart. The island remained above water longer than its founder did above ground; but a similar accident to that which formed the island recurred, and destroyed the work of its predecessor. An
ice freshet consolidated the river, and so obstructed the current that the ice borne over the Falls con- tinued to accumulate in height until it rose to the level of Mayo's Bridge. An unfrozen current flowed underneath, but was not visible for many miles. The immense mass of ice slowly disap- peared, and with it disappeared Widewilt's Island.
A similar loss of territory happened to Great Britain some years before. A volcanic island rose in the Atlantic off St. Michael's, one of the Azores, in 1811, and when it became cool enough not to scorch shoe leather, the captain of the Brit- ish frigate Sabrina, then cruising on that station, landed on it, and coolly took possession in the name of his sovereign, and gave to it the name of his ship. It was my fortune, or misfortune, during the war in 1814, soon after passing the site of this new British territory, to be captured by one of his Britannic Majesty's ships. I was on
27
LONG TIME AGO.
board an American vessel commanded by a Scotch- man, and was captured by a British vessel com- manded by a Yankee, and to complete the strange antithesis, a Yankee prize-master was placed over my Scotch captain. The Yankee was a well dis- posed-I should rather say a good-natured man- ' for his disposition to fight against his country was not well, but he had been a carpenter in the British service "long before the fight begun." I inquired of him about the island, and was told he could show me what remained of it. Thereupon, open- ing his sea-chest, he handed me a lump of lava, and said he was present at the birth of the island, and acted as one of its godfathers. That he took this memento of his bantling, who did not survive, or rather sur-wave, but about eighteen months; and he bestowed on me one-half of the British dominion he had rescued from the other dominion which is claimed in that boastful song, "Britannia rules the waves."
An ephemeral island has risen and subsided several times near the same spot. Should "Sa- brina," or one of her ascendants, venture again to raise her head above water, she will probably be claimed by Great Britain as a deserter; nor is such a claim likely to be disputed, except in the lower regions, whence these islands seem to emigrate.
Widewilt and his successors in various projects, forced the river from its natural bed, and such has
28
1
RICHMOND IN BY-GONE DAYS.
been the encroachment of Richmond on its passive opposite neighbor, that a large rock, formerly on the southern margin of the river, to which the Manchester anglers could step, with the aid of a fence-rail, now shows its rugged head in mid-chan- nel. The present margin of the river is not its natural one along any portion of the entire length of the city ; but the latter may be traced along the inner banks of Haxall's canal, of that portion of the James River Canal which extends from Haxall's to the Dock, and of the north side of the Dock throughout its whole length. Many acres of land have been made by encroachments on the water, embracing a new territory below Haxall's mills, the site of the Danville Railroad Depot, that of the new tobacco warehouse of Messrs. Mayo, and the long extent of embankment betwixt the dock and the river on which a street is made and a number of buildings erected. In old times the river would probably have attempted to repel this encroach- ment, but it does not rise in its wrath now as for- merly. There is no knowing what it may yet do when highly excited.
The Rock Landing has had a singular succession of occupants. When vessels of some size could no longer float there, and when even the oyster boats had to abandon it in favor of a wharf which was extended to deeper water, a shot-tower was erected on it. Although founded on a rock, it had not
29
LONG TIME AGO.
attained to its full altitude, when it fell to the ground, proving that bad bricks and weak mortar were unfit for high pressure, or perhaps the rock on which it was based may not have been dressed to a true level, and the tall structure slid off side- wise. The materials served to form a less aspiring structure, to use a gentle term, for a block of buildings in the Valley not always in very good repute.
Thus dead to any useful purpose, the Rock Landing was buried under the accumulating mass of earth and rubbish, which was carted from foundations for houses and from less pure sources. After many years interment it was exhumed, and like some other subjects, whose graves are violated, its still firm body was dislocated, and the members scattered abroad or used in the erection of a huge monument (the gas holders) which cover its grave, but a bright and subtle spirit arises from it, which serves to enlighten our citizens in the most be- nighted times.
" The Cage" is, I believe, a term peculiar to Richmond as applied to the receptacle for offend- ers. It originated from a structure so called, erected at the north-east end of the market bridge, some fifty years ago, when it terminated close to the market-house; its long parapet wall of brick was surmounted by a coping of free-stone, which extended west to the store now and for many years
30
RICHMOND IN BY-GONE DAYS.
occupied by Mr. Palmer, and an equal length on the opposite side of the street. In the rear of Mr. P.'s was the first iron foundry in Richmond, erected by the Brothers Dunlop. This cage, of octagonal form, had open iron gratings on three sides, about ten feet above the street, and the floor of this open prison was arranged amphitheatri- cally, so that each occupant could see, and what was worse, be seen from the street.
Here were encaged, when caught, the un- feathered night-hawks that prowl for prey, and screeching owls that make night hideous, and black birds, who had flown from their own nests, to nestle elsewhere, like cuckoos; and some birds, both black and white, who had no nests at all were brought to roost here until that official ornithologist the police master should examine into their characters. This was a somewhat convenient arrangement to the citizen, who on rising in the morning, missed the attendant on his household comforts, and as he went to market had only to look into the cage for his flown bird.
A structure made memorable to future ages by the author of Hudibras, stood in rear of the cage.
In all the fabrick
You shall not see one stone or brick,
But all of wood, by powerful spell Of magic, made impregnable : There's neither iron bar, nor gate,
Portcullis, chain, nor bolt, nor grate :
31
LONG TIME AGO.
And yet men durance there abide, In dungeon, scarce three inches wide, With roof so low, that under it They never stand, but lie or sit ; And yet so foul that whoso is in, Is to the middle-leg in prison ; In circle magical confin'd, With wall of subtile air and wind ; Which none are able to break thorough, Until they're freed by the head-borough."
This mystical prison-the stocks-surmounted the whipping-post, and was an awful warning to the foul birds ; some of whom were occasionally condemned to roost in the upper part and others to become acquainted with the twigs in the lower.
Another mode of punishment, derived from the mother country, was " whipping at a cart's tail." I saw this inflicted, when a child, in Petersburg. The culprit on foot, naked to the waist, was tied to the rear of a cart, which was driven slowly along the street. A constable with a whip walked near the miserable offender, and at short intervals applied the lash to his bleeding back. The limits of the town were the limit to his punishment. His hands were then untied, and he was admonished never to repass those limits, under the penalty of a similar infliction.
There was yet another mode of punishment adopted in Virginia for offenders of another class, viz : those whose tones were too high and discord- ant for the peace and comfort of their neighbors.
32
RICHMOND IN BY-GONE DAYS.
The implement for inflicting this was called a cucking or ducking stool. The occupancy of it was an exclusive privilege of the fair and gentle sex, so called, and never contested by the rougher one. It was thus constructed : a post was planted in the ground on the margin of a pond or stream ; on the top of this post a long pole fixed at its centre on a pivot, was made to revolve; at one end of the pole a chair was fastened in which the privileged party entitled to the seat was placed so securely that she could not abdicate it. The pole was then turned so as to bring the incumbent over the water and was depressed sufficiently to dip her beneath the surface. This plunging bath was repeated until the patient was cooled-externally at least. " Common scolds " were thus silenced- pro tem.
This bathing machine fell into disuse many years ago, whether because the offence ceased to be committed, or that instead of an offence it became a venial privilege, can be decided by members of the Caudle Club. The last revolution of the stool recorded in our history, was excited by an old lady of literary renown, and of a Royal family, who exacted black mail for exemption from her scurri- lous pen-perhaps this also has become a privilege, for scurrility prevails unpunished. The water of the Potomac gave ablution to this victim.
In Philadelphia, a case is recorded of the cuck-
33
BRITISH MERCHANTS.
ing stool being put in requisition as late as 1824, when Nancy Jones was convicted of being a common (query, uncommon ?) scold and sentenced " to be placed in a certain engine of correction, called a cucking or ducking stool and being so placed to be plunged three times in the water."
In 1661-2, it was enacted by ".the Grand Assembly of Virginia," that there should be erected in each county (then seventeen in num- ber) a pillory, whipping post, ducking stool and stocks.
CHAPTER II.
BRITISH MERCHANTS AND COMMERCIAL QUACKS.
THE term "British merchants " is here used not in its general acceptation, but as it was formerly applied in Virginia to those who had establish- ments here and who in fact had the monopoly of trade in most of the Southern States. Far be it from me to impugn the integrity and liberality of so truly noble a class as the British merchants, or to reflect on any nationalities, classes or sects.
On another page it is stated that supplies of goods were imported into Virginia previous to and
34
RICHMOND IN BY-GONE DAYS.
for a score of years after the Revolution chiefly by English, Scotch and Irish merchants. The princi- pals of these mercantile houses resided in Great Britain and junior partners conducted the business in Virginia. Some of these concerns branched out like polypi to the villages and court-houses, and some of them also like polypi consumed the sub- stance of all that came within their grasp. There were, however, many honorable exceptions to this rule.
It was said to have been one of the stipulations between the principals of those houses and the young men they sent to Virginia as clerks, that they were not to marry in Virginia. They came with the prospect of being admitted as partners in some branch of the central establishment, and it might weaken the sordid attachment to their pa- trons if they formed one of a purer and tenderer nature to the fair daughters of their customers. They might make less stringent bargains, or be more indulgent in requiring payments ; or perhaps their friends in Scotland had conscientious scru- ples, imagining that the only wives they could find in Virginia were Indians or negroes, and that they were thus saving their proteges from the embrace of the Heathen. This might well have been their mistake, for it is but recently that a Scotch gentle- man carried his fair and beautiful wife on a visit to his relations in a remote part of Scotland, and
35
BRITISH MERCHANTS.
their first exclamation on seeing her was, "Gude save us, she is white !"
This monkish system tended to prevent that social intercourse between merchant and planter which the hospitable disposition of the latter would have encouraged, and this exclusion of the former from good society and from the benign influence of virtuous woman led to low habits and to intempe- rance, to which many of them became victims.
With a moderate share of prudence and indus- try, the acquisition of a fortune was almost certain. Competition did not interfere to reduce the profit on goods below forty or fifty per cent., nor to raise the price of tobacco, which was generally taken in payment, above sixteen shillings and eight pence ($2.78) or eighteen shillings ($3) per hundred pounds, and at that time the sale of no tobacco other than good leaf or stemmed was permitted- such as was not merchantable, if presented for inspection, was burned. Previous to the Revolu- tion a convention of the (Virginia) British mer- chants was semi-annually. held at Williamsburg, when the prices they would allow for tobacco was fixed for the ensuing year, after the crops were pretty well ascertained. This was trading on a safe basis, as the partners abroad could control the prices there in a great degree. Those planters who lived extravagantly were apt to fall in debt to their merchants and would give bonds, renewed
1129669
36
RICHMOND IN BY-GONE DAYS.
from year to year with interest added, until a mortgage or deed of trust ensued, and thus some fine estates changed hands from planter to merchant.
Loans were also made to the planters which were apt to prove ruinous to the borrowers. One mode of evading the usury law was by buying from the planter a bill of exchange drawn by him on some person or thing in London, at a very low rate of exchange, which bill would of course be protested and returned, subject to damages, and to a refund at the current rate of exchange, thus involving a loss of twenty-five per cent. or more for six or eight months' use of the money.
An instance is recorded of a loan being made to a gentleman at the rate of 5 per cent. per annum, on condition that he would draw a bill for the amount on London where he had no funds, which would incur 10 per cent. damages, on being returned protested. He drew on a London firm with whom he had no correspondence, but his respectability was known by them, and confiding in his integrity, and moreover expecting that he intended to make them the consignees of his to- bacco, they accepted and paid his bill. The lender was sorely disappointed and complained that the gentleman had sold him a good bill instead of a bad one, viewing it as a breach of faith. The faith of the London house was no doubt rewarded.
I have heard that such bills had been drawn on
37
BRITISH MERCHANTS.
" the pump at Aldgate," and that on one occasion, when the planter was at a loss for a name to draw on, the pious merchant suggested "the Bishop of London," which was adopted. When the bill was presented to his reverence he was much sur- prised, but thinking there must be some good ground for it, he consulted a friend as to the course to be pursued, stating that he did not know the drawer, nor any cause for such a bill, and wished to be advised how to act. A protest was of course the result and no grace was given to the graceless parties.
This system of evading the usury law gave rise to an enactment by the Legislature of Virginia, requiring that after the sum in sterling on the face of the bill, it should also express in currency the amount actually received for it, and if this was omitted the holder could recover no more pounds in currency than were drawn for in sterling.
The British merchants had drawn the Virginia planters so deeply in debt to them, and the cessation of trade during the Revolution had caused such an advance in the price of imported goods and so great a depreciation in produce, that to save the planters from ruin and to punish the merchants for Toryism, the Legislature passed an act confiscating British debts and authorizing the treasurer to collect them. The effect of this was annulled when peace took place. 4
38
RICHMOND IN BY-GONE DAYS.
The monopoly of the trade of Virginia, in a great degree, was retained by the British mer- chants many years after the peace of 1783, but adventurers from the Northern and Eastern States gradually made good their footing and created com- petition, and even some Virginians condescended to stand behind the desk or the counter. Some of the imported celibates relinquished their vows and became engrafted on society, and thus an entire change was brought about in our commercial system.
When all our goods were imported directly from abroad and our produce exported to Europe, we paid dearly for the honor of such direct trade and found it to our interest to encourage North- ern competition, which increased by slow degrees.
One of the first bold innovators who dared to compete on a large scale with the importers was Bartlett Still. He purchased his goods in the Northern cities, priced them in dollars and cents, instead of pounds, shillings and pence, and sold for cash. His fancy articles were more stylish and his store more showy and brilliant than those of the old fogies and he attracted the fashionable custom. His deeds were celebrated in rhyme, which gave increased notoriety to his establishment.
His example was soon followed, and "new store" was succeeded by "NEW new store," which latter throve so well that those of the next generation
39
BRITISH MERCHANTS.
became stock-jobbers, millionaires and bankrupts in New York in rapid succession.
Thus by degrees the purchase of goods in New York and Philadelphia became the rule and direct importation the exception. Of late years the largest portion of our tobacco crop is manufactured at home and in that state sold at the North, but the quantity shipped in leaf direct to Europe is usually equal to the demand, now that the West- ern States furnish so large a supply to markets abroad.
The system which formerly existed prevented an accumulation of commercial capital in Richmond, or in any town in Virginia, and thus stinted their growth. The profits on trade went in the first instance chiefly to the principals in Great Britain, and when their Virginia partners had amassed a comfortable capital, having no family ties here, they would retire to "the old country " as they called it, with the capital they had accumulated, and this continual drain kept the new country poor.
Many adventurers from the Northern States, after making money here, would return to spend or increase it there. It is of late years compara- tively, that a large mercantile capital has become stable in Virginia. Millions might be counted up that were abstracted from Richmond and Peters- burg in former days to establish those merchants, who had accumulated it here, in London, Liverpool
40
RICHMOND IN BY-GONE DAYS.
and New York, while scarcely any capital came from those cities to replace it.
The foreign trade of Virginia was very extensive subsequent to the Revolution and for some years after the beginning of the present century. Man- chester even imported largely, as did Fredericks- burg, Falmouth and Alexandria. The commerce of Norfolk was very extensive-especially with the West Indies. During the wars that succeeded the French Revolution, her fine harbor was fre- quently crowded with vessels of all nations, including ships of war which put in there for sup- plies, for repairs or for safety from an enemy of superior strength ; the position of the Capes, of Hampton Roads and of the Bay rendering it the most convenient and desirable harbor along our whole coast. Merchant vessels would also resort to Hampton Roads in great numbers, in search of freight from any of the ports within Chesapeake Bay, through the agency of Norfolk merchants and they were also large ship owners. Alexandria had a considerable West India trade. Such are facts. Political economists may investigate the cause of the disappearance of most of this trade.
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