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 4
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A small stream used to flow rather diagonally across Main street ; its source was a spring or springs flowing from the hill which terminated be- low the present Metropolitan Hall, formerly the First Presbyterian Church; it passed in a trunk through Byrd's warehouse, and flowed along an alley, the entrance of which is now spanned by a wide arch at what lately was Mr. Womble's store, above Fourteenth street. Its course continued openly and boldly across Main street, but was then concealed until it emerged in Exchange alley, and flowed along Virginia and across Cary streets to the river. Sometimes with its affluents from the gutters, after a rain, it would spread over the en- tire surface of Virginia street, and convey to the river a liberal contribution of gravel and mud. All these vagaries are now hidden by a culvert, concealing, like the under-ground railroad, many foul movements .*
* This book certainly produced a sensation, as is noted in several instances. On its first appearance, as if to verify its statement, the culvert, which had lain concealed for fifty years,
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A somewhat successful attempt was made by the residents on Main street, at about the close of the last century, to beautify it by planting trees ; and Mr. Jefferson's (recently introduced) favorite ex- otic, the Lombardy poplar, which was then all the rage, was chosen above all the trees of the forest. It flourished, as many of its countrymen have on our soil, and its towering summits soon aspired to, and even overtopped the height of the chimneys ; but pride must have a fall. The national plant of Virginia (unjustly stigmatized as a weed) may naturally be supposed to have become jealous of the foreign upstart that towered above her near her native fields at every homestead, and it is as natural to imagine that she induced the insects she had nourished to make an attack on the invader, and a successful one it proved. The great cater- pillars were not recognized by the people as native tobacco worms, but were stigmatized as poisonous foreigners, and as being ungratefully introduced and nourished by the exotic themselves had cher- ished. The rage now took an opposite course. Evidence as strong was adduced against the cater- pillars, as of yore against the witches, and the decision was equally just and fatal to both. The axe was put to the roots of the trees, and scarcely
caved in, and disclosed the stream, which should have been ashamed to expose itself in so filthy a condition.
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one in all the region around survives to show the injustice of the sentence.
Main street did not extend far beyond Harris's house (Eleventh street) in habitable guise, in those days. Gullies and swamps crossed its path. Where Tan-bark-hall stood, and Bosher's row stands,* were the tan-yards of Bockius and McKechnie. A path of tan bark or of boards enabled pedes- trians to reach the nearly uninhabited regions beyond, but carriages rarely ventured through the swamp or up the ascent beyond it. The eaves of the houses used by the tanners were not so high as the present foot-way. There was a good skating pond in winter on the lot on the north side of the street. The family of McKim owned and resided on the property where Corinthian Hall and other buildings now rear their tall heads, in place of the ancient and lowly structures lately removed. This portion of the city from Fifth to Eleventh street has undergone great transformations-it was originally hills, valleys and even morass ; indeed similar inequalities existed everywhere except on the summits of the hills. The levelings recently made or now in progress north of Marshall street, are an illustration of those made south of Grace street. Indced the original and the present sur-
* This row was demolished in 1859, to make room for a large hotel and other extensive edifices -- being the 3d edition or erection of them, (1860).
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face of the city may be compared to the contrast of the waves in a storm, and their subsidence during a calm.
Quite a rural and romantic spot was the square on the north side of Main street, between Sixth and Seventh-a steep hill, and a little valley shaded with forest trees ; a spring, the water of which formed a pond for fishing and skating-the silence broken only by the singing of birds, the croaking of frogs or the sports of children.
Now it is one of the noisest spots in the city- filled with work-shops, with machinery propelled by steam for preparing all sorts of building mate- rials in wood, iron, stone or stucco, as are the adjacent squares.
I ought to apologize for pursuing a devious course, for I now descend from the upper end of Main street to the south-west end of the market bridge, where was the parterre of Mons. Didier Colin, Perruquier, extending from his house down to the margin of Shockoe creek. Looking over the parapet of the bridge, the pedestrian might have his senses regaled with the sight and smell of various flowers in their season. The spot on which they grew is now covered with brick buildings, but the creek, not reconciled to the encroachment, sometimes rises in its wrath and drives the invaders from their watery regions.
A place of great public resort during many
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years after about 1810, for politicians, quidnuncs, stock-jobbers, and in general those who had noth- ing else to do, was Lynch's Coffee House, two doors below the Globe, which Mr. Lynch had vacated. Here all the news, foreign and domestic, rumors true or false, scandal and tittle-tattle cen- tered, and from hence it was diffused, with in- creased vigor at each corner round which it circu- lated. Here windy talkers would blow their bel- lows, and tedious ones tire their listeners; but here also men of note might frequently be listened to, and here Mr. Lynch held his stock auctions. The most difficult thing at this reading-room, was a quiet perusal of the papers ; but with all its disad- vantages, it was an useful place of resort, where a-body could meet a-body ; and it does no credit to Richmond, that a reading-room cannot now be well sustained ; it must be ascribed to the great indus- try of its merchants and professional men, who have no time to spare.
At Lynch's during times of political excitement, as soon as the papers were obtained from the post office, he would open the most important one and read the news aloud to the assembled multitude. During the war with Great Britain, and when General Scott was on the Canadian frontier, he read aloud "the army is in statu quo." " In- deed !" said one of his hearers, "how far is that from Montreal ?" And on another occasion he
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announced "Congress is to be called together instanter." "Dear me!" said a listener "are they afraid to meet in Washington ?" The site of Lynch's Coffee House and the adjacent buildings, was previously that of John Graham's cottage and vineyard.
A ludicrous incident occurred on the Main Street near "The Bell," one fine spring morning. A horse took fright in the street and rushed into the passage of a house, at the rear of which was the stair-way. Terror urged him on, and up he went till he reached the front room on the second floor. There he became composed, walked round the breakfast table, and may have helped himself to a roll, then to the open window, where he put out his head and looked (as idle and curious folks are apt to do) to see what was passing in the street. No fair face that ever looked from that window excited such general admiration.
Whether the aspiring steed took breakfast before he took leave, or whether he said neigh to the invitation, is not recorded in the Chronicles, but after offering his back to the ladies, he did not turn it on them, but backed out in courtly fashion.
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BROAD STREET.
CHAPTER V.
BROAD STREET.
Some sixty years ago or more, Broad street (or rather, broad road,) contained few houses, except at its two extremities, which were First and Twelfth streets. The trade with Staunton and from both sides of the Blue Bidge was carried on by means of large four or six-horse wagons; and as they entered the city at the head of Broad street, small dealers established themselves there to meet the trade. The name of one of them yet remains in the identical spot occupied by that of his grandfather James Bootwright in the last century, on the first house on First street, and when he recently died, we then lost "the oldest inhabitant." * His cotemporary, Gathwright, at the opposite corner, was his friendly rival in trade during some thirty or forty years. The wagons came laden with flour, butter, hemp, wax, tallow, flaxseed, lead, feathers, deer and bear skins, furs, ginseng, snake-root, &c .; and I once saw a bunch
* The name of Bootwright, which had held its place over the door longer than any other in the city, was removed in 1859.
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of dried rattlesnakes, which I was told were useful to make viper broth for consumptive patients. Rattlesnakes seem to have been considered a deli- cacy, even amongst the higher classes, in olden times ; for Col. Byrd, in his " Journal to the Land of Eden," (on Roanoke river,) says : "We killed two very large rattlesnakes, of fifteen and twelve rattles ; they were both fat, but nobody would be persuaded to carry them to our quarters, although they would have added much to the luxury of our supper." As they had venison and wild tur- key, they could not have been in a starving con- dition.
A portion of the wagoners traded on Broad street, but by far the larger number, and espe- cially of those who brought loads from country merchants, drove down town. That trade was chiefly in the hands of four or five city merchants ; and the fleets of wagons that would assemble, in brisk times, near their stores, looked like the bag- gage train of a small army. Many of the wagons, however, came by another road, through the Southern Valley, from Abingdon, and that region was even then a wealthy one, from its mineral and agricultural products. As specie only circulated in that remote country, one of the expedients resorted to by the merchants there to make remit- tances to Richmond, was, to place a bag of gold or silver in the centre of a cask of melted wax or
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tallow, or to conceal the silver within a large bale of hemp.
Such a journey, over such roads as were then travelled, was a work of time and toil. Almost a month then, for what is accomplished in one or two days now, from the Salt Works in Wythe (now Washington) county, to Richmond.
To reach Broad street from Main street, was almost as difficult a task as the ascent of a small mountain. Thirteenth, or Governor street, was at the same base then as now, but the pre- sent (reduced) height of the Governor's grounds, on that street, indicate its former ascent, which was furrowed with gullies. The only other route was across the Capitol square, diagonally from Eleventh to Ninth street, near where St. Paul's Church now stands. This road, as well as the other, was usually washed into gullies by every hard rain, and the stiff red clay would sometimes form almost a compact mass between the spokes of wagon wheels.
A most dilapidated old wooden house on Broad street, west of Sixth, or a portion of it, is now (1856) in course of demolition. It has long been an eye-sore to passengers. Of late years the upper part has been the nestling place of families of the plebeian class of free negroes (for they have their grades,) and the class of the occupants was obvious at the windows, which were decorated, and also
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protected against the intrusion of light and air, by old hats and bundles of rags. The cellar was also sometimes a receptacle for rags, besides old iron, broken glass, and other commodities, destined, in regenerated forms, possibly, to aid in the decora- tion of a palace. Between these upper and lower regions, (the one not tenanted by angels nor the other by devils,) was the ground floor, on which were shops for the sale of old raiment for the outer man, some of it almost fit for the window blinds of the upper or the rag-bags of the lower tenants ; and, for the comfort of the inner man was pre- sented a cheap repast of cow-heel, tripe, and hoe-cake, or a refreshing dram, whose spirit was not betrayed by its color. To complete the conve- niences of this bazaar, there was a receptacle for dilapidated furniture-tables and chairs, scarcely able to stand on their own legs, much less to sus- tain the dishes that were to be served, or the guests that were to be seated on them-cradles without rockers, and bedsteads already occupied. This description applies, however, to only two- thirds of the extensive premises-the other third may perhaps be a dower right, and, consequently, if a lady's property, much better cared for. Whilst the rest of the ancient edifice has been the victim first of disgrace, and now of demolition, the remaining portion seems to be occupied as a thriv- ing shop for the sale of all sorts of commodities for
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BROAD STREET.
daily use and consumption. Its neat block cornice and ancient front only require a coat of paint to restore its good looks-like some other faded antiquities .* The gutter in front was sometimes enlivened by the prattle of ragged and dirty and happy children, who were busily employed in making dirt pies, and baking them in dirt ovens, moulded on their bare feet; while a few chickens pecked and scratched on the unpaved sidewalk, unless frightened off by a hungry dog, who en- vied them the invisible repast, which they seemed to enjoy.
My first recollection of this populous habitation, was when the sign of Richard's Tavern swung before the door; the portico occupied by inveterate tobacco chewers, who kept the footway well sprinkled for some yards before them, but this was in the middle age of the ancient structure, which was probably coeval with the survey of the street on which it stood, near the entrance of the town and on the great highway to it of the "outer in- habitants," as Col. Byrd designated the people of the upper country. It was originally, no doubt, the principal "house of entertainment " for those outsiders. The dusty or more generally miry
* The hint was taken and the paint applied, but the spirit of improvement has now gone further, and the last remnant of Richard's tavern and a row of adjoining old houses are razed, and new ones are being raised. 1860.
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street in front of it, was made lively by the fleets of wagons from the Blue Ridge, and vocal with the jingling of the peals of bells, attached to the harness of the stout horses, who seemed proud of the music, as well as of the bear-skin mantillas which protected their withers, of the rosettes of red and yellow galoon which decorated their bridles, and of the same gaudy materials with which their plaited tails were tied-when not in fly time.
Now-a-days, we occasionally see one of these mountain ships ; but the muddy road they toiled through in former days, is now traversed by the iron horse, and his piercing screams have silenced the grateful neighings of his noble prede- cessor.
In the early days of the house last described, Main street was not practicable west of Eleventh, nor was Ninth street a highway, or rather, it was a high way, not to be ascended to Broad street by wheels. The formation of Broad street across the valley is in the memory of many of my readers, if many I shall have; formerly it was practicable only to goats, which were then numerous, but it is now being built up with wooden houses, there being no foundation for brick ones.
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CAPITOL SQUARE.
CHAPTER VI.
THE CAPITOL AND THE SQUARE.
THE Capitol Square was originally as rugged a piece of ground as many of our hill-sides in the country exhibit, after a ruinous course of cultiva- tion. Deep ravines furrowed it on either side, and May and Jamestown weeds decorated and per- fumed it in undisturbed luxuriance. On either side of the capitol was a long horse-rack, for the convenience of the public and to diversify the odor. In front of the portico stood an unpainted wooden belfry, somewhat resembling the dairies we see at good farm-houses. The portico. might then be reached by a narrow, winding stone stairway, now closed, which gave to the goats and kids, who sported in numbers about the grounds, a convenient access to the portico, where they found shelter in wet weather. A few of the original forest trees, oaks and pines, which had escaped the barbarous refinement of clearing away native growths to be supplanted by exotics, constituted the only relief to the dismal aspect of the grounds, except a few chinquepin bushes, which served to prick the fin- gers of boys in due season, and a copious and
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luxuriant growth of thistles, whose down, in a good breeze, resembled a snow storm.
Between the Governor's house and the Capitol was a high stone wall, near the line of the street, built to close the upper end of an immense ravine (now a shady dell), and over this wall, after a heavy fall of rain, flowed a great body of water, forming a fine rose-tinted cascade.
The Guard-house and belfry, now rather dis- figuring the square, was preceded by a much uglier edifice : a shabby, old second-hand wooden house, occupied as barracks by the Public Guard, under the command of Captain Quarrier. The grounds immediately around it were bedecked with the shirts of the soldiers and the chemises of their wives, which flaunted on clothes-lines, and pigs, poultry and children enlivened the scene.
The Capitol itself, not then stuccoed, exposed its bare brick walls between the columns or pilasters. The roof was once flat, if I mistake not, and paved with tiles, and, like Noah's Ark, "was pitched without, with pitch." But as a hot sun caused the pitch to flow down the gutters, and the rains to enter the halls, an elevated roof was substituted. In process of time, the attic thus formed was con- verted into an arsenal, the building and the fire- arms being perhaps considered fire-proof, or the risk not considered at all. Even at this day, a most valuable deposit, the State Library, is at risk
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in the combustible upper part of the Capitol, and the inestimable statue of Washington, by Houdon, may one day be destroyed, as was Canova's splen- did one at Raleigh, N. C. A handsome fire-proof building should be erected for the preservation of both, and of other objects of value .*
The Governor's House preceding the present one, was a very plain wooden building of two stories, with only two moderate sized rooms on the first floor. It was for many years unconscious of paint, and the furniture was in keeping with the republican simplicity of the edifice, and of its occupants, from Henry and Jefferson down to Monroe and Page .. The palings around the yard were usually in a dilapidated condition, and the goats that sported on the steep hill-sides of the Capitol Square, claimed and exercised the liberty of grazing on his Excellency's grounds.
The cows are now endeavoring to establish a similar claim to the grass and onions on the public square in the very face of the sentry.t
* Governor Wise has followed up this suggestion and wisely recommended the erection of such an edifice (1857), but to no purpose.
¡ Since writing the above, posts have been planted at each gate, about twelve inches apart, which, while they exclude the cows, may also practically exclude fashionable ladies from the Capitol Square, now that the Eugénie hoops have become in vogue, and are adopted indiscriminately by those who have or have not the same motive that induced the Empress to intro- 7
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The old residence of the Governors of Virginia might usually have boasted that, if it had in itself no claims to distinction, its occupants had many.
Two articles of furniture of the colonial times are extant in the Capitol, namely : the Speaker's chair of the House of Burgesses, originally deco- rated with the royal arms; this was removed from Williamsburg, and is now, though shorn of its regal emblems, occupied by the Speaker of the House of Delegates :- and secondly, the tall stove which warmed those colonial and independent halls, in succession, for about sixty years, and for the last twenty-five has served to warm the central hall, in which stands Houdon's statue of Washington. This stove, a work of note, bears the old Virginia colonial arms and other embellishments in relief, and they remain perfect, being as indestructible as the structure they decorate, for the stove is truly a structure of three stories.
The founder of it, Buzaglo, was proud of his work, and when it was shipped from London, he thus writes to "My Lord," (Botetourt,) dated August 15th, 1770: " The elegance of workman- ship does honour to Great Britain. It excels in grandeur anything ever seen of the kind, and is a master-piece not to be equalled in all Europe. It
duce them. It is impracticable for a fashionable hoop, without considerable coaxing, to pass between the barriers which are placed to obstruct the entrance of the cows. 1856.
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has met with general applause, and could not be sufficiently admired" ! !! The reader is advised to draw a long breath, and pause awhile, till his admi- ration subsides.
This "warming machine," as Buzaglo called it, this master-piece of art and science, doomed to carry his name to posterity, was presented to the House of Burgesses by the Duke of. Beaufort. It has survived three British monarchs, and been cotemporaneous with three kingly monarchies, two republics and two imperial governments in France-but of only one constellation of repub- lics in the United States,-I hope and trust " one and indivisible, now and forever !"
The grounds of the Capitol Square were origi- nally laid out by Mons. Godefroï, a French gen- tleman of skill and taste, according to the formal style, where
"Grove nods at grove, each alley has its brother, And half the terrace just reflects the other."
He certainly reduced chaos to order, and made the grounds very handsome, and wonderfully uniform, considering their original irregularity. But now "half the terrace" does not "reflect the other ;" The west side has been modernized according to an irregular plan, adapted to it by Mr. Notman, of Philadelphia. Some dozen flights of stone steps are dispensed with; the straight lines of trees are
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being gradually thrown into disorder. But the east side, like a prim old maid, retains its formality for the present, and serves to show the contrast between the formal and the picturesque styles .* But the great and striking embellishment of the square will be the Washington Monument,t now ready for the erection of the statuary on their pedestals.
The succeeding generation will have no idea of the original surface of Richmond, from that which will be presented to their view. Besides the changes noted elsewhere, there existed a few years ago a complete barrier to the progress of man and horse, north of Leigh street from Fourth to Fourteenth, by the intervention of a deep ravine, which has now (1860) been filled up on Fourth and Fifth, and is being filled on the higher numbers. Another ravine cut off the communica- tion between Clay and Leigh streets from Sixth to Fourteenth or further. The intercourse is now opened on Sixth, Seventh, Eighth and Ninth, and a stack or chimney (for water, not fire), about 100 feet high, is now being erected on Tenth, down which the water will flow from Clay and from Leigh streets, when the chasm between them shall
* The east side has also been changed and beautified.
+ The incomparable equestrian statue of Washington, .by Crawford, was erected and inaugurated February 22d, 1858.
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be filled. Marshall street, a few years ago, was closed at Twelfth by a profound ravine, which is now overcome as far as College street-but the heaviest work yet executed, has been the present easy connection of Shockoe hill with Church hill along the line of Broad street, which seemed almost impracticable. The extension of Franklin street from Fourteenth to Seventeenth along precipices and deep gullies is another strong case. It would be wearisome, if not so already, to describe the changes south of Broad street. In a word, the city was all hills, valleys and deep ravines, and had a most forbidding aspect. This page is written for readers in Richmond in 1900.
In the days of my boyhood springs of cool water flowed from various spots at the base of Shockoe hill, along its whole extent from Fifth to Fourteenth streets, and the number of them was considerable, as was their utility. It is but a few years ago that one which discharged itself on Thirteenth street, below the Governor's house, was condemned to flow under the pavement into the culvert; one of the two in the Capitol Square is permitted to discharge its waters near the Court house, far from the spot where they formerly rose. Its brother on the west side of the Capitol was condemned a few years ago and buried alive. On almost every square (west of the Capitol) that sloped to the foot of the hill there was a spring-
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