A Tour of
Historic Richmond
ALL ILLUSTRATIONS COPYRIGHT 1940 BY WHITTET & SHEPPERSON
Richmond
- Broad Street Station
- HOTEL WILLIAM BYRD
- HOTEL JOHN MARSHALL
- HOTEL RICHMOND
- HOTEL KING CARTER
- Capital Square
Richmond—Her Story and Her Spirit
Richmond—Capital of the Cavaliers—a city that is mellow andyet modern, where the rustle of the past may still be heard amid thebustle of the present.
To appreciate Richmond one must, before all else, remember that thisold town has roots planted deep in the history of our country. Richmondwas founded in 1737 by William Byrd II, of Westover on the James, forefatherof two of Virginia’s illustrious sons of today, Admiral Richard EvelynByrd and Senator Harry Flood Byrd. But even before Father Byrd laid offhis lots and established Richmond, this site at the falls of the James Riverhad held a certain degree of importance. Just a few weeks after the Virginiasettlers landed at Jamestown on May 13, 1607, to found the first permanentEnglish settlement in America, Captain Newport pushed off up the Jamesto find the route to the gold of the Indies. The barrier of rocks, known asthe falls of the James, must have been an unwelcome sight to the eyes ofthat little band of intrepid explorers as it shattered their dream of easy passageto their expected El Dorado. Captain Newport, however, was the firstof the Virginians to believe that no hoped-for golden future should stop aman from doing the sensible, practical things of the moment. Before verylong, Captain Francis West had established a frontier post at the pointwhere the falls interrupted further navigation of the river. It is hard torealize that Richmond was once on the western frontier of our country, butsuch was the case until about 1660, when settlers began that westward pushthat only ended when the Pacific was reached.
Richmond has seen much of the thrilling history of our country unfold.She was a promising village when George Washington and the son of herfounder, Colonel Byrd, successfully led Virginia’s two regiments with thetroops of her sister colonies and the British regulars in the French and Indianwar. She was hostess to that brilliant group of patriots who gathered inSt. John’s Church in 1775 to discuss what methods could be taken to avert4war with England, only to have Patrick Henry, grown sick of futile measureswhich obtained no justice for the colonists, rise to advocate the arming ofthe Virginia militia and utter those words which made him the embodimentof man’s immortal will to freedom: “Give me liberty or give me death.”She was the capital of the State from which Thomas Jefferson, Governorof Virginia, had to flee to prevent capture when Benedict Arnold swoopeddown on Richmond in 1781 and occupied the city for the British in America’swar for independence. Cornwallis visited it later in the same year. Shewas a thriving center of commerce in 1812 when the city was often alarmedby the news that the British were coming again, and in 1846 when her“Grays” were accepted for service in the Mexican War. She was the capitalof the Confederate State