#mustseerva

May 2020

For O. P. Brinser, Carl Messerschmidt created a jewel of architectural ornamentation. No other small building in the city has such a lavish display of sculpted decoration.

May 2020 — showing early Christian design ornamentation

The style of the building was assertively modern with vertical pylons and an unusual central entrance. The ornamentation is related peculiarly to early Christian design motifs.

(Getty Images) — Deer, peacocks and grapevines, mosaic in the early Christian basilica in the city of Heraclea Lyncestis

Traditionally, the grapes and vine were symbolic of either holy communion or drinking and revelry. The second interpretation was unlikely in Prohibition era Richmond. The first is inappropriate for a commercial building. 

May 2020

Art Deco ornamentation is concerned rarely with meaning or symbolism. It has been enjoyed for its decorative properties alone. This is clearly the case here.

[ADR] — building in 1981 downtown survey

The signage on the building is an almost perfect example of what a sign should not be and where it should not be located. 

May 2020 — composite image showing scarring from previous signage

Moreover, numerous holes in the superb decoration indicated that this is not the first bad sign. Poor signs defacing fine buildings are a recurrent theme in American downtowns. [ADR]

May 2020

Grace Street is littered with cool little buildings like this one — small commercial spaces constructed with actual time spent considering the aesthetics of the thing. Foster Studios or the Cokesbury Building just two blocks away are other examples.

(Brinser Building is part of the Atlas RVA! Project)

Print Sources

[ADR] — Cokesbury Building in 1981

This building was built for the Methodist Publishing House and designed by Garnett & Johnston. Its design clearly is related to the Mosby Store at the corner of Jefferson and Broad Streets, by Starrett & Van Vleck.

April 2020 — showing projecting cornice

That design was, in turn, related to McKim, Mead & White's Gorham Building in New York, a modernized version of an Italianate palazzo with an arcade at the base of the building and a heavy projecting cornice at the roof.

April 2020

This design was felt to be a particularly successful blending of traditional and modern features, most appropriate for a modern shop. 

April 2020

The Cokesbury Building is designed carefully and well detailed. The first floor arcade was glazed fully, but is now closed partially.

April 2020

The interior vaulted ceilings have been removed, but the building is otherwise well preserved. The reason for the popularity of this building type is seen easily. It is simple, dignified and impressive. [ADR]

(Richmond Times Dispatch) — Cokesbury Building in 1952

The Cokesbury Building, with the Cokesbury Bookstore on the first floor, was an outgrowth of the Methodist Episcopal Book Concern. Created in 1789, this organization was established to religious materials for the Methodist church. It would eventually expand to include books and religious supplies and rebranded as the Cokesbury Press in 1925. By 2012, there would be 57 Cokesbury Book Stores nationwide, one of which used to be on Grace Street.

April 2020

But in that same year, Cokesbury announced the closure of their brick-and-mortar stores, and today they’re online only. The Grace Street location had long been abandoned by that point, having relocated to Tuckernuck Square shopping center in 1992. A loss, really. They were more than just religious books and often had unusual or hard to find titles, back in the days before Amazon.

Today, it’s the Cokesbury Building Apartments.

(Cokesbury Building is part of the Atlas RVA! Project)

Print Sources

(Chesterfield County Public Library)  — Jeffrey O’Dell Research Papers Collection — 1978

Belgrade, known in the late nineteenth century as "Belvidere" and renamed "Alandale" in the early part of this century, features an unusual plan and a unique medley of roof types. Situated off Robious Road southwest of Bon Air, the house occupies a large open tract surrounded by rapidly expanding residential and commercial development.

February 2020

Originally a one- or 1 1/2-story hall-parlor house, Belgrade was expanded to its present form in 1824. In that year, Edward Cox conveyed the property to Edward O. Friend, and assessed buildings rose in value from $482 to $1,939. This increase reflects a complete transformation of the original dwelling from a hall-parlor structure to a large dwelling composed of a two-story, side-passage-plan main block flanked by matching 1-story one-room-plan wings.

(Chesterfield County Public Library) — Jeffrey O’Dell Research Papers Collection — 1978

The hipped gambrel roof covering each of the two wings is unusual, and Belgrade provides the latest recorded example in Virginia of this rare roof type. Another unusual feature is the apparently original 1-story lean-to at the west end of the building. The primary purpose of this eight-foot wide unit appears to have been to house a stair (similar in form and coeval to that in the main block) permitting separate interior and exterior access to the upper chamber of the south wing.

February 2020

The present interior trim, varying only slightly among the various rooms on both floors, dates entirely to ca. 1824. The mantel in the main block consists of a simple architrave surround capped by a molded shelf with punch-and-dentil band. The mantels in each of the wings are nearly identical, featuring a raised-panel surround capped by a molded shelf. Upstairs mantels date from the same period, and feature plain architrave surrounds with simple molded shelves.

February 2020 — showing end of original construction at center-right, and the start of new construction at far-right

Two coeval staircases serve the house; both are of closed-string, straight-run form with rectangular balusters, square newel with molded cap, and molded rail. The stair in the main block is of unusual configuration: it divides at a narrow landing against the rear wall, where short flights lead respectively to chambers over the main block and north wing. The stair in the lean-to, which makes a turn about three-quarters of the way up, barely allows headroom at the upper landing.

(Chesterfield County Public Library) — Jeffrey O’Dell Research Papers Collection — 1978

Originally, matching dependencies flanked the house. A one-story, two-room-plan frame kitchen with center chimney stood seventy feet to the south of the house, while an office of similar form stood at an equal distance from the north end of the dwelling. Both were in a deteriorated state in the 1920s and were demolished. The only surviving early outbuilding is a frame gable-roofed smokehouse standing a few yards southwest of the house.

February 2020 — showing original construction at center, new construction at far left

The earliest traced owner of the property was Edward Cox, who in 1824 sold the house and 515 acres to Edward O. Friend for $5,000. Friend, the son of Joseph Friend and grandson of Edward Friend (d. 1806), lived there until his death in 1838, when the property passed to his widow, Matilda E. Burfoot Friend. She remarried and sold the farm two years later to Anthony T. Robiou, who lived there until his death in 1851.

(Old Stocks) — Richmond and Danville Railroad Company 100 share stock certificate

Robious Crossing, where the new Richmond and Danville Railroad line intersected Huguenot Road, was named for the then-current owner of the farm. Robiou is best remembered in Chesterfield County history, however, as the man whose murder precipitated one of the most publicized court trials in nineteenth century Virginia.

(Wikipedia) — Black Heath

The episode began when Robiou filed a divorce suit against his young wife (who was only fourteen at the time of her wedding) charging her with infidelity. [CCO]

Apparently, it wasn’t a “maybe-she-is” situation. Robiou caught them mid-schtupp, still cracking the plaster, and took offense.

John S. Wormley, the girl’s father, along with John Reid, her allegedly adulterous suitor, waylaid Robiou on the road to Black Heath Pits (today’s Robious Road) and gunned him down. [CCO]

(Fineart America) — Infidelity, 18th Century art print by Granger

Imagine Robiou’s last moments contemplating the unfairness of it all. At least he has a street named for him.

Both men were taken into custody shortly thereafter, and Wormley, a prosperous planter and lawyer, was found guilty at a trial held at Chesterfield Court House in October, 1851. A mistrial was later declared, however, on the grounds that the jurors had been treated to drinks beforehand by the deputy sheriff and county clerk. [CCO]

*hic... innnoshent, yer Honor...

(Executed Today) — scene of a 19th-century hanging

Over a year later, a jury summoned from Richmond and Petersburg because of the local notoriety of the case sentenced Wormley to death. A week later, a crowd of 4,000 persons watched the 42-year-old man hanged at Chesterfield Courthouse. Reid, meanwhile, had been tried and acquitted, and before the hanging married the young widow whose husband he had been accused of murdering. [CCO]

(Chesterfield County Public Library) — Jeffrey O’Dell Research Papers Collection — Belgrade Foyer, 1978

Of course, this all ends happily. Two weeks after her father’s hanging, Mrs. Emily Reid took a tumble down the front steps and perished. Poetic justice. 

There are two accounts of how she died. One account is that she fell on a sewing basket and scissors punctured her heart. The other account is that she broke her neck. Since this tragedy, there have been hundreds of stories of sightings of the ghosts of Robiou and his young bride roaming the boxwood gardens behind the home. (Ruth’s Chris)

(Library of Congress) — Map of Chesterfield County, Va. — J. E. LaPrade, 1888 — Belgrade identified as Belvidere, right at the intersection of Robious and the Richmond and Danville Railroad

In 1851, the year of the first trial, Randolph Ammonett purchased the property from the trustees of Robiou’s estate for $2,025. Ammonett lived at Belgrade until his death in 1889. In his will, he directed that "an iron railing about 10 feet square be erected around the graves of myself and my deceased wife, J. J. Ammonett." This fence still stands in the back yard, although there are no inscribed stones to identify the graves of either Amonett or his wife. [CCO]

(Chesterfield Observer) — 2009

Since then the place has been called Belvidere, Alandale, Allandale, and Bellgrade, the nom-de-plume that Ruth’s Chris prefers. Jeff O’Dell calls it Belgrade, and who are we to argue with an architectural historian? 

Mary Wingfield Scott would not have approved with Ruth’s Chris’s alterations, but the steak house did end up preserving the original structure, so even if it isn’t on the historic registry, the spirit of the plantation house was preserved.

(Belgrade is part of the Atlas RVA! Project)

Print Sources

(Rarely Seen Richmond) — Tobacco Warehouse Scene

Throughout the nineteenth century, most tobacco processing occurred at a local scale, with independent producers maintaining their own supply of tobacco and process for marketing it. As tobacco production centralized near the end of the nineteenth century, producers became increasingly concerned with the need for quality control, in order to ensure that the taste sought by the consumer was at least somewhat consistent throughout a given brand’s production. This was the beginning of the concept known as the “blend;” the combination of tobaccos (and, later, fillers) used to reliably create a particular flavor profile for a given brand of tobacco products. 

(iStock) — A tobacco warehouse in Louisville, Kentucky, USA, with barrels of tobacco lined up outside — Harper’s Weekly, Saturday, 5 April 1890

The advent of maintaining a consistent blend and increasing production speed brought about challenges for older production facilities, including those in Richmond mostly clustered in the Shockoe Valley area. Most of these facilities were multi-story, elevator-serviced warehouse buildings that could contain an adequate supply of tobacco on-hand to keep up with the older, slower, cigarette-manufacturing equipment. 

(Evolving Cigarette) — Bonsack Machine, the first automated cigarette maker

However, as newer high-speed cigarette manufacturing machines increased in speed and efficiency, and proprietary blends required a much larger cache of tobacco, including multiple varieties and stages of aging to be on hand, cigarette manufacturers found that their facilities were incapable of holding enough supplies of processed tobacco to maintain production.

(VDHR) — Rail Cars at the Warehouse Loading Docks, Facing North, Circa 1930s

On October 27, 1910, the American Tobacco Company paid the Manchester Land and Manufacturing Company $25,000 for the 25-acre property bound by the A.C.L. Railroad and the Petersburg Pike. At the same time, arrangements were made with the railroad to allow for the construction of rail spurs off the mainline leading into the property. Construction was begun immediately of 14 new-design, tobacco storage warehouses. The warehouses were sited throughout the property to make the most efficient use of rail access, with spurs extending along a loading dock on one side of each row of warehouses. 

(Digital Forsyth)  — Hogsheads, Packed With Leaf Tobacco, In R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company’S Storage Warehouse, 1956

It was stated by the company that the sheds would be “scattered over the large area of land in order to lessen the fire hazard and will consequently render the insurance rate lower than it would be if there were only large warehouse.” It was also said that the design of the storage sheds offered a more satisfactory method of keeping tobacco than the usual warehouse. The capacity of each shed was to be about 1,200 hogsheads allowing a total storage of around 31,000,000 pounds of tobacco.

November 2019 — Warehouse

The individual buildings were a single tall story in height, eliminating the need for elevators and the resulting extra personnel necessitated by all of the additional handling. Their enormous capacity and ease of access were the essential characteristics of their design. The 14 warehouses each enclosed roughly 14,000-square feet and were built in a grid of three rows throughout the property. The wood frame of each building was clad with galvanized iron siding with large louvers open on the bottom to permit circulation of air throughout the interior. The floors were elevated and consisted of soil covered by 4-6 inches of cinders, with concrete aisles.

November 2019 — Warehouse

In 1929, the American Tobacco Company embarked on a half-million dollar expansion program at the Chesterfield Warehouses in South Richmond to increase storage, and thereby, production capabilities of Lucky Strikes. The new buildings were built in the spaces between the existing 1911 buildings to make three continuous rows of warehouse space. New brick bulkhead walls were built at the ends of the existing buildings, to reinforce them, as well as provide better fire protection. The additional warehouses were stated to increase the overall storage capacity from 31,000,000 pounds of tobacco to 50,000,000, making it one of the largest storage plants in the South.

(Érudit) — Imperial Tobacco Company of Canada advertisement promoting tobacco research

As of the construction in 1929, the new building also became the center of leaf research for the American Tobacco Company. Originally based in Brooklyn, New York, the research department of the company was founded in 1911 and included only a few scientists whose job was to study the tobacco leaf to better understand its physical properties and ensure quality control of the tobacco purchased and used by the company. When the research department was moved to Richmond in 1929, it at first consisted of just four chemists; however the department would grow dramatically over the following decade.

(VDHR) — American Tobacco Company Research Laboratory, Front Façade and North Side, Facing Southwest, 1939

By this time, the complex was also now called the Tom Walker Warehouse Group, named after the manager of the facility, T.J. Walker of Richmond. 

In 1938, the Tom Walker complex underwent yet another expansion, this time fueled by the growth and prominence of the research department based there. That year, the American Tobacco Company announced that the facility would be the site of a new, state-of-the-art laboratory for the company research department. American Tobacco Company Research Laboratory

(VDHR) — One of the tobacco analysis laboratories in the new research building of the American Tobacco Company, 1939

The role of the research department in the success of the American Tobacco Company became so vital that in 1938, the company announced it would open a brand new, larger laboratory with state-of-the-art equipment and a great many more researchers. The new laboratory was to accomodate five highly specialized research divisions with roles including control operations of tobacco and original research; analysis of supplies used in all processes and in packaging; tests of the physical properties of processed tobacco and cigarettes; investigation of smoke and the operations having to do with the actual use of smoking tobacco; and biological research, including studies of the effects of smoking. 

(VDHR) — Unidentified Researcher at the American Tobacco Company Research Laboratory, 1952

When completed in 1939, the new research laboratory was considered the most modern and fully equipped tobacco research laboratory in the nation with high-tech equipment and an extensive reference library on tobacco containing nearly 1,700 volumes, considered one of the largest such collections at the time. The laboratory maintained a fulltime staff of one director and assistant director, 29 chemists, 2 engineers, 1 bacteriologist, 1 librarian, 11 technical personnel, and 17 assorted other staff.

(VDHR) — Unidentified Researcher at the American Tobacco Company Research Laboratory, 1952

Research included the investigation of the chemical composition and physical nature of various types of tobacco, and the specific effect of manufacturing processes upon them; investigation of the chemical and physical nature of tobacco smoke; the correlation of composition of smoke with constitutents of tobacco; investigation of the physiological significance of the constituents of the smoke of tobacco products; the development of methods for the scientific control of purchasing, processing, and blending tobaccos; and fabrication of tobacco products.

November 2019 — Research Laboratory

The new lab, as well as its staff, quickly became nationally recognized and awarded for their achievements. In 1941, both the director of the laboratory, Dr. H.H. Hanmer, and assistant director, Dr. W.R Harlan, were appointed as two of the seventeen Virginia scientists to serve as delegates to the Convention of the Alabama Academy of Science, an organization formed to stimulate scientific research in the American South while developing public interest in such work in order to create grants-in-aid for research studies.

(Flickr) — 1951 Old Gold Cigarettes Ad, with TV Announcer & Actor Dennis James

However, by this time, the American public was becoming increasingly aware of the health hazards of smoking tobacco, brought to light by popular reports published by the American Cancer Society and Reader’s Digest.  In 1951, the Lorillard Tobacco Company launched a national campaign claiming that a 1942 Consumer Reports article showed that their cigarette brand, Old Golds, was “lowest in nicotine and tars.” While this was technically true according to statistics included in the article, the point of the article had actually been that differences in tar and nicotine were insignificant when it came to the harmfulness of all cigarettes.

November 2019 — Stemmery & Re-Drying Plant

As opposed to advertising campaigns, such as that by Lorillard, that were more about bending the facts in others’ research efforts for their own benefit, other tobacco companies actually released their own counterargument articles. In 1952, the Liggett & Myers Company widely publicized the results of tests run by Arthur D. Little, Inc., showing that smoking their brand, Chesterfields, “would have no adverse effects on the throat, sinuses or affected organs.” 

November 2019 — Stemmery

In 1953, executives from many of the large tobacco companies arranged a meeting in order to find a way to deal with recent scientific data pointing to the health hazards of cigarettes and plan a counterattack on these studies. The following year, these companies sponsored an industry-wide advertisement disputing evidence that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer.

November 2019 — looking southwest along Kern Street towards Re-drying Plant & Boiler House

In 1955, the American Tobacco Company responded through the completion of a massive expansion of the research laboratory at what was by then known as the South Richmond Complex. The expansion doubled the size of the 1939 building with additional laboratory and research space. The laboratory was expanded with specially-built and -designed equipment used to do chromatography, micro-organic analysis, electrophoresis, mass spectrometry, ultraviolet and infrared spectrophotometry, electronic titrimetry, extraction, refrigerated centrifuging, and low temperature vacuum fractionations. A new radiological laboratory was equipped to use soft radiation-omitting radioisotopes and other facilities included a pilot plant, photographic dark room, cold storage room, drying room, tobacco conditioning rooms, and a library.

November 2019 — Boiler House

Research continued on many of the same subject matters although with an increase in the biological nature of tobacco as it relates to health effects and ramifications. Studies were conducted on how nicotine is formed in the growth of the tobacco plants, the nature of pyrolysis products during the burning of a cigarette, and collection and formation of volatile constituents. One advancement made by the research department at this time was the development of the compound, activated charcoal filter, first used in the company’s Tareyton brand cigarette and the mentholated filter used in Montclair cigarettes. 

November 2019 — Garage

American Tobacco Company was also the first to print tar and nicotine test results on the packages of Carlton brand cigarettes at this time. While these health-related studies were being undertaken in response to the growing national awareness of the hazards of smoking, the American Tobacco research laboratory also continued to conduct research aimed at improving cigarette flavor and composition to retain their existing customers as well.

(World Vector Logo)

In 1994, the American Tobacco Company was acquired by Brown & Williamson, the American arm of the British American Tobacco Company. In 2004, Brown & Williamson merged with the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. (VDHR)

... and then...

November 2019 — City of Richmond seal at the DPU Ops Center

Of the original 25 acres, 14 were carved off to become the City Department of Public Utilities (DPU) Operations Center, occupying the old Research Laboratory, at the corner of Maury and Jeff Davis Highway, and its additions.

Unfortunately, that left the buildings on the 11 other acres to crumble to the state that you see in the warehouse pictures above.

November 2019 — reconstructed Warehouse building at Port City

Enter Port City and a $60 million dollar overhaul of four interconnected brick buildings and 11 former tobacco storage sheds into 291 apartments plus 23 artist studios, creating upscale apartments for workforce housing (Richmond Times-Dispatch). So the good news is that the dilapidated state of affairs along Jeff Davis should be addressed by mid-2020. The even better news is that the developer also plans to do the same for Model Tobacco right next door, which means that this corridor is, at last, getting some much-needed uplift.

(VDHR) — 1971 nomination photo

The Haxall house is a three-story, Italian Villa style structure of sandstone colored stucco, scored to imitate ashlar. There is a projection for the full height of the building in the center of the entrance facade.

October 2019 — showing raised portico

On the first floor level is a raised portico with arched openings, supported by four fluted columns with capitals composed of a simple necking, an egg-and-dart patterned echinus, and a flat abacus. The portico has a panelled entablature with a dentiled cornice. Two large pilasters flank a recess which leads to the front door. The recess is framed by an elliptical arch, sidelights, and pilasters. The front door frame repeats this design in walnut. The door itself is a double one with cutglass and walnut panels.

October 2019 — showing basement windows, semi-circular balcony, & eyebrow windows

The fenestration of the entrance facade is symmetrical. The basement windows are half-sized with elliptical arches and are devoid of ornament. The windows on the first floor arc double-arched units with cast iron hood mouldings, decorated with coats-of-arms in the centers and pendantls at each end. There are semi-circular balconies with iron railings at,.the bases of the windows. The second floor windows are single-arched with the same hood mouldings, but without the coats-of-arms. They have simple trim and stone sills. The two windows in the projection correspond to the height and treatment of the first and second floors respectively.

October 2019 — showing dentiled cornice

The house is crowned by an elaborate, double-bracketed, dentiled cornice. The fenestration is continued into the cornice by "eyebrow" windows framed by single brackets. At the top of the central projection, the cornice arches to form a semi-circular pediment. The right wall of the house is blank except for two narrow, semicircular arched windows on the first and second floor levels which are flush with a wing which projects at this point from the house. The windows in both the main body of the house and the .wing are semi-circular arched with hood mouldings, simple trim, and· stone sills. The cornice continues around the main part of the house, but not into the wing. The end wall of the wing is stuccoed "ashlar" and is blank.

October 2019

The left facade is fenestrated in the same manner as the front of the house with a half basement window, single-arched windows on the first and second floors, and an "eyebrow" window in the cornice. The windows are spaced in the center of the facade so as to form pairs. On the first floor level, there is one long semi-circular balcony for both windows. All the windows have simple hood mouldings and stone sills. The cornice continues. The auditorium entrance joins 'the house at the end of this side.

October 2019 — showing evil hexagonal bricks & horse hitching posts

The sidewalk in front of the Bolling Haxall house was originally paved in hexagonal bricks. These unusual paving blocks were regarded as evil by some members of the Richmond populace, and nurses would lead their charges into the gutter rather than have them traverse the bricks of ill omen.

Today, there are two cast-iron, horse-head hitching posts in front of the house. These once stood on Capitol Street where they were used for the horses of the state legislators. There is a fine cast-iron fence set in granite around the fronof the house. This iron-work is believed to have been cast by George Lownes, who did a similar, signed fence in Hollywood Cemetery.

(Richmond Weddings)

The first floor of the interior of the Haxall house consists of a long entrance hall running the length of the house from the front door to the back porch. To the right of the entrance is an octagonal-shaped library, and to the left is a double parlour, separated by sliding doors. Beyond the library on the right-hand side is the semi-circular stair hall with sculptural niches and the walnut stairway added during Dr. Willis' residence. At the top of the stairwell is a stained-glass dome. At the rear of the house is a second hall with a fireplace, as well as three, large double doors which originally opened onto the porch and now lead to the auditorium.

(Richmond Weddings)

The plan of the second floor is similar to that of the first, except that the partition has been removed between the double parlour in order to form a larger room for parties and meetings.

In addition to the double-spiral, walnut staircase and the dome preserved from Dr. Willis' day, the panelled walnut wainscoting which he added to the walls of the entrance and stair halls also remains. The doors and door frames that face into the entrance area are panelled and carved in walnut.

October 2019

The octagonal library on the first floor has been restored to its nineteenth century appearance. The original, carved, pink marble mantel is complemented by a patterned ceiling painted in subtle browns, beiges, pinks, and greens. The walls are painted in shades of brown, beige, and white to imitate panelling. There are walnut, glass-front bookcases in four of the corners of the room.

(Richmond Weddings)

The double parlours have elaborately carved, white marble mantels. The doors and windows have white trim with small colonettes at the sides leading up to a cartouche in the center of an elliptical arch. This same design is used with slight variation for all of the door and window frames on the first floor.

There is a cove moulding around the top of all the first floor ceilings and plaster work around the bases of the crystal chandeliers. The second floor is much simpler in its decorative treatment. The three fireplaces are all of white marble in a simple design. The frames of the doors and windows are squared-off, not arched as on the first floor, and have only a plain moulding.

October 2019

When repairs and redecorating of the club were undertaken in 1961 and 1962, the walls of the octagonal-shaped library were discovered to have been painted to simulate paneling in the nineteenth century. The ceiling also yielded evidence of painting in an elaborate design. The walls were repapered at first, but in 1965-1966, Miss Mary Wingfield Scott made it possible for the library to be returned to its original decor.

October 2019

In 1965-1966, the House Committee of the club supervised major structural and redecorating repairs to the house. The cupola was strengthened and repainted, deteriorated cornice mouldings and dentils were replaced, and the exterior of the building was restored to its original sandstone color (obtained from iron filings) with the stucco finish scored to imitate ashlar. Curved iron details over the windows were discovered, and the cast iron balconies around the windows were made visible by the removal of box bushes.

(Pinterest) — Old Dominion Nail Works, February 1948

Bolling W. Haxall was the fifth son of a prosperous mill owner, Philip Haxall. The former Haxall began his career as a clerk in the Haxal Mills and became a partner in 1842. He had a wide range of business talents 'for he was also the president of the Old Dominion Iron and Nail Works and had an interest in the Richmond and Petersburg Railroad. His obituary in the Dispatch of June, 1885, referred to him as “a most energetic successful man of business, whose advice was often sought and highly valued. His house is a testimony to his material success and to the taste of the time.

(Richmond Weddings) — showing walnut stairway

Haxall sold his house to Dr. Francis T. Willis in 1869 and I moved to the block west, across from Linden Row. Dr. Willis made several changes in the house. He added a beautiful walnut stairway and frescoed walls with hardwood wainscoting on the main floor. His eye for beauty led to tragedy, however, for his daughter, Emily, a sleepwalker, was killed in a fall down the curving staircase. In despair, Dr. Willis sold the house in i900 to the Woman's Club, which had: been formed by Mrs. L. L. Lewis in 1894 for the literary culture of its members; for their intellectual, social, and moral development, and to strengthen their individual efforts for humanity.

To pay off their mortgage, the ladies of the club rented the second and third floors of the house and the outbuildings as apartments In 1916, the burgeoning enrollment of the club required the addition of an auditorium to the back of the house. This partially destroyed. the rear porches on two floors.

(Richmond Weddings) — auditorium

The auditorium was enlarged in 1924. 1928 saw some major changes on the interior of the Bolling Haxall house. A partition was removed from.between the double parlour on the second floor in order to make a large assembly room- The third floor was converted into studios with a separate entry and stairway, and a balcony was added to the auditorium. (VDHR)

October 2019 — trees giving us the finger

Yet as wonderful as the Women’s Club truly is, it has clearly been targeted by the Insidious Tree-Architecture Conspiracy, that dread cabal that has conifers everywhere laughing at the human species. What can you do but shake your fist in silent rage?

(Children’s Home Society of Virginia) — Our Receiving Home and Central Office, 2605 East Franklin Street, Richmond, Va. 

The Children’s Home Society of Virginia was organized in 1899, and chartered by the General Assembly on 30 January 1900. Inspired by the work of the National Children’s Home Society, it was born of concern on the part of its founders for the plight of abandoned and neglected children. As stated in its charter, the Society’s goal was “finding family homes for homeless, indigent, or dependent poor children in the State of Virginia, and other purposes incident thereto.”

(Children’s Home Society of Virginia) — Children’s Home Society of Virginia first Board of Directors

The Board of Directors selected John Garland Pollard as the Society’s first president and the Reverend William J. Maybee as state superintendent. Maybee, who was to hold that position for nearly 30 years, articulated the ethos of the Society when he wrote in 1903 that “We are not to imagine that children of humble birth are therefore inferior, on the contrary the homeless child of the street is of the same clay as the petted darling of the wealthy…Both Christianity and civilization may be quite correctly measured by their treatment of childhood.”

(Chronicling America) — advertisement for Children’s Home Society of Virginia in The Presbyterian of the South — June 25, 1919

The Society received children in one of two ways, parental placement or court commitment. Representatives of the CHS traveled the state gathering children who were made wards of the Society and brought them back to Richmond. The children then underwent “a thorough system of renovation” that included the provision of “clean and comfortable garments,” basic etiquette training, and examinations by medical and psychological doctors.

(Chronicling America) — advertisement for Children’s Home Society of Virginia in Richmond Times-Dispatch — Sunday, June 8, 1919

Initially, wards were placed under the care of Rev. Maybee’s wife, Mary McLeod Maybee, and the Belle Bryan Day Nursery. In 1905, the Board purchased a house at 2605 East Franklin Street to serve as a receiving home and central office; another receiving home was opened in Roanoke in 1920. Local advisory boards around Virginia handled much of the recruitment and screening of foster families, and helped monitor foster placements. Those children who were never adopted remained the responsibility of the CHS until they reached adulthood, became self-supporting, or married.

(Chronicling America) — advertisement for Children’s Home Society of Virginia in Richmond Times-Dispatch — Sunday, June 15, 1919

Change came to the Society in 1926 when it joined the Child Welfare League of America and began a process of reorganization based on League observations. Their recommendations touched on a variety of areas including fire safety in the receiving homes, hygiene, nutrition, record-keeping, the manner of disciplining the children, the selection of foster homes, and other topics. One major adjustment resulting from the study came with the shift to a staff of trained social workers.

(Library of Virginia) — Virginia Historical Inventory Photographs, Works Progress Administration Collection — 1937

With its budget coming entirely from donations (and, starting in 1930, from the Richmond Community Fund), the Society struggled financially in its early years. By the early 1930’s it was in danger of closing under the weight of $50,000 in debt. Led by then-Governor John Garland Pollard and other prominent supporters, the state-wide “Spring Emergency Campaign” of 1931 yielded enough funds to erase the Society’s debt and bring a measure of financial stability. The Society later partnered with the United Way for several years as an additional source of funds.

The receiving home was closed in 1934, signaling the Society’s move to an emphasis on temporary boarding home (foster) care in advance of permanent adoption placement. (Children’s Home Society of Virginia)

(Library of Virginia) — Virginia Historical Inventory Photographs, Works Progress Administration Collection — 1937

Madge Goodrich researched this house in 1937 for the Works Progress Administration of Virginia. 

The Children's Home Society of Virginia was an orphanage. The society owned the house from 1905 till 1921. It was conducted for a number of years by Dr. Mabie (sic), who later moved the orphanage to Highland Park. The house is often spoken of as the Mabie House, from this fact. The children were under the age of twelve and four. The house being too small for their numbers, the Society rented a part of the house at the west for about five years.

Although Madge was not able to determine a date, the City of Richmond calls it at 1859, so we’ll roll with that. She does note that it was owned by Hector Davis at the time, and sold the following year to Alexander Walker. (Library of Virginia)

The Children’s Home Society of Virginia is still going strong, now performing their worthy function in the Near West End on Fitzhugh Avenue.

(Duke University Libraries) — James Buchanan Duke

James Buchanan Duke was many things. A philanthropist, an industrialist, trust builder, and creator of the modern tobacco industry, he was not the kind of person who had much patience for weak-kneed associates who sniveled about minor things like legalities, nor was he apt to let such annoyances get in the way of his ruling the market.

[RVCJ03] — Arthur St. Clair Butler, circa 1903 

In January, 1903, Mr. A. St. Claire Butler, of Butler & Bosher Co., Richmond, Va., and a friend spent a day at No. 111 Fifth Avenue, New York, with Mr. Duke, Mr. Fuller, and one other trust representative. Mr. Duke wanted to buy and offered to buy 51 per centum of the capital stock of the Butler & Bosher Co., whose business for several years previously has been supplying the Navy Department with tobacco, and manufacturing and selling tobacco in the South and New England.

(Chronicling America) — Richmond Times advertisement — Tuesday, February 14, 1893

Mr. Duke, in offering to buy 51 per centum of the stock, told Mr. Butler that the business was to continue just as it had been managed, and their interest in it to remain a secret. Mr. Butler was to continue an independent manufacturer, continue to use the union [7564] label, and continue to associate with independent manufacturers. When Mr. Butler said that this would not be honest, Mr. Duke replied, “Plenty are doing it to-day, and if you do not do it, we will ruin you and drive you out of business.” Mr. Butler asked time to consider the proposition, and returning home consulted his lawyer, who, happily, was a lawyer of the old school, as he advised Mr. Butler he would not be able to do what was proposed and be honest. Then Mr. Butler declined to sell. 

(Pinterest France) — a tin of Butler & Bosher Pipe Full Cut Plug

Thereupon the trust started out in its campaign against him. Mr. Butler had worked up quite a trade in New England on a smoking plug under the brand “Butler's Light and Dark.” which was much the same as Mayo's “Eglantine” and “Ivy,” brands owned by the trust, and which were large sellers, and on these the trust placed a deal, which so cut down Mr. Butler's business that he was greatly demoralized. Later the Navy contract was again awarded to Mr. Butler, and then the trust began bidding up the price of sun-cured tobacco, out of which the contract had to be made, and when Mr. Butler was thoroughly frightened, again offered to buy him. This time, however, they offered to buy his business outright, and finally they did so, continuing him as manager upon a salary. 

(Library of Congress) — Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Richmond (1905) — Plate 41 — showing Butler & Bosher Tobacco Factory at Twentieth & Grace Streets

The foregoing is a copy of the statement made January 20, 1905, to the Hon. James R. Garfield, Commissioner of Corporations. Mr. Butler was continued as manager of the business of Butler & Bosher Co., owned and controlled by the American Tobacco Co., from the time of its purchase, July 1, 1903, until March, 1906. Then the factory was closed, and Mr. Butler thrown out of employment. He, like 98 per cent of the manufacturers who have sold out, being under contract not again to enter into business, is now in the prime of life unable to engage in a business in which his whole life has been spent. Thus his experience as a tobacco manufacturer is lost to the country. [BDCRT]

[RVCJ03] — Butler & Bosher factory, circa 1903

It’s not clear when Butler & Bosher started as a business, but the earliest advertisements appeared in the Richmond Times and Richmond Dispatch in 1892. The 1893 edition of Richmond, Virginia: The City on the James (RVCJ) identifies Robert S. Bosher as President of the T. C. Williams Company but he must have found a way to dedicate time to this other enterprise. Regardless of they started, they were an independent tobacco firm, and not part of Duke’s voracious trust, the American Tobacco Company (ATC).

(VCU) — 1889 Baist Atlas Map of Richmond — Plate 3

They started their business in a four-story brick tobacco factory on the west side of Twenty-Second Street, remarkably, a location that is also still standing [RT19020518]. The Navy tobacco deal they won in 1902 vaulted them into the big time, requiring them to produce 200,000 pounds of plug tobacco over the three-year contract [RD19020403], and it must have been with giddy anticipation that they announced the construction of a new six-story factory at Twentieth and Grace barely a month later [RD19020529].

It also effectively put themselves squarely in ATC’s crosshairs, and by September Butler & Bosher was in active denial of the inevitable [RD19020910]. However, Duke wasn’t about to let minor players gum up his grand schemes, and the darlings of the Navy capitulated in July the following year.

(Find A Grave) — Arthur St. Clair Butler in later years

After the acquisition, ATC made good on its intention to have the “independent” Butler and Bosher continue to bid on the federal contract when it came up again for renewal in 1905. The truly independent tobacco manufacturers cried foul, but it appears to have changed no minds. ATC won and would continue to win until the 1911 smackdown by the Supreme Court forced its breakup. 

By then it was too late for Arthur Butler, whose non-compete ejected him from the industry. He bought a piece of land in Mathews County called Poplar Grove and got the hell out of Richmond.

(Butler & Bosher is part of the Atlas RVA! Project)

Print Sources

[BDCRT] Bills and Debates in Congress Relating to Trusts: 1902-1913 Fifty-Seventh Congress, Second Session, To Sixty-Third Congress, First Session, Inclusive (December 1, 1902–December 1, 1913) Vol. 2 Pages 1115–2403. Office 1914.

[RD19020403] Richmond Dispatch. Thursday, April 3, 1902.

[RD19020529] Richmond Dispatch. Thursday, May 29, 1902.

[RD19020910] Richmond Dispatch. Wednesday, September 10, 1902.

[RT19020518] Richmond Times. Sunday, May 18, 1902.

[RVCJ03] Richmond, Virginia: The City on the James: The Book of Its Chamber of Commerce and Principal Business Interests. G. W. Engelhardt. 1903.

[HPR] — covered in ivy in the 1920s

The Henrico County Courthouse of 1896, which still stands on Main Street, Richmond, is the third court building erected on the site. In 1752, the Henrico Court moved to the new town of Richmond from Varina; the land on which the courthouse was erected was donated by the Cocke family, who retained conditional rights to the property,. 

[IEAHS] — from a mid-19th century print, showing original courthouse in back

The County Court continued to meet within the bounds of the City of Richmond until 1975, when it was moved to new facilities on Parham Road in western Henrico.

September 2019 — detail of east tower roof

The first courthouse at this site was a simple brick building which is said to have served as the model for the still-standing Albemarle County courthouse of 1764. It was from the steps of this original building that the Declaration of Independence was first publically proclaimed in Richmond on August 5, 1776; the Virginia Gazette reported that most of the town's 1000 citizens were present at the event, and that they reacted to the reading with "universal shouts of joy."

September 2019

Five years later British soldiers invaded Virginia's new capital and in the process destroyed many of the Henrico court records, including most of those dating prior to 1677, The courthouse itself, however, managed to escape serious damage.

September 2019

In 1824 the first courthouse was much in need of repairs, and a committee decided to rebuild rather than repair it. Samuel Sublette was engaged to design the building, and by November, 1825, it was ready for use. 

September 2019

This brick structure, which measured 70 by 46 feet, was distinguished by its pedimented portico, three-piece front windows, and flanking doors surmounted by elliptical fanlights.

September 2019 — detail of windows and parapet facing Twenty-Second Street

In the 19th century, the governmental activities of County and City were more closely intertwined than they are today. Prior to the Civil War, all deeds to property in the City of Richmond were recorded in the Henrico clerk's office, and all inhabitants of the City obtained their marriage licenses from the County clerk.

September 2019 — granite entryway facing Twenty-Second Street

In the 1840s the courthouse was moved from its original location in the middle of what is now 22nd street, in order to open that street to traffic. The 1824 building underwent extensive damage during the great Evacuation Fire of 1865, but was subsequently repaired, and served the County until the present 3 1/2 story red brick and granite structure replaced it in 1896.

September 2019 — doorway & window, west side of building

The building, with its recessed front entry and highly-articulated facades, is a late and rather freely-interpreted example of the Romanesque Revival. A distinctive local landmark, it is one of the few examples of the style remaining in the Richmond area, and it will hopefully be preserved. [IEAHS]

(Find A Grave) — architect Carl August Ruehrmund & family

The 1896 courthouse was designed by Carl Ruehrmund, a German-born architect who studied architecture at the Royal Academy in Berlin before immigrating to America in 1881. In 1882 he was living in Richmond and working with Albert Lybrock, another famous Richmond architect, on additions to the Customs House. According to Robert Winthrop, he “may well be Richmond’s most important little known architect” who would design "an impressive number of buildings, including houses, commercial structures, churches and public buildings” throughout his long career. (Architecture Richmond)

September 2019

Today, the building is conjoined with a house at 2117 East Main Street, and the entire structure is owned by a real estate investment company, Zimmerman Inc. Aside from two mannequins displayed in the first-floor window facing the intersection of Main and Twenty-Second it appears little used, but in otherwise good condition for its age.

Surprisingly, this building is not on the Richmond Historic Registry, which seems a shame.

(Henrico County Courthouse is part of the Atlas RVA! Project)

Print Sources

[HPR] Historic Photos of Richmond.Emily J. & John S. Salmon. 2007.