Category Archives: history

Throwback Thursday: Belvidere And Subsequent Lots

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Again, from former Pine Street neighbor Tom Elliott…a close look at the old Belvidere plantation and how it was subdivided…

(Editor’s note: for more on the history of the Byrd family and Belvidere, please follow this link and read a piece by Harry Kollatz, Jr. in Richmond Magazine- https://richmondmagazine.com/news/richmond-history/the-wastrel/)

1856 Ellyson map of Richmond.

The way things were are the way things are. Plan of Belvedere/Belvidere/Belvidera sales before the house burned on February 5, 1854. A bit sad to think this once beautiful 17 acre estate surrounded by a serpentine brick “fence” was divided into small building lots while still standing. But….guess we see it every day now so not much different. Per details included with the plat shown. Lots (Red Dots)1-6, 21-24, and 56 & 57 sold on Oct ? 1852. Lots (Light Blue Dots) 38-41 sold on March 28, 1853. Lots (Green Dots) 68-75 sold on Aug 25 ?. 31 lots (Purple Dots) on Laurel Street sold on Nov. 9, 1853. Belvidere was located within the red rectangle. The four arrows mark the corners of the brick wall that surrounded the property. Credit: Virginia Historical Society, Library of Virginia.

1817 plat showing very early subdivision of larger 4 acres parcels near Belvedere. “The black dotted lines represent the brick fence”. The house is shown, the James river would be at the top of the plat.

1851-52 plat updated in 1870’s

Belvidere mansion/house was located within the red rectangle. The 4 arrows mark corners of the brick wall that surrounded the 17 acres. the house burned on February 5, 1854

Daily Dispatch 10-16-1852. See the red dots on the first plat map.

Daily Dispatch 11-9-1853. See the purple dots on the first plat map

Throwback Thursday: More From ‘Bottled In Richmond’

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More from former Pine Street neighbor Tom Elliott:

Photo from canal tow path, Belle Island in the distance


This image of the Under The Bank Saloon (505 Canal bank) next to the Tredegar Ironworks Bridge to Belle Island was posted on the internet within the past 5 years. I was interested in discovering more about the business hiding under the bank of the James River & Kanawha canal. The stereograph photo was taken from the canal tow path above the saloon. Bartholomew V. and John A. Connolly were the proprietors from at least 1876-1877. They were both living on Arch between 6th & 7th St in 1876 and had moved to 226 S. 5th St in 1877. B.V. was born in Ireland in 1848 and died on Dec 16, 1881, buried in Mount Calvary Cemetery. I identified the probable saloon location next to the river and the two housing areas where they lived. The saloon looks like a cool shady spot to grab a drink after a hard day at Tredegar or boatman hopping down the hill. It’s easy to imagine the crowd inside. Credit: VCU library & Ancestry.

Throwback Thursday: Bottled In Richmond

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Courtesy of former neighbor and longterm friend of the neighborhood Tom Elliott:

A good Oregon Hill friend (now a world traveller for many years) recently gave me a book “Bottled in Richmond 1819-1920” by Vernon Grant. I flipped through it and found all the saloons, liquor dealers and pharmacies in Richmond. There were about 20 in Oregon Hill during that period. This is the story of just one of them.

614 Church St (demolished) was obviously a commercial establishment being on the corner in a packed urban neighborhood. I found brothers John & Soloman Gross operating as a “Grocer and Saloon” there from 1869-1885 (Bottled in Richmond pg.139) . Both were born in Germany, John in 1832 and Solomon in 1837. Both married Virginians, Nancy G. and Mary J. John died (Cirrhosis of the liver) in 1884 and Solomon (Diarrhea) in 1886. Nancy and Mary obtained the help of (Englishman) Wm. B Illingworth (b-1833) and wife Lucinda and continued in business at 614 Church St. They were operating as a “Grocer and Liquor Dealer” as “Illingsworth & Co.” from 1888-1903 (Bottled in Richmond, pg. 150) . William died in 1890, The women then operated the business for the next 14 years. Nancy Gross died in 1902 and Lucinda Illingsworth in 1904. The business had stopped by 1904. Mary J Gross was still living at 614 Church St in 1904. These various families lived within this single house from at least 1869-1904. I will assume the business was on the ground floor and they lived on the upper floors. Credits: The Valentine, Ancestry, Bottled in Richmond 1819-1920 by Vernon Grant, Hollywood Cemetery, VCU Library.

Blast From The Past: Ricky And The White Boys 1977

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Ricky And The White Boys, outside their practice space at 809 Idlewood Avenue; c 1977.

Pictured are: Boo Smith, Bruce Terrell, Ralph Harper, Richard Buchanan, Craig Thompson, Jennifer (Cherry Bomb).

Some of the following people & bands lived there at one time or another. They were: Rob Reisinger of NY Dux; Jennifer (Cherry Bomb); Richard Buchanan of Ricky and the White Boys; White Cross, Red Cross [the forerunner to White Cross]; Dennis Madigan and Tom Zimmerman “Z” of Crossbreed, which later became X-Breed; John Hall; Bruce Terrell (Ricky And The White Boys/Boys From Skateland); Inquisition lived there from ‘91-‘96 and practiced there; Thomas Barnett (Inquisition/Strike Anywhere); Maurice Garrett (Single Bullet Theory)

The first band to practice in the basement was Crossbreed which later became X-Breed (Richard, Dennis and Z). Ricky and the White Boys followed. The NY Dux rehearsed there too. Other bands that rehearsed there were the original lineup of Hotel X with Julie O, Deke and Neil and Always August (on occasion); KAL-KAN

White Cross was formed in Richmond in 1980, the members were, Richard “Crispy” Cranmer, Mike Rodriguez, Alford Faulkner, and Scotty Price. Other members of the band were, Pen Rollings, Dewey Rowell. The band was together from 1980-1985. The band originally called themselves Red Cross. They changed the name to White Cross after being served a cease-and-desist order from the American Red Cross organization. At the time cheap little speed pills called white crosses were popular with the more enlightened citizenry. So, that’s why the name White Cross was chosen, certainly not for any religious purposes. White Cross played often in and around the Richmond area. Alford Faulkner left the band not long after the name change. He would later play with The Prevaricators. The band released a few records, opened for big-name U.S. and U.K. punk bands, and toured cross-country before its members moved on, joining Unseen Force, Mudd Helmut and GWAR. Reunited in fall 2009 for the Benny-fit show, White Cross then performed with Tommy Rodriguez replacing his brother Mike on guitar, and Greta Brinkman instead of Rowell on bass. Greta became a founding member of the well-known punk bands Unseen Force and Four Walls Falling, and she played bass with Kal Kan, The Hurly Gurlies, and Dead Blind Gone. Sources: Photo: Unknown; Thomas Bailey; Michael Maurice Garrett; Thomas Barnett

(Editor’s note: This was posted by Christopher B. Coleman on the ‘Old Images Of Richmond’ FaceBook group and is reposted here with permission.)

Oregon Hill Home Improvement Council Celebrates 50th Anniversary

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About a dozen or so Oregon Hill neighbors met earlier this evening at the Pine Street Baptist for a meeting of the Oregon Hill Home Improvement Council, which doubled as the non-profit organization’s 50th Anniversary Celebration. Although quorum number was not reached, there was a lot of good conversation and pizza. Current board members presented and relayed information, discussed history, answered questions from attendees, and brought up possible future endeavors. Expect a future meeting date to be announced.







“…. some historical perspective on the current zoning”

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Cherry Street neighbor Todd Woodson has written a short post for social media…

Regarding the disastrous “Code Refresh” and it’s harmful affect on Oregon Hill, let me give you some historical perspective on the current zoning and how it was achieved in 2002.
Before we were appropriately rezoned to R7, the majority of Oregon Hill was zoned R63, a moderate density zoning. The year was 2002. I was serving as president of the newly formed Oregon Hill Neighborhood Association and also as representative on the Near West Neighborhood Teams coalition- a wonderful, solid group of diverse community representatives, supported by the City. Our City’s excellent planning department, led by Director Mark Strickler, had put in countless hours working out an appropriate rezoning classification known as R7 for Oregon Hill. R7 was perfect because it encouraged the preservation of our historic single family homes while shunning large high rise apartment complexes. This was important because at the time, the overlook area was owned by Ethyl Corporation (now New Market- upon whose land now stands the Allianz Amphitheater). Ethyl had bought up all of the historic housing (listed on both Federal and State Registers of Historic Places) in the southern part of Oregon Hill and summarily demolished the homes in order to realize their grand investment opportunity. The problem is that the pending R7 zoning preserved single family and so jeopardized Ethyl’s scheme to allow a developer out of Texas to put up HUGE student apartment complexes, which would ruin the aesthetic of the neighborhood and overstress the infrastructure. The community solidly backed the R7 rezoning but for some unknown reason, that rezoning had stalled out as the student high rise plans were on the table. At the time, there was not a strong mayor system- we had a City Manager named Calvin Jamison, who had formerly been Human Resources Director for… ETHYL CORPORATION! At a neighborhood teams meeting, I questioned Jamison, in front of Near West community members as to what was holding up our rezoning and he responded he didn’t know of anything holding it back. The wonderful City planning department (at the time) was frustrated because they had put in so much work on a seriously good plan (R7) for Oregon Hill and it was going nowhere. I was at City hall a lot back then- trying to unblock the progress for our neighborhood. A young planner (who shall remain nameless) took me aside to a secluded area and told me to FOIA the minutes of a meeting with Calvin Jamison and his former employers on such and such a date. This planning hero had taken the minutes himself. Now, I had never heard of FOIA, which stands for the Virginia Freedom of Information Act but I did as he told me. Those minutes spelled it all out: the City Manager was holding up the rezoning until his pals could get their high rises built. A neighbor and lawyer David Gammino and I marched into a City Council meeting and called Jamison on his actions. City Council’s collective jaw dropped (at the time, there was much corruption in the City and two City Council members had been sent to prison for taking bribes from developers). Amazingly, our R7 soon came up for a vote and we were successful! A great developer named Steve Middleton stepped in and built the overlook as can be seen today- pretty much matching the rest of Oregon Hill!
Fast forward to today, when the City’s incompetent Planning Department led by DEVELOPER RODNEY POOLE, who has led the planning commission for over two decades, is trying to take away our R7 zoning to incentivize DEVELOPERS to come in, demolish historic, reasonably affordable and dense housing stock to build high rise student housing. History repeats itself.
I ask my dear community members to support our quest to keep our neighborhood intact and historic. The “Code Refresh” initiative needs to be completely scrapped and Poole and director Vonck replaced with competent people, determined to do what’s best for our community.
Thanks, Todd.