President's Message
Happy 50th Anniversary! 1975 was a very good year!
Gerald Ford was president; Nelson Rockefeller, vice president; Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen; the first email was sent; the Vietnam War ended; the movie "Jaws" was released; "All in the Family "and "Saturday Night Live" were new programs on TV. Locally, Kings Dominion and Busch Gardens first opened and Arthur Ashe, Jr. won the singles title at Wimbledon.
The price of a first class stamp increased from 10 cents to 13 cents in 1975; the average price of gas was $0.57 a gallon; a new house could be purchased for $39,300.00.
From Richmond Times-Dispatch, 3 June 1975, p. 2:
On June 1, 1975 the first meeting of the Henrico County Historical Society was held. The Society, with 200 charter members, was formed as one of the special projects of the Henrico County Bicentennial Commission, created to commemorate the American Revolution.
Each member of the Board of Supervisor appointed one representative to the Commission. Jean Nelson Gibbons, appointed to represent the Varina District, was elected Chairman. The first duty of the Commission was to approve projects to submit to the Virginia Independence Bicentennial Commission and in turn submitted to the American Revolutionary Bicentennial Administration.
In January of 1975 Henrico County was designated an official Bicentennial Community.
Other special projects included having State Route 5 named as a Scenic Virginia Byway; creating a live exhibit at the Virginia State Fair of a pioneer farmstead with a reconstructed log cabin over two hundred years old; creating a list of names of those who took part in the War for Independence compiled by Ann Waller Reddy; establishing a Henrico School Bicentennial Committee; securing approval of a "Town Meeting" in eastern Henrico held on February 21, 1976; reenacting the first reading of the Declaration of Independence at the new Henrico Courthouse on Parham Road on August 5, 1976 with reportedly more than three thousand citizens attending; facilitating the preservation and use of the one hundred year old Fort Harrison stone lodge; creating the Official Henrico County Commemorative Medal depicting Pocahontas, sales of which went towards the cost of publishing The History of Henrico County; presenting a $2000 grant to William Kelso of the Virginia Research Center for Archaeology to conduct a search for the original site of the "Town of Henrico" from which Henrico County traces its origin; providing additional funding matched by Lone Star Industries for a second dig. Unfortunately, both searches were also unsuccessful. A reproduction of the site was developed and is now Henricus Historical Park. Historic interpretation is given for the charter of the first English college, the first hospital in English North America, Pocahontas' conversion to the Anglican faith, and the establishment of tobacco as the first cash crop, all of which occurred within what was then the original Henrico territory.
We are most indebted to the Commission for the creation of a history committee to study the feasibility of writing The History of Henrico and the contract signed in November of 1975 with Louis Manarin and Clifford Dowdey to do so. There is lack of space here to give recognition to all those to whom we are indebted. A full accounting can be found in the foreword and acknowledgments in The History of Henrico County, first printed in 1984. Dr. Louis Manarin dedicated the book to the children of Henrico County.
There was a span of ten years until the completion of the Commission's work. Sadly, some of those who participated, passed away during that time and others have since. They leave us their legacy.
We hope you can join us for our 50th anniversary celebration at Wilton House Museum on June 1, 2025, as we are now commemorating the 250th of the American Revolution and still making history.
As the late Jean Nelson Gibbons wrote, "May our past help light the way to our future as a county."
Sarah Pace
President
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June Quarterly Meeting
Come join us for our second meeting of the year and our 50th Anniversary!
Date and Start Time:
Location:
- Wilton House Museum
- 215 South Wilton Street
- Richmond, VA 23226
Guest Speaker:
- The Henrico County Historical Society was established in 1975 as part of the Henrico bicentennial commemoration of the American Revolution. The Wilton House was once located in Henrico County. Today, Wilton House is the Wilton House Museum in Richmond. It welcomed as guests George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and the Marquis de Lafayette. We look forward to their hospitality just as it was 250 years ago.
- We also welcome Evalynn Miller of the Colonial Dames and Chris Yohn of the Richmond Sons of the American Revolution.
We're going to have a wonderful anniversary celebration, and we look forward to shareing it with you there!
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Please Help Us Celebrate...Christmas in July
Lakeside Farmers' Market is excited to be hosting another "Christmas in July," and the Henrico County Historical Society is a partner.
It's a drive to collect NEW children's books to benefit the "Henrico Christmas Mother."
This year, we will be collecting books for the entire month of July, starting on July 5th. We'll have bins available for drop-off every Saturday and Wednesday morning from 9AM to noon and Sundays, from 11AM to 3PM. The bins will be located in the indoor pavilion at 6110 Lakeside Avenue.
Books will be distributed along these guidelines:
Ages 0-2
Board Books
Ages 3-4
Preschool-lots of illustrations and early vocabulary,
Ages 5-7
Lower elementary
Ages 8-10
Upper elementary
Ages 11-13
Middle School
Ages 14-18
High School
One suggested source: Ollie's Bargain Outlet
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In Memoriam
The Henrico County Historical Society expresses its deepest sympathy to the family of Patricia Edwards.
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Inventive Henricoans
Mann S. Valentine II, founder of Richmond's Valentine Museum, developed, bottled and accumulated great wealth from Valentine's Meat Juice. Created in 1870, the health drink was packaged in a small, brown pear-shaped bottle (pictured below). However, those little bottles did not feature the threaded neck for which he was awarded the 1876 patent here seen.
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A Luckily Misunderstood Item - ‘Chair House’ Misinterpretation Has Unexpected Rewards
Finding the term "chair house" in an announcement of a Henrico real estate sale in the 25 May 1776 issue of the Virginia Gazette was the genesis of the article "Tables and chairs" in the last newsletter. Assuming that the term must have referred to a furniture maker's shop led me to discover George Donald, owner of the land for sale and local cabinetmaker of note.
However, thanks to Monticello Diane Ehrenpreis, Curator of Decorative Arts and Historic Interiors at Monticello, I learned that a chair house was actually an outbuilding that housed a horsedrawn wheeled vehicle called a chair (pictured above). As Ms. Ehrenpreis said, "It was the jazzy race car of its day," noting also that Thomas Jefferson had one, and records showed that he had paid for repairs of his.
Additionally, she addressed the attribution of the standing desk, saying that the Monticello staff did not attribute the desk to George Donald. While there was record of a desk of the same dimensions in Jefferson’s notes, she said there was no record of payment to Donald and that Jefferson was a notoriously complete record keeper. She suggested that the table mentioned in the article and referred to in a 1769 letter had more likely burned in the 1770 fire at Shadwell that destroyed so much of his property.
The newsletter's attribution of the Monticello desk to George Donald was based on April Strader Bullins' article in the Journal of the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts.
No matter who made the desk, it is a thing of beauty and the product of a skilled hand. And Donald was clearly skilled and respected, and I am so glad that my own misinterpretation of a term led me to an investigation of him and his work.
Joey Boehling
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Today's West Broad Street Evolved From a Plan for . . . Carrying Coal to the City
When I was young, Short Pump seemed to me to be pretty much in the middle of nowhere with two-lane Broad Street running through it past the store at the road's intersection with Three Chopt Road, Berger Nuckols' Short Pump Transmission Shop and the Short Pump Fire Tower. Of course the latter two are gone, replaced by hundreds of small and large commercial enterprises which have required the development of a divided six-to-eight-lane road to accommodate the traffic bound for them.
Ironically, the beginning of the development of that road over two hundred years ago grew out of the need to move commercial traffic in the opposite direction– out of the area and toward the City of Richmond. On 5 January 1804, the General Assembly passed "An ACT for establishing a turnpike road from Richmond to the Deep run coal pits, and from thence to the Three Notched road," noting that it would be "the most direct way from the city of Richmond to the Deep run coal pits, commonly called Duval's coal pits" and "would greatly facilitate the transportation of that valuable coal." It authorized the subscriptions for $40.000.00 consisting of 400 shares at one hundred dollars a share. And it was to be under the management of fourteen men, one of whom, interestingly, was William Duval.
In establishing toll rates, it stipulated that "every loaded waggon and team that travels the said turnpike road from the city of Richmond by the said coal pits to Priddy's tavern, which sits at or near the junction of the main road called Pouncy's track with the Three Notched road, shall pay twenty-five cents; on every cart or tumbril, six cents per wheel . . . on all horses, mules or horned cattle not attached to carriages, three cents for each of them, on all riding carriages, six cents per wheel." Those fees were for passage of the entire length, and separate turnpikes (toll gates) would collect fees "only in proportion to their respective distances. Specifically addressing the coal wagons, the act noted that "return waggons and carts having five hundred weight, and less, shall repass toll free, except coal waggons and coal carts, which shall pay one half of the said tolls."
Using the turnpikes for transporting coal was preferable to using unmaintained roads, but maintenance was expensive and cut into a company's profits. Company charters, like that of the Richmond Turnpike Company, returned a minimum fifteen percent of expenditures, thus explaining the company's refusal to offer toll-free repasses.
Sean Patrik Adams notes in Old Dominion Industrial Commonwealth that in 1813, The Richmond Turnpike Company complained that narrow-wheeled wagons loaded with over a hundred bushels of coal dug deep ruts requiring constant repair. In fact, the 1817 General Assembly passed an act that addressed that problem: "for every waggon loaded with more than sixty bushels of coal, two and a half cents additional toll, for each horse, mule, or ox drawing the same, unless the tread of the wheels shall be at least five inches wide." It went on to add that "if, thereafter for any two winters in succession . . . said road shall have been declared out of order and the gates thrown open . . . the said road shall become a public highway."
This 18 May 1816 Richmond Enquirer article reports that dividends were ready to be distributed to shareholders - an early return on investents.
Below is John Wood's 1819 map of Henrico County shows the Richmond Turnpike's early route of what would become today's West Broad Street.
Like today's subway turnstile jumpers, early turnpikes had their own toll avoiders, and an 1821 act of the General Assembly addressed the problem. It said that "all and every person or persons travelling on the Richmond turnpike road, who shall, for the purpose of avoiding payment of the toll . . . turn off the said road and go round the gate or gates . . . shall pay as a penalty therefor double the amount of tolls . . . and be liable to pay a fine of ten dollars for each and every such offence."
Just how successful the Richmond Turnpike Company was is unclear, but the 1853 Smith map of Henrico County labels its road as Deep Run Turnpike. Perhaps, it did become a public highway and was then reopened after the incorporation of the Deep Run Turnpike Company. However, some entity was apparently taking care of it in that year because The Journal of the House of Delegates for the 1853-54 session notes that "Mr. Mayo presented a petition of sundry citizens of the county of Henrico, for a plankroad on the old Deep Run turnpike in said county; also a remonstrance of sundry citizens of the same county against the construction thereof." Their main complaint is indicated by the Richmond Enquirer, 16 December 1853 article of a "Plank road Meeting in Henrico" appearing left.
It is unclear whether or not the planking was done or what entity was responsible for the proposal; but some seventeen years later, the 1870 General Assembly approved "An ACT to Incorporate the Deep Run Turnpike Company," giving it "the right to use the bed of the public road known as the Old Deep run turnpike." Obviously, it had reverted from a turnpike to a public road at least once or twice since the original establishment of the Richmond Turnpike Company in 1804.
Just when the old Deep Run Turnpike reverted to a public road for good in unclear, but the name of the road remained for a good while. When the City of Richmond annexed part of Henrico County in 1906, it used the phrase "a point 150 feet north of the Deep Run Turnpike or Broad Street" to indicate one of the borders. So the transition of the name of the entire stretch of the road from Deep Run Turnpike to Broad Street had begun.
For over two hundred years, the size and surface of the road, the traffic on it and even the path in some places have changed. But its purpose is still to move people and products to feed commerce.
Joey Boehling
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A Road by Other Names
As the maps below illustrate, Broad Street’s name has changed over the past two hundred plus years.
Smith's Map of Henrico, 1864
Redd & Hoen's Map of Upper Henrico County, 1887
Redd & Brother's Map of Henrico County, 1901
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An Earlier Funding Plan for Road Building
This advertisement from the 21 July 1768 Virginia Gazette announces a plan to raise £900 to fund a road "over the mountain to the warm and hot springs in Augusta county." Perhaps, this was intended to increase traffic to the springs like opening the Deep Run Turnpike was intended to facilitate transporting coal.
6,000 tickets were offered at £1 per ticket, of which there would be one winner of £1,000 and 61 other winners of the amounts listed. Fifteen percent of each of the winning ticket's proceeds would be held out to attain the £900 needed to fund the road.
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Now You Know
No bees in this bonnet - or on this bonnet form
Congratulations to Haywood Wigglesworth for correctly the What Do You Know object from the last issue as a form for bonnetmaking. This particular form was from the Nineteenth Century and features the original user's name inscribed on the bottom as seen below:
This form could be used for making a poke bonnet with a brim that shaded the face or a coal scuttle bonnet which featured a flat back.
Calash Bonnet
In the Eighteenth Century, hair styles often grew quite large. This bonnet style with its cane frame allowed it to rest lightly above the sometimes outsized hair style. Its frame also made it collapsible for convenient storage.
Coal Scuttle Bonnet
Named for its similarity in shape to the metal container used to scoop and carry coal, this bonnet featured a flat back and a stiff smaller brim. Unlike the poke bonnet, the coal scuttle bonnet did not cover the face, and some also did away with the strap.
Poke Bonnet
This style of bonnet was popular in the first half of the Nineteenth Century. It was practical for time spent outside as it allowed women to keep their faces covered. It also paired well with the empire waist dresses that were popular at the time. Poke bonnets were most often tied at the side of the chin.
Sun Bonnet
This style of bonnet, popular in the first half of the Nineteenth Century, was practical for time spent outside. It featured a bavolet, or curtain, to keep sun off the wearer's neck.
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What Do You Know?
The horseshoe-shaped section of this iron object is 7 inches tall (or long) and 4 inches wide. The hinged handle moves the middle arm back and forth. Do you know what it is?
Email your answers to jboehling@verizon.net.
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