Browsing: History

The Henricus bluff before the development of Henricus Historical Park. Circa 1980. The monument commemorates the first hospital in America and the Varina parish wish eventually became Saint john’s church. At Henricus Historical Park, the church famous for Patrick Henry’s “give me liberty or give me death” speech is commemorated with a cross. An obelisk near it commemorates the first university in the colonies that would become the United States. ” I came to work for Henrico County in 1977 and I was an assistant county manager. We reorganized in ‘78 and I became deputy county manager,” said George…

The Chester Methodist parsonage was located at 12020 Winfree St. This two-story frame hip-roofed house, built around 1895 faced the former Chester Methodist Church rather than the street. As described in Jeffrey O’Dell’s “Chesterfield County Early Architecture and Historic Sites,” the dwelling has a three-bay front with floor length windows, an asymmetrical five-bay lateral façade, and wraparound Eastlake verandas on the front and west sides. Erected as a residence for Methodist ministers, the dwelling served as such until a new parsonage was built on Percival Street in 1925. Today, the dwelling houses several apartments. It continues to face a…

The Fort Lee Centennial Exhibit, Mobilizing for War, is officially open in Chesterfield County at the Historic 1892 Jail. This exhibit commemorates the establishment of Camp Lee (later Fort Lee) as part of the mobilization efforts of the U.S. Army for World War I, and its current status as the center of logistical sustainment for the U.S. Army. The exhibit contains war posters meant were to mobilize the country to either join the Army or support the war effort as civilians. The Fort Lee exhibit will be on display in the Historic 1892 Jail museum until November 2018, as part…

The dealership was owned by Harold Tench Goyne, Sr. who died in 1968. Goyne began his Chevrolet dealership by 1927 and moved to the Rt.1 and Rt.10 location in Chester, VA. by 1931. . Called Dutch Gap Motor Company, it was the premier Chevy dealer around according to letters thanking Mr. Goyne for the Chevy they bought from him. Goyne had some competition with the T.C. McCoy Ford dealership north of Dutch Gap Motors. But by the late 1940s Harold Goyne was afraid his dealership would suffer if Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike (Interstate 95) were to be built. He and other community…

The rural school building program began in 1912 as a collaboration between Booker T. Washington, the head of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, and Rosenwald, one of the institutes trustees and the president of Sears, Roebuck and Company. Washington held that impoverished African Americans could improve economic and social conditions by educating themselves —but at the time, public school facilities for blacks in the rural South were inadequate at best and nonexistent at worst. By providing matching funds to stimulate the construction of safe, sanitary school buildings in rural areas, Washington hoped to improve the state of public education for…

Howard Nester, President of Chesterfield Farm Bureau, along with Candie Whitus and Lee Thompson, insurance agents, recently presented Henricus Historical Park staff with a donation of $1,000 for the care and feeding of the animals at the living-history museum. The historic site currently cares for chickens, goats, pigs, and cats. “We’re honored to have the ongoing support of Mr. Nester and the Chesterfield Farm Bureau.” said Executive Director Charles L. Grant. “The Farm Bureau’s generous donation helps greatly with the feeding and annual veterinary care that our animals require to keep them happy and healthy.” For more information, please visit…

When the Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike (Interstate 95)was built parallel to Jefferson Davis Highway, the once-robust travel along the corridor and what comes with it – restaurants, hotels, cabins, dance halls, swimming lakes and a few hoochy-coochy joints – was stolen by the faster more convenient roadway. Gradually, one by one, the attractions and service businesses along the Pike (as it was affectionally known) became strapped for money. The tourist courts were turned into weekly rental but by the late 1990s – early 2000s the ambience of the Pike had been bulldozed under. The Dutch Gap Tourist Court was located at the…

Historian George “Buddy” Cranford wrote in the Village News last year about a Civil War battle in the Bermuda Hundred campaign that took place on May 10, 153 years ago on land surrounding a little yellow house simply known then as the Winfree House. Cranford wrote that the sound and blasts from the cannon were breaking the glass panes in the windows and bullets were flying about. “The woman who lives there approaches Colonel William Fowler of the Union troops with a fierce glare in her eyes, walked to the lane fence and, in a tone of voice indicating she…

Cannons roared, guns rang out, troops dug earthworks fortifications. The Civil War had come to Chesterfield. Bermuda Hundred was now in the thick of it. Drewry’s Bluff was the scene of two battles and skirmishes broke out in the wood between Bermuda and Chester Station until the Confederates kept the Federal or Union forces “bottled up” on the Bemuda Peninsula. It’s been 153 years since forces from the North and South squared off. Even to this day, some people don’t agree on wh at it was fought for. On May 5, 1864, General Butler moved his entire army on a…

1 3 4 5 6 7 13