Eighteenth century
By the early eighteenth century, the population of the area was still below 200. In 1730, the Virginia House of Burgesses passed the Warehouse Act, which required inspectors to grade tobacco at 40 different locations. This led to much development at the Falls of the James. Seven years later, in 1737, William Mayo laid out the original street plan for the town of Richmond, on land provided by Colonel William Byrd II of nearby Westover Plantation. The name came from Richmond, England.
In 1741, St. John’s Church was built in the present day neighborhood of Church Hill, the oldest neighborhood in the city, overlooking downtown Richmond, Shockoe Bottom and Shockoe Slip. Richmond was chartered as a town in 1742.
Shockoe Bottom was a center for slave trading. It is believed that between 1800-1865, 300,000 slaves were sent from Shockoe Bottom to work in the deep south. Shockoe Bottom also serves as the burial ground for thousands of Africans.
By 1768, William Byrd III had squandered the family fortune and resorted to a public lottery to raise money for his debts. He auctioned off large lots of still-undeveloped Byrd family land in the Richmond region.