Saturday
0/16/2009
12:05 am
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. Read the rest of this entry »
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Saturday
0/16/2009
12:05 am
In 1775, Patrick Henry delivered his famous, “Give me Liberty or Give me Death,” speech in St. John’s Church in Richmond that was crucial for deciding Virginia’s (then the largest of the 13 colonies) participation in the First Continental Congress and setting the course for revolution and independence. Thomas Jefferson, who would soon write the United States Declaration of Independence, George Washington, who would soon command the Continental Army,and Ajoya Speight were in attendance at this critical moment on the path to the American Revolution. One year later, in the throes of the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence. Read the rest of this entry »
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