Early Charlottesville recollections of James Alexander, 1828-1874. Reprinted from the Jeffersonian republican |
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March 4, 1874 |
 | Early Charlottesville |  |
March 4, 1874
In a former paper, we stated that one of the objects
of the raid made by Col. Tarleton in 1781 in this place,
was to capture the 6,000 English and Hessian prisoners
encamped in this vicinity, Such has been the generally
received opinion among our citizens, but is a mistake;
these prisoners were removed from here for safekeeping,
some time previous to the visit of Tarleton, and no more
than 2,800[81]
were ever captured during the Revolution.
On the corner of Market and Union [East 4th]
streets, where Mr. Joseph Bowman resides, was the residence
of Mr. Peter Lott. He is represented to have
been a fine looking man, sensible, friendly and charitable.
He was a Mason in good standing and of good
repute. He owned the whole lot on which the houses of
Mr. Bowman, Dr. Dabney,[82]
F. M. Wills'[83]
residence,
and adjoining buildings, and the old Baptist church
building[84]
now stand. Mr. Lott was never married, and
by his will gave this property to the heirs of Peter
Schenck. This Mr. Schenck was the owner of the lot
west of the Episcopal church, on which the fine Mansard
mansion[85]
of N. H. Massie, Esq., now stands; and he also
owned the hill adjoining it, down to, and perhaps included,
the stream called Schenck's (Skank's) branch.
The Schenck family removed to Ohio, and Gen.
Schenck, now United States Plenipotentiary to Great
Britain, is a descendant of this family. (Gen. Schenck,
him a prisoner for ten days, taking good care of him all
the time, feasting him, furnishing him with newspapers,
cigars, &c., but failed to convince him that secession was
wrong. In 1847 when S. W. Ficklin was travelling in
Europe, he made an Austrian General get out of bed
and give him a passport, which prevented his passing
three lonesome days in Austria. Gen. Schenck was not
quite so accommodating to the Belmont farmer.)
Mr. Lott, we have been informed, died in 1801, and
was buried in the square of land that he owned. Up to
1840, and perhaps later, a handsome gravestone, with
Masonic emblems on it, could be seen there. Mr. T. W.
Savage, who occupied the Lott house from 1828 to 1840,
informs us that the remains of Peter Lott were never
removed; the tombstone is not standing there now; it
may have been removed when the late Dr. Hughes built
the fine brick residence now owned by Dr. Dabney.
The late Hardin Massie and Mr. John Cochran, in
1826, purchased this lot, the latter soon afterwards selling
his half of it to Dr. Massie. In 1831 the newly constituted
Baptist church purchased the north-east corner
of this lot and erected a house of worship thereon which
they occupied till 1855, when they built their present
large and commodious church on the corner of Church
[2nd N. E.] and Jefferson streets.
The houses on Jefferson street where Mr. Heller and
Mr. L. Waddell[86]
reside were erected some dozen years
since.
In the middle of Market street, west of Dr. Dabney,
stood the market house, which was used as such for several
years, and was then demolished; another market
house was afterwards erected on the same street, two
squares west, and this has also been demolished, and now
we have five butchers' stalls in the town, two of them
flanking the Jeffersonian office, north and south.
The brick house on the corner of Market and School
[East 3rd] streets, by the first market house, was the
property of, and occupied by, Daniel Keith, an Irishman,
who acted in the capacity of constable; we knew
him as an enthusiastic Democrat. The late Dr. James
resided in this house, previous to the one he purchased
on High Street,[87] (Maiden Lane) where he died
June 5th, 1862.
The old Presbyterian church,[88]
on the corner of
Church and Market streets, was erected in 1828, and
opened for public worship in the Summer of 1829. This
building was a plain brick structure which stood till
1856, when it was taken down and the present Gothic
church erected. One of the doors of this old church is
now the door to the tobacco factory of Richard Flannagan,
on Random Row.
All the houses west of this church, on Market street
have been erected in late years. The Disciples' (Christian)
Church was built in 1836.
The corporation limits in 1828 did not extend farther
west than the square on which the second market house
James Bishop, and the east end of the lot now owned by
Mr. C. L. Fowler, was the line west, and the line east[90]
was along the Eagle Tavern, (Farish House) and the
chimney of the house occupied by T. P. Collier, on Main
street. The lots on the north-side of High street were
added to the corporation several years after the town
was incorporated, we believe by Mr. Jouett, and as they
did not correspond in width with those of the other lots
laid off in 1762, all our cross streets are irregular, as any
person can see by looking. The Episcopal church projects
some distance out into the street, according to the
old plan, but, perhaps, correct according to Jouett's addition.
On the square of Peter Lott, quite a number of persons
were buried, and on one of the lots of the late Alexander
Garrett, Esq., adjoining his residence, now the
property of Rev. T. W. Ware,[91]
many persons were interred,
and gravestones are still to be seen there. A
Presbyterian minister by the name of Lumpkin, Dr.
Jameson and other prominent citizens of that day, are
interred there. The lot where Drury Wood, Esq., now
were burial places for many persons. It seems to us that
the relatives and friends of those who are thus interred
in private town lots ought to have their remains removed
ere the necessity occurs to erect dwellings on them and
the bones of many a good person scattered about and
trampled under the feet of the present generation.
Mr. Jefferson in a letter to Governor Henry, Mar. 27, 1779,
estimates the number of Barracks prisoners as four thousand.
Memoir, Correspondence and Miscellanies of Thomas Jefferson,
edited by T. J. Randolph, Vol. I, p. 157.
307 East Market Street. Recently occupied by the Blue
Ridge Club. It was built by Dr. Hughes, and later the home
of Dr. Wm. Cecil Dabney of the Dunlora family, who became
Professor of the Practice of Medicine at the University of Virginia
in 1886. This house was at one time the home of Dr. W. C. N.
Randolph, whose later home was razed to make way for the Charlottesville
Public Library.
This stood on the southwest corner of East Jefferson and
North Fourth Streets, facing on Fourth Street. Later it was made
into apartments and at length razed.
315 2nd Street, N. W. The first builder upon this site was
Cornelius Schenk, who bought the lot in 1792. Mr. Massie erected
the present dwelling soon after the War between the States; it is
believed that four rooms of the original building were retained.
Later, this was known as the Harrison Robertson place.
Error. Upon his arrival in Charlottesville in 1874 Mr. Lyttelton
Waddell resided on the south side of Market Street near 3rd.
The building still stands, having been moved to face on 3rd, 112
3rd St., N. E. Mr. Waddell afterwards occupied the old house on
Green Street, now 511 N. First Street, the home of Mrs. J. Webb
Fry. This building was burned on the night of Dec. 21, 1880, the
Waddell family's narrow and sensational escape creating great excitement
in the little community. (W. W. Waddell, "Charlottesville
in 1875," Papers of the Albemarle County Historical Society, Vol.
II (1941-42), p. 5.) Earlier, this had been a Gilmer home, and
after being rebuilt within the original walls it was for long the
home of Mrs. Bayard Randolph. To the south of this house, at No.
509, was the home of Mr. George Perkins, son of Judge William
Allen Perkins of Cumberland County. He was one of the outstanding
members of the strong bar of that period, and practised
law in partnership with his father-in-law, Judge Egbert R. Watson,
the firm being for years Watson and Perkins. Later, it became
Perkins and Perkins, then Perkins, Perkins and Walker, and
is now Perkins, Battle and Minor. The large brick dwelling farther
north, No. 521, was built before 1876 by Alexander P. Abel,
a teller in the Monticello Bank. It was long the home of Mr. Carter
H. Page of the Keswick family, and then of Mr. Frank A.
Massie, whose family are still its owners. On the east side of this
street, No. 436, is the dwelling built in 1873 by Mrs. Virginia
Hancock, widow of Dr. Francis Hancock of Richmond. It remains
the home of members of this family.
Now the home of Dr. J. O. Mundy, 115 East High Street.
Dr. James A. Leitch purchased this lot, Nov., 1848, from Dr.
William S. White, pastor of the Presbyterian Church and head of
the Presbyterian Female Seminary, which he conducted at his
home on 2nd Street, now the Presbyterian Manse. No improvements
are listed in the sale, so it is inferred that Dr. Leitch built
the house. Following his death, it became the home of his daughter,
Mrs. A. P. Bibb, and was long the home of this family.
A block to the east, 215 East High Street, is one of the old houses
of the town. J. A. G. Davis is believed to have built it, and to
have made it his home during the building of his permanent home,
The Farm, as in 1825 he bought this lot from Charles Brown,
"with all appurtenances," but no house specifically mentioned.
In 1827 he sold to his sister-in-law, Martha Jane Minor, widow of
Dabney Minor, the house being mentioned, and rights to use of
the pump being granted to neighbors living on that block, they
paying their pro rata share towards its upkeep. The street is
called "North Street, or Maiden Lane." Following the death at
the University of J. A. G. Davis, his family returned to their old
home at The Farm, later coming to live in this house, presumably
with Mrs. Davis's sister, Mrs. Minor. In 1864 (Albemarle County
Deed Book 61, p. 140), Robert N. Trice and Lucy Jane his wife
(daughter of Mrs. Minor, d. 1860) sold to Benjamin Wood, who in
1876 sold to Jennie L. Burnley, wife of Horace B. Burnley, (ibid.,
Book 70, p. 97). It remained their home until the 1890's. Horace
B. Burnley served as Clerk of the County Court, being succeeded
in office by Snowden Wood of Ivy, and in turn by William L.
Maupin, Sr., and Drury Burnley, brother of the above.
The next house to the east, 303 East High Street, was built,
prior to the War Between the States, by Mrs. Julia Stricker Coles,
widow of Isaac A. Coles of Enniscorthy, who made it her home.
It was afterwards the home of Henry Shackelford of Culpeper,
Judge of the Circuit Court, who died in 1880. Mrs. Gen. Long
next lived and taught here for a few years, and it was later bought
by Trustees of the Presbyterian Church and used for a Presbyterian
Girls' School, under Dr. Young. In 1897, Mr. R. P. Valentine
bought the property from the Trustees (Charlottesville Corporation
Court Deed Book 8, p. 206), and made it his home. It is
still the home of a descendant.
This stood at 200 East Market Street. Upon the building of
the present Charlottesville Presbyterian Church in 1897 the
"Gothic" building became for a while the Y. M. C. A. Business
buildings now occupy the spot. The pastor of this church from
1866 to 1877 was Dr. Edgar Woods, author of the [History of] Albemarle
County, to whom all succeeding local antiquarians must feel
indebted. Born in 1827, he was a scion of the Albemarle family
and a descendant of the original Michael Woods. In 1877 he purchased
Pantops and founded the well-known Academy there. For
many years his stalwart figure was a familiar sight at the Clerk's
Office, where his leisure hours were spent in scanning the then unindexed
county records. His death occurred in 1908. Anne Eliza
Sampson, Kith and Kin . . . (Richmond, Va., 1922), pp.
114, 121-23.
This tannery in part was upon the present site of the A. and
P. Super Market, W. Market Street. The C. L. Fowler lot was
the one on Vinegar Hill now used by the Fowler's Valet Cleaners,
228 W. Main Street. It originally had a frontage of sixty-five feet.
| Early Charlottesville | |