Richmond Hill

“ Many of us have, no doubt, stood on Richmond Hill, and looked with softening eyes on the rich pastures dotted with cattle, and broken with clumps of trees through which shoot up village spires, while the full, placid Thames winds in many a curve through pasture and wood. ”

“ After all, I don't think there is a prettier place than Richmond Hill, even in the Isle of Wight; and although I have lived here ever since my childhood, I declare it seems more beautiful to me every year."
"That is because you are older, and more able to appreciate beautiful scenery."
"I suppose that is the reason," replied Maria—and yet while she spoke arose a consciousness that this new appreciation of Nature at Richmond owed its origin to a romantic and vivid description of the feelings the scene had excited in the heart of one who now monopolised all her thoughts. ”

“ This glorious visit to Richmond Hill, where we have already been for two weeks, seems to the girls and me the essence of all enchantment, and the very ground we tread upon seems to be perfectly enchanted ground. The weather is so fine, the Gibsons themselves are so refined and polished, and there is so much beauty all around us, that life itself seems to be one long day of joy. ”

“ No one with an imaginative soul can fail to feel that as they lowered the house in site and situation so they gradually but relentlessly permitted it to be lowered in character. It is with a distinct pang that I recall the steps of Richmond Hill's decline: material and spiritual, its two-sided fall appears to have kept step.
A sort of degeneracy struck the erstwhile lovely and exclusive old neighbourhood. ”

“ Grateful is that bit of green-sward—like velvet—the table set out near the overshadowing yew, the old porch at home, the world and its hum shut out by the enclosing wall. This is the home of the veteran Howe—a link with the rare old Haymarket days.
Taking our way up Richmond Hill—noting the still rustic, pleasingly old fashioned air of the houses and villas as we ascend—we shall, of course, pause to enjoy the oft-celebrated, ever-admired view, if a proper day. It has a charm that cannot be surpassed, notably the silver glistening of the riband that winds away below. ”

“ My last view of Richmond was from Hollywood Hill, near the grave of Stuart. The spectacle before me was at once terrible and splendid. The city was wrapped in a sea of flame. A vast black cloud swept away to the far horizon. A menacing roar came up from beneath those flames surging around the white Capitol;—the enemy’s guns, troopers, musketeers and the rabble, were rushing with shouts, yells, and curses into the devoted city, which had at last fallen a prey to the Federal arms. ”

“ And in his present mood there was nothing of which he was not capable.
On and on he walked, briskly now and with an appearance of ever-increasing resolve. Through fair meadows [Pg 285] and riverside gardens and hamlets they passed. By ten o’clock, they had left the river below them and were ascending the steep and gloriously wooded slopes of Richmond Hill.
Every fiber of the tragedian’s being seemed now in the thrall of his new purpose. Not once did he tarry or look back. All unaware that he was being so closely followed, he turned at the top of the hill into Richmond Park. ”

“ For surely the home of so much romance and grandeur and charm and importance must leave something behind it other than a few fleeting memories and a page or two of history. Houses have ghosts as well as people, and if ever there stood a house with a personality, that was sweet, poignant and indestructible, it was the House on Richmond Hill. ”

“ Close to the fall stands a very beautiful hill, which our adventurers mounted, and enjoyed from it an extensive prospect. Potatoes, maize, and garden seeds of various kinds were put into the earth, by the governor's order, on different parts of Richmond-hill, which was announced to be its name. The latitude of Richmond-hill, as observed by captain Hunter, was settled at 33 degrees 36 minutes south.
Here also the river received the name of Hawkesbury, in honour of the noble lord who bears that title. ”

“ It won't take long, and it will make you understand better. We know how Richmond Hill began, so I won't go over that. After the battle of Long Island and Washington's retreat from New York, we don't hear a thing about it till the end of the war. About that time it was the headquarters of the British general, Sir Guy Carleton. After the war, when Washington became President and New York the capital, Richmond Hill was taken by Vice-President John Adams as his residence till the capital was removed to Washington. ”

“ Across the street, and on either side of us, there were rows of small boxlike frame houses built with narrow doorways, which opened from the sidewalk into funny little kitchens, where women, in soiled calico dresses, appeared to iron all day long. It was the poorer quarter of what is known in Richmond as "Church Hill," a portion of the city which had been left behind in the earlier fashionable progress westward. ”

“ To me, at all events, Kew has much the same appeal as the Londoner finds in Richmond Hill. It is a London garden, the garden of a town, perfectly made for its purpose. It can never, even with its glorious trees and its wide spaces of grass, have the peace or know the spirit of a country garden. Too many feet tread its lawns; too many voices chatter in its walks. ”

“ The Lass of Richmond Hill.—I should be much obliged by being informed who wrote the words of the above song, and when, if it was produced originally at some place of public entertainment. The Rev. Thomas Maurice, in his elegant poem on Richmond Hill, has considered it to have been written upon a Miss Crop, who committed suicide on that spot, April 23rd, 1782 ”

“ In winter it offered wonderful skating; in summer it was a dream of sylvan loveliness, and came to be called Burr's Pond, after that enigmatic genius who later lived in the house.
One more description—and the best—of Richmond Hill as it was the century before last; this one written by good Mistress Abigail, wife of John Adams, one-time vice-president of the United States, during their occupancy of the place. Said she, openly adoring the Hill at all times:
"In natural beauty it might vie with the most delicious spot I ever saw. ”

“ In 1676, during “Bacon’s Rebellion,” a party of Virginians under Bacon’s command killed about 150 Indians who were defending a fort on a hill a short distance east of the site of Richmond in the “Battle of Bloody Run,” so called because the blood of the slain savages is said to have coloured the brook (or “run”) at the base of the hill. Colonel William Byrd, [2] who owned much land along the James river, at the falls, visited the tract in September 1733, and decided to found there the town of Richmond, at the same time selecting and naming the present site of Petersburg. ”

“ The name given to a fine species of Normandy apple grown at Ribstone, Yorkshire, from pips originally planted on his estate by Sir Henry Goodriche.
Richmond. When Edward I. built himself a sumptuous palace on the south bank of the Thames he gave it the name of Sheen, the Saxon for “resplendent.” This being consumed by fire in 1479, Henry VI., rebuilt it, and then called it Richmond, after the beautiful seat in Yorkshire whence he took the title of his earldom. Richmond signifies a rich prospect from the hill occupied by its ancient castle. ”

“ The public park system, with an aggregate area of 376 acres, includes Reservoir Park of 300 acres on the western bounds of the city; Monroe, Gamble's Hill, Jefferson, Marshall, and Chimborazo parks, besides the Capitol Square. Capitol Square, on Shockoe Hill in the heart of Richmond, is 12 acres in extent. Here is situated the State Capitol (1785-96) , modeled at the suggestion of Thomas Jefferson, after the Maison Carrée at Nîmes. In the Capitol are busts and portraits of many eminent men, including the celebrated marble statue of Washington by the French sculptor Houdon in the rotunda. ”

“ In both cities there is much new building—offices downtown, and pretty new brick homes in outlying suburban tracts. Likewise, in both, the charming signs of other days are here and there to be seen.
Richmond is again like its ancient enemy, Boston, in the wealth of its historical associations, and I know of no city which gives the respectful heed to its own history that Richmond does, and no State which in this matter equals the State of Virginia. If Richmond was the center of the South during the Civil War, Capitol Square was, as it is to-day, the center of that center. ”

“ Those wars through which Richmond has lived are but distressing landmarks on the long trail our country has traveled. Her contribution has been equally as great in times of peace. In fact, probably her greatest contribution has been her way of life—a way based on the belief that the best of the old must be kept and adapted to fit in with the best of the new. The city has grown steadily ”

“ My mental occupation on the road was to calculate how many hill-tops I should climb before I beheld Riversley. The Sunday bells sounded homely from village to village as soon as I was convinced that I heard no bells summoning boarders to Rippenger's school. The shops in the villages continued shut; however, I told the girl they should pay me for it next day, and we had an interesting topic in discussing as to the various things we would buy. She was for bright ribands and draper's stuff, I for pastry and letter-paper. The smell of people's dinners united our appetites. ”

“ One hill alone, the highest in elevation, and about ten miles to the south-westward, was enveloped in a cloud, which just permitted a dim and hazy sight of a signal-post, a light-house, and an ancient chantry, built on its summit. ”

“ She was the capital of the Confederate States of America from 1861-65, the hope of the South and the despair of the North for those four long, bloody, heart-breaking years. The best commanders, the most immense armies the Federal government could furnish, hammered, hammered at Richmond, while the South’s bravest hearts and keenest minds stood with their backs often at the very walls of the city, but would not let them pass. No city in America ever has or ever will be again so completely the goal of the whole American people. ”

“ Richmond, the capital of Virginia, has about one hundred and thirty thousand population, and occupies a delightful situation. The James River flows around a grand curve from the northwest to the south, and pours over falls and rapids, which display many little cascades among a maze of diminutive islands. There are on the northern bank two or three large hills and several smaller ones, and Richmond is built upon these, it is said like Rome upon her seven hills. The State Capitol and a broad white penitentiary crown two of the highest. ”

“ The streets are sufficiently spacious, and regularly laid out, many of them being thrown up into long, sweeping lines of beauty by the hills on which they are built. The hills indeed are the charm of Richmond, overlooking the falls of the James, on the left bank of which it stands; giving you shining glimpses of the winding river up and down,—commanding views of the verdant valley and of the hilly country around,—and here, at the end of some pleasant street, falling off abruptly into the wild slopes of some romantic ravine. ”

“ Those years and the ones that followed taught Richmond something that as a city she will never forget—that courage can rise above everything. The incredible sacrifices of Richmond people in that time knit the citizens together with bonds that even time cannot sunder. ”

“ Today Richmond is a commercial, industrial, financial, medical and educational center of the South, and one of the fastest growing industrial centers in the nation. Richmond’s industry has been stable and resistant to wide fluctuations in business cycle.
Cities, after all, are but larger patterns of individual people. People who have been tested by time and tribulation and yet come out smiling, full of faith and courage, never fail to command our admiration. ”

“ Richmond was a snug little town, a capital of no great size even in a region then lacking in city growth, but for the time more was said about it and more eyes were turned upon it than upon any other place in the world. Many thousands of men were dying in an attempt to reach this small Virginia city, and many other thousands were dying in an equally strenuous effort to keep them away. ”

“ The site of Richmond is of great natural beauty. It is regularly laid out on a succession of low hills that rise from the northern bank of the James, the highest point reaching an altitude of 250 feet above the sea. The area is about 51⁄2 square miles. More than three-fourths of the total street mileage (120 miles) is paved, macadam and Belgian blocks being used in the more important thoroughfares. The parks and cemeteries of Richmond and its momunents are of especial interest. ”

“ Richmond in Saint Paul’s came out of church into the flower-perfumed sunlight. Here, men and women, they took up life again, and took it up with courage. And as the proper face of courage is a smiling one, so with these. Laughter, even, was heard in Richmond—Richmond scarred and battle-worn; Richmond, where was disease and crowding and wounds and starvation; Richmond ringed with earthworks; Richmond the city contended for; Richmond between her foes, Army of the Potomac threatening from the Wilderness, Army of the James, lesser but formidable, threatening from the river gate ”