Notes from R. A. Brock, Richmond, Virginia, As A Manufacturing and Trading
Center… (Richmond: Jones & Cook, 1880). A copy is at VSL.
p. 23 Says Libby Prison’s walls still covered with
prisoners’ names.
Says Castle Thunder “recently
destroyed by fire.” “It was last used, as it was before the war, as a tobacco
factory.”
p. 24 Says
“Castle Lightning, on Lumpkin’s alley, formerly a negro prison…was, during the
first year of the war, a place of confinement for political or state prisoners.”
Lists some of the internees, including Jno. Minor Botts and Franklin Stearns.
Capt. Alexander was the original commandant. [the prison he is talking about was
actually Castle Godwin]
Says that the Soldiers’ Home, a
large tobacco factory on the corner of Cary & 7th, was also used to
collar stray and AWOL soldiers roaming about town. Officer in charge there was
Lt. Benjamin Bates.
Says that Robertson Hospital was
“a long wooden building with high [this struck out in VSL copy and replaced in
ink with hip] roof, facetiously termed by its owner Noah’s Ark – the Judge
averring that in the event of another deluge, his home would soon right
itself by turning top downwards…” Has since been replaced by a block of brick
buildings.
p. 25
Provost Marshal’s office was on southwest corner of 10th and Broad.
It was “a long two story unsightly building of wood.” No longer standing.
p. 29 U.
S. Hotel built in 1817. Gives its history. Now used by the Baptists to train
missionaries. Has a library of 2500 volumes.
p. 35
Drewry’s Bluff now owned by Mr. William T. King. Anxious to sell it. Has a very
quotable paragraph about what a lovely showplace it could be in the right hands.
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