Institution

Built in 1817 (after the fire of
1815), this architectural curiosity by an eccentric Irish bachelor Charles
O’Hara, is in the form of a trapezium, a four-sided figure with no two sides
parallel.&nbsp; Tradition has it that a West
Indian servant persuaded O’Hara that a house without right angles could not
harbor evil spirits. &nbsp;In fact, the
lintels of two doors appear to have been tilted deliberately, and mantels,
floors, and other elements converge on an imaginary vanishing point so that the
interior appears to be elongated.&nbsp; The
house is now privately owned and not open to the public.

The structure is Federal in style,
brick, three stories; gable roof with three bays.&nbsp; The façade is Flemish-bond.&nbsp; Entrance with fanlight is located in the
north bay.

Built in 1817 (after the fire of 1815), this architectural curiosity by an eccentric Irish bachelor Charles O’Hara, is in the form of a trapezium, a four-sided figure with no two sides parallel.  Tradition has it that a West Indian servant persuaded O’Hara that a house without right angles could not harbor evil spirits.  In fact, the lintels of two doors appear to have been tilted deliberately, and mantels, floors, and other elements converge on an imaginary vanishing point so that the interior appears to be elongated.  The house is now privately owned and not open to the public. 

The structure is Federal in style, brick, three stories; gable roof with three bays.  The façade is Flemish-bond.  Entrance with fanlight is located in the north bay.     


The Trapezium House

Director

This walking tour follows along the path of the historic sites of Petersburg. Starting with the Union Train Station and ending at Center Hill Mansion, each sites holds a unique past that creates the wonder city that is Petersburg.

The elegantly
detailed Colonial Revival structure was designed by the office of the Norfolk
&amp; Western Chief Engineer in Roanoke. Among its more striking features are
the pedimented windows with oak-leaf pulvinated friezes.

The station
remained in use as a railroad terminal until the formation of Amtrak in 1971,
when passenger service on the Norfolk and Western's tracks ended.&nbsp; Petersburg railway passengers are now served
at a station in Ettrick, Virginia, near Virginia State University.&nbsp; &nbsp;

Built in 1909-1910, the structure replaced an earlier structure that was damaged by a flood.  During its time as a train station, it was a central hub in Virginia up until 1971.  Located along the northeastern edge of the Petersburg Old Towne Historic District, Union Station is now owned by the City of Petersburg and serves as a venue for meetings and events.  


Union Station

As the fourth market to have stood on this site,&nbsp;City Market is part of a longer history of agriculture&nbsp;and commerce in the area. The first was built in 1787, when Petersburg was an important agricultural city in Virginia. In 1806,&nbsp;Robert Bolling, an affluent merchant, purchased the property and intended it to remain a market well into the future.&nbsp;When the City of Petersburg acquired the property, they sought proposals for&nbsp;a new market building in 1878. City Council reviewed four plans before choosing a&nbsp;"handsome and imposing structure" designed by&nbsp;B.J. Black of Richmond. The octagonal structure, around 80 feet in diameter,&nbsp;served as the meat house, with twenty butcher stalls and a large refrigerator at the center.&nbsp;A 1878 article in the Petersburg&nbsp;Index-Appeal&nbsp;noted that&nbsp;"the meat stalls are so arranged that no one is more desirable than the others, but all possess equal advantages."&nbsp;Each butcher stall contained a marble countertop one inch thick.&nbsp;&nbsp;Outside the meat house, dozens of&nbsp;vendors and fishermen sold goods in a 70-foot long shed.&nbsp;A restaurant and an office space for clerks was also nearby.1 Octagonal structures like City Market are uncommon, though the design is&nbsp;found across the world in&nbsp;churches, barns, forts, halls, pavilions,&nbsp;lighthouses, libraries, schools, and government buildings.&nbsp;A few examples appeared in early America, such as&nbsp;Thomas Jefferson's Poplar Forest retreat house in Lynchburg and the Octagon House in D.C., where President James Madison&nbsp;escaped from the White House after it was torched by the British in the War of 1812. In the mid-nineteenth century, the octagonal house trend&nbsp;took off with amateur architect&nbsp;Orson Squire Fowler,&nbsp;whose 1848&nbsp;book&nbsp;argued&nbsp;that the octagon shape could provide residents with&nbsp;more space and better ventilation. With practical promises and curious design,&nbsp;octagonal houses&nbsp;throughout the country and in various architectural styles.&nbsp;Although&nbsp;the octagonal house never gained widespread use, other buildings, such as markets, continued using&nbsp;the design and took advantage of its possibilities.2 To recover from the Civil War,&nbsp;Petersburg industrialized and materials like cast iron&nbsp;were more readily available.&nbsp;City Market also shows these industrial influences. &nbsp;Iron was used on the tracks of eight sliding doors, grating for ventilation, support beams, latticework, and the ornate brackets supporting the metal canopy outside.&nbsp;The Appomattox Iron Works, also in the current Old Town Historic District, supplied some of the iron materials.3 City Market is still owned by the City of Petersburg. In 2017, it was briefly home to the Farmers Market Restaurant &amp; Bar. Petersburg residents and visitors can still enjoy fresh produce and homemade goods at another market,&nbsp;the River Street Market, located in the lot next door.&nbsp;

The City Market, also known as the Farmers Market, is an octagonal structure in Petersburg's Old Town Historic District. Completed in 1878, the building is important to the history of local commerce and architectural design. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1969.

City Market

This
Federal-style frame residence was built around 1794 by Erasmus Gill and was
later owned by George H. Jones, Mayor of Petersburg, in 1815-16.&nbsp; It takes its name from Archibald Graham
McIlwaine, a Petersburg industrialist and financier, who made it his residence
from 1831-78.&nbsp; The McIlwaine family lived
in the house until it was relocated to its present site.

In 1971 the McIlwaine House was scheduled for demolition by
the Virginia Department of Highways as part of a road project; however, in 1972
the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities acquired the structure
from the Commonwealth and moved the house eight blocks to the present Market
Square site, in a zoned historic preservation district established by the City of
Petersburg. For 37 years, the McIlwaine House
sat dormant as one of Petersburg’s unrestored historic treasures until restored
by its present owner Mr. Alexander C. (Sandy) Graham, Jr. &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;

A
fascinating feature is that the interior was made entirely of wood by highly
skilled craftsmen, with no plaster ornamentation used in the design.&nbsp; The current owner has replaced or repaired
damaged woodwork to replicate the missing original elements.&nbsp;

Another
discovery was the original paint color of the parlor wing (known as the
“Petersburg Room”).&nbsp; Under 20 coats of
white paint, a brilliant coral was found and has been recreated to restore the
room to its early grandeur.&nbsp; Also
discovered were the original faux-oak wainscoting below the chairrail and the
faux-marble on the baseboards.&nbsp; Paint
analysis was done by Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s paint conservator in
all rooms on the first floor, and the current paint colors match the original
colors. The basement was previously used as the City Visitor Center
and&nbsp;has been&nbsp;converted into a wine bar.&nbsp;

One
characteristic of the McIlwaine interior is the craftsman's or client's
preference for wood. There is no plaster, lead, or ceramic ornamentation in the
design. All these materials were readily available to the Petersburg craftsmen
but there was a conscious preference for the chisel, gouge and plane. Throughout
the main block the woodwork consists of simple but elegant late Adam style
moldings. The 20 x 22 foot parlor in the 1 1/2-story wing is embellished with
sophisticated moldings and carvings in linear geometric Adam style. On the
north wall the chimney piece is flanked on either side by segmental arches with
keystones. The arches spring from fluted pilasters and half-round stop - fluted
colonettes . The undersides of the arches are reeded and have repeating
circular patterns . The cornice consists of crown molding over fret and reeded
patterns. The single entrance door architecture consists of stop-fluted
pilasters beneath carved acanthus leaves which are modeled more like tobacco
leaves.

The McIlwaine House dates back to 1794 and is the finest surviving example of Petersburg's early 19th century wooden domestic architecture. The home's general configuration, with high English basement and vertical mass, was obviously thought appropriate for the new men of substance and authority who initiated the industrialization of 19th century America. The three bay 2 1/2-story frame Federal structure consists of a central block with a single 1 1/2story wing on the north side, opening into a side hall passage running from front to rear. The house and wing have A roofs and beaded weatherboarding. The entrance porch is covered by a pediment with modillion cornice and Doric columnns. The house and wing have modillion cornices. The McIlwaine House is on the National Register of Historic Places and is a Virginia Historic Landmark. The home isprivately owned, occasionally open to the public for special events, and available for event rental.  

The McIlwaine House

At the turn of the nineteenth century,&nbsp;Petersburg was a prosperous center of commerce in Virginia. Large warehouses packaged tobacco and prepared it for export. This&nbsp;laborious task was done by hand by enslaved people,&nbsp;who comprised about half the population in Petersburg at the time.&nbsp;Slaves&nbsp;were also&nbsp;a profitable&nbsp;commodity that local business people&nbsp;traded, purchased, and rented to work in urban factories or rural plantations.&nbsp;The city served as a "depot" for imported supplies distributed throughout the South.&nbsp;Such conditions made Petersburg an attractive city for Nathaniel Friend, Jr., an import-export&nbsp;merchant and owner of the White Hall Plantation in Prince George County.&nbsp;Friend arrived in Petersburg around 1808, and&nbsp;specialized in understanding market demands for certain goods, both domestically and internationally.1 By 1815, Petersburg was Virginia's third largest city. That year,&nbsp;a "great fire" swept through downtown&nbsp;Petersburg, destroying nearly two-thirds of the city.&nbsp;As part of broad,&nbsp;ambitious&nbsp;efforts to rebuild, Friend constructed a brick&nbsp;house&nbsp;along Bollingbrook Street with a&nbsp;two-story outdoor&nbsp;kitchen&nbsp;and&nbsp;smokehouse in the backyard. Today, only the house stands.&nbsp;The&nbsp;National Register of Historic Places nomination writers called the Nathaniel Friend House&nbsp;"an outstanding example of Federal architecture," a style&nbsp;that flourished after the American Revolution. The&nbsp;Federal style's clean lines, symmetry, and rich brickwork helped characterize&nbsp;the young nation's urban landscape&nbsp;as classic and mature. Another Federal style building,&nbsp;<a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://theclio.com/web/entry?id=45487">Farmers Bank</a>,&nbsp;was built next door to the Nathaniel Friend House in&nbsp;1817. Together, these buildings evoke&nbsp;the Federal architectural style popular&nbsp;in Petersburg in the early nineteenth century.2 The house stayed in the Friend family for around 100 years until it was passed through several hands. The first floor housed a number of shops over the years, including a general store and&nbsp;shoe repair shop. In the mid-twentieth century, Frank and Susie Hudson owned a battery and ignition shop on the first floor and resided in the top floors of the house. The house&nbsp;sat vacant for a while and, in 1968, was surveyed as part of an effort throughout Petersburg to document historic buildings.&nbsp;The Historic American Buildings Survey determined its condition "poor" but still retaining its&nbsp;architectural character. Then, the house, like Farmers Bank, was acquired by the Fort Henry Branch of the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, now known as Preservation Virginia, and restored as part of an effort in the late twentieth century to promote tourism.&nbsp;Currently, it is&nbsp;home to a restaurant and lounge. The Nathaniel Friend House serves a new commercial purpose as historic preservation and revitalization continue in downtown Petersburg.3

Built between 1815 and 1816, the Nathaniel Friend House is a historic home and commercial building in the Petersburg Old Town Historic District. It was built by merchant and plantation owner, Nathaniel Friend, Jr. With its notable residents and beautiful Federal architecture, the house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. 

Nathaniel Friend House

Farmers Bank of Petersburg&nbsp;opened during an important moment in the city's&nbsp;history. In July 1815, a&nbsp;fire&nbsp;devastated two-thirds of Petersburg and brought the local&nbsp;economy to a halt. To revive its former&nbsp;prosperity,&nbsp;Petersburg constructed 300 brick buildings over the next two years. Farmers Bank of Petersburg was one of those buildings. The Farmers Bank of Virginia opened the Petersburg branch in 1817 on&nbsp;Bollingbrook Street, once Petersburg's&nbsp;main thoroughfare and commercial center.1 In the early nineteenth century, the largest&nbsp;Virginian banks were chartered by the state. In 1812,&nbsp;the founders of&nbsp;Farmers Bank of Virginia encouraged&nbsp;the state legislature to pass an act&nbsp;establishing their main office in Richmond&nbsp;and&nbsp;branches throughout Virginia.&nbsp;A&nbsp;bank branch like Farmers Bank of Petersburg functioned more independently than they do today. Branches circulated their own notes&nbsp;and stored the money standard within the building, rather than at the main office.&nbsp;This allowed the branch to fully serve its community. Branches also&nbsp;kept&nbsp;strict records of proceedings and&nbsp;debts under the state system, which&nbsp;required banks to be inspected&nbsp;by stockholders&nbsp;and provide annual&nbsp;statements for the legislature. For most of its history, this is how Farmers Bank of Petersburg operated.&nbsp;Banking in Virginia flourished&nbsp;into the 1850s, and Petersburg welcomed two new banks, the Exchange Bank and Bank of Virginia. Like many businesses in this time, the bankers and their families at Farmers Bank&nbsp;lived on the floors above the street-level&nbsp;commercial space.&nbsp;Additionally, the bank grounds included four brick outbuildings: a kitchen, smokehouse, a guard house, and stable and&nbsp;carriage house.2 The 1860s saw two major challenges to the old banking system: the National Bank Act of 1863, which established a federal bank and taxed state notes, and the end of the&nbsp;Civil War, which compelled economic recovery. Farmers Bank of Petersburg's investment in Confederate bonds caused it to go bankrupt.&nbsp;Virginia liquidated its&nbsp;state banks in 1866, and the Farmers Bank of Petersburg was sold and its business&nbsp;accounts&nbsp;settled. In June 1867,&nbsp;John P. Branch, a merchant turned banker,&nbsp;purchased the lot for his private firm,&nbsp;Thomas Branch and Sons. Private banks, or "free banks," had existed as long as the state banks had, slipping through legal loopholes and becoming too pervasive to close without economic fallout.&nbsp;As a private bank, Thomas Branch and Sons&nbsp;accepted deposits, did not circulate its own notes, and worked primarily with young entrepreneurs. John Branch&nbsp;then sold the property&nbsp;to John O'Connor, who established a grocery and liquor store. Subsequently, the building was used as a private residence until given to the Fort Henry Branch of the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, now known as Preservation Virginia, in the 1960s. After the Fort Henry Branch closed, the group transformed into&nbsp;The Friends of the Historic Farmers Bank, now the bank's primary stewards.3 Farmers Bank has remained standing as fires and urban renewal took much of Petersburg's early nineteenth century buildings. It is a beautiful example&nbsp;Federal architecture. The building has&nbsp;a&nbsp;boxy, symmetrical&nbsp;structure with windows across the facade. The fanlights above the doors easily identify&nbsp;the Federal style. Preservation Virginia restored Farmers Bank to its 1820s appearance. This meant undoing alterations, such as removing the&nbsp;storefront and rehabilitating the front brick&nbsp;wall. Without original blueprints or photographs, researchers&nbsp;used close examination of the building and Federal buildings of this period to determine its historic look.&nbsp;Inside, visitors can see&nbsp;the&nbsp;reconstructed "strong room," a fireproof space with a trapdoor leading to the&nbsp;basement vault below. The original bank safe is also&nbsp;an impressive artifact on exhibit.&nbsp;Preservation Virginia made use of the grounds, reconstructing the kitchen and adding an herb garden.4 Historic Farmers Bank is a unique remnant&nbsp;of&nbsp;Petersburg's past and the history of banking in the United States. As a museum and visitors center, it now educates and guides visitors to discover the past around them.

Established in 1817, Farmers Bank of Petersburg is among the oldest bank buildings in the United States. The building is now home to a museum that interprets the history of nineteenth century banking and the connection between financial institutions and the history of American commerce. The building is also home to the Petersburg Visitors Center which offers information about nearby historical landmarks, museums, and cultural events. Given the building's historical significance and its beautiful Federal architecture, Farmers Bank was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. The building continues to serve an important role as the anchor of Peterburg's Old Town Historic District.

Historic Farmers Bank

In 1844, she lived at 314 North Sycamore Street while a
slave to the Hugh A. Garland family who had been forced to move to rental
quarters due to major debts.&nbsp; It is
reported that “[I]f Lizzy ever experienced something like happiness as a slave,
it was with the Garlands.” (Fleischner, p. 120).&nbsp; Garland never recovered from financial
difficulties and set out for St. Louis in late 1846 where he set up a small law
practice.&nbsp; There, Lizzy began to sew for
well-to-do women, creating a profitable enterprise.&nbsp; She purchased her and her son’s freedom in
1855.&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;

&nbsp;

During her White House years, Keckley organized relief and
educational programs for emancipated slaves with the help of Frederick
Douglass. Her only son enlisted in the U.S. Army and was killed at the battle
of Wilson's Creek, Missouri.

&nbsp;

Keckley published her autobiography, Behind the Scenes, Or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White
House, three years after Lincoln's assassination. Although Keckley
apparently thought her revealing book would help restore her former employer's
reputation, it had the opposite effect, and Mrs. Lincoln felt betrayed by the
woman she described as "my best living friend." The two women never
spoke again, and Keckley's successful dressmaking business declined. She died
in Washington in 1907 at the National Home for Destitute Colored Women and
Children.

Born a slave in Dinwiddie County, Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley (1818–1907) purchased her freedom in 1855 and supported herself as a seamstress, first in St. Louis and then in Washington, D.C. Her skills brought her to the attention of Mary Todd Lincoln, who hired Keckley in 1861. She became Mary Lincoln's favorite dressmaker and later her personal companion, confidante, and traveling companion. It was a remarkable friendship between two very different women, but it ended with the publication of Keckley's memoir in 1868.

Elizabeth Keckley Residence in 1844 

In the 1870s,&nbsp;Esek Steere moved from&nbsp;Oswego County, New York, to Petersburg, Virginia, to&nbsp;establish an iron foundry that would serve the area's thriving agriculture.&nbsp;&nbsp;His small foundry and machine shop opened&nbsp;across the street from its present location. In 1899, Steere and his son, Albert, purchased more spacious properties across the street to house the&nbsp;ironworks. They&nbsp;specialized in manufacturing sawmill and farm machinery, plows, and hand tools. The family also received patents for peanut harvesting machines in 1913 and 1934, which were manufactured at the Appomattox Iron Works and&nbsp;sold throughout the South. A 1958 newspaper article highlighting the Appomattox Iron Works&nbsp;noted the business "never missed a payroll" even in hard times and advertised "stove-castings, hand irons, cemetery vases, skillets, fireplace ovens, and dumbbells" in its storefront window.1 The nine buildings of the&nbsp;Appomattox Iron Works&nbsp;consist of a&nbsp;machine shop, mill store, supply room, pipe shop, the carpenter's shop and pattern shop, core room, foundry building, Blacksmith's shop, and ruins of a stable.2 According to the National Register nomination, these structures provide&nbsp;"an outstanding record of antebellum iron&nbsp;manufacturing in the South."3&nbsp; The foundry, in a large brick building from 1850, was where workers&nbsp;extracted&nbsp;raw metals and formed them into&nbsp;something new. Although non-ferrous metals like brass could be melted in an indoor furnace, iron smelting took place in a coke-fueled&nbsp;cupola&nbsp;outdoors, due to the high level of&nbsp;heat released in the smelting&nbsp;process. Neighboring buildings, such as the Blacksmith shop,&nbsp;helped customize and finish&nbsp;metal products, or ensured that the machines, equipment, and processes were running smoothly.4&nbsp;&nbsp; The most eye-catching structure may be the machine shop, which still bears the faded painted sign on its brick facade. Built in 1815, it was both a commercial building and a residence. Interestingly, however, it is not built in the usual way. While it was common for residents to live on the floor above the shop, the Appomattox machine shop residents lived in apartments attached to&nbsp;the rear of the building. On the street side, the first floor contained machines to drill, press, grind, and shape materials from the foundry,&nbsp;while&nbsp;the upper two floors contained offices and storage. The machine shop&nbsp;is also a notable example of Federal architecture used in an early American&nbsp;commercial property. It is square and symmetrical, with tall, double-hung windows topped with a wooden cornice.5&nbsp;&nbsp; The Appomattox Iron Works remained in the Steere family for multiple generations, which contributed to its preservation. It is now part of the Old Towne Historic District in Petersburg and sits among a variety of commercial buildings.&nbsp;The company records&nbsp;of the Appomattox Iron Works are held by the Library of Virginia in Richmond.6

Appomattox Iron Works is a complex of nine structures that produced agricultural and industrial products in downtown Petersburg, Virginia. The foundry business opened in 1872 and moved to the current location in 1899. The foundry operated until 1946, the machine shop until 1952, and the mill and supply store until 1972. In 1976, the Appomattox Iron Works complex was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and the Virginia Landmarks Register.

Appomattox Iron Works

In response to
the 1644 Indian massacre, the Virginia General Assembly in March1646 directed
that Fort Henry be built at the falls of the "Appomattocke River" to
defend English settlers south of the James River. Shortly thereafter, the
Indians and the Virginia colony signed a peace treaty. In October1646 the
Assembly declared Captain Abraham Wood caretaker of the fort. The current Peter
Jones Trading Station site was within the tract of land occupied by the fort.The first
documentary evidence of the existence of this building is in the 1810 land tax
book. In James Durell's 1816 insurance policy, he insured a stone lumber house
for $3000. The dimensions of this building were 54 by 28 feet, the same
dimensions as the current structure. In 1825, an extant document referred to
this structure as the Old Magazine. &nbsp;It
is entirely possible that this structure housed almost all of the gunpowder in
the city from 1785-1791.

Fort Henry was
extremely important to early colonial exploration. Between 1650 and 1674 four
major explorations ended at Fort Henry, and three left from this site. Fort
Henry was the southwest frontier in Virginia, and the last safe refuge for the
English settlers in this area. The only places where pre-1674 English
explorations began east of the Mississippi River were Jamestown, Boston,
Charleston, Albany, the western Pennsylvania frontier, and Fort Henry
{Petersburg). These explorations achieved many milestones, including the first
English explorers to cross the Appalachian Mountains and the mid-18th century
justification for the English claim to the Ohio Valley.

By 1675,
Abraham Wood and his son-in-law Peter Jones owned and operated a major trading
operation from this site. Fort Henry "became the center of a vast Indian
trade with the hinterland." In the 1730s when William Byrd, II planned the
settlements at the falls of the James and Appomattox Rivers, he named the latter
city Petersburg in honor of Peter Jones. The building on this site has served
many purposes over the years including a trading station, magazine, prison
during the Civil War, carpentry or cabinet shop, box factory, and tobacco
stemmery. A fire in 1980 destroyed a considerable portion of the building,
which increases the difficulty of authoritatively determining its date of
construction. Approximately two-thirds of the stonewalls and a chimney with two
fireplaces remain.

Traditionally this stone structure has been thought to date back to c. 1665 as part of the Peter Jones Trading Station, and therefore the oldest building in Petersburg. Also called the Stone Lumber House, this property was part of the original Fort Henry tract owned by Abraham Wood and Peter Jones, his son-in-law, in the 17th century. It is located at the most historic intersection of Old and Market Streets, just south of the Appomattox River.  Fort Henry served an important role in early colonial exploration and trade with the Indians. 

Peter Jones Trading Station

When Petersburg was incorporated as a town in 1784, the Virginia
General Assembly established the tavern as a meeting place of the courts and
the common council.&nbsp; Petersburg’s first
local election was held here in the late 1700’s.&nbsp; From 1781 to 1790, the Golden Ball Tavern was
one of the city's best-known hostelries.&nbsp;
The property, which housed a building as well as the tavern, had
different owners through time. It now belongs to the Historic Petersburg
Foundation Inc. 

It is believed that the original tavern enlarged by 1820, burned or
torn down in the 1850s and a bigger tavern built in its place.&nbsp; It was of frame construction, 1 ½ stories
above a high stone basement, with gabled dormers on the roof.&nbsp; After the Civil War it was used for a number
of retail ventures.&nbsp; The building was
razed in 1944 and began to be used as a parking lot.&nbsp; 

Recent archaeological study has unearthed Indian pottery that dates
back to the 1400s.&nbsp; Among the other
artifacts found were two ceramic pieces that may have once formed a soap dish
from the early 1900s, pieces of English and other European pottery.&nbsp;

Located at the southeast corner of Grove Avenue and North Market Streets, the Golden Ball Tavern was reportedly built about 1750. The original tavern included a dwelling house which was added in 1764 by Richard Hanson, a prosperous tobacco merchant and fervent Loyalist who fled Virginia in 1776. In 1781, British troops occupied the city and the officers were quartered at the tavern. The tavern was expanded in the 1820s and rebuilt after it was destroyed by fire in 1850. The structure was razed in 1944 to create room for a parking lot. Today, the land where the historic tavern stood is owned by the Historic Petersburg Foundation, Inc. 

Golden Ball Tavern (1750-1944)

Smith’s Row takes its name from John H. Smith, an Irishman,
who purchased the ground on which the house stands in 1834 and was built
between 1834 and 1838.&nbsp; Smith, a veteran
of the Petersburg Volunteers in the War of 1812, was a substantial stockholder
in railroad companies and had substantial investments in various manufacturing
enterprises in Petersburg.&nbsp; Among the
residents of Smith’s Row have been Pleasants C. Osborne, a cashier of the
Petersburg Branch of the Farmers Bank and Charles Jackson Pannill who in 1906
sent the first wireless message across the Atlantic Ocean from Massachusetts to
Scotland.&nbsp; 

May’s Row takes its name from its builder David May, a
prominent attorney described by Rev. Philip Slaughter as “counsellor of the
widow, the orphan, and the poor, and peacemaker.” He was married to the
daughter of John Pegram, major-general with the Virginia forces in the War of
1812 and Member of Congress.&nbsp; Three of
his sons gave their lives during the Civil War, two of them at the second
Battle of Manassas.&nbsp; 

High Street lies in the area annexed to Petersburg in the
late 18th century. Virtually every late 18th- and early 19th-century style of
architecture popular in the United States is represented in the district.
Noteworthy examples include the Strachan-Harrison house (302 Cross Street, mid-
to late 18th century), the John F. Clay house (244 High Street, Federal, ca.
1810), six late Georgian/early Federal houses on High Street (265, 311, 320,
416, 545, and 614), and a fine collection of 1 ½ -story worker houses dating to
the first quarter of the 19th century. A four-block area on High Street
contains a rich mixture of 19th-century architecture including representatives
of late Georgian, Federal, Greek Revival, Italianate, Second Empire, Romanesque
Revival, Queen Anne, and Colonial/Georgian Revival styles.

&nbsp;

High Street exhibits a wide variety of 19th-century architectural styles. Viewed from Market Street, on the north side of High Street are May’s Row (## 217, 219, 221 and 223) and Smith’s Row (##209, 211, and 215).  Smith’s row is a well detailed example of Federal townhouses.  May’s Row is a well detailed example of Italianate style Houses.  On the south side of High Street is Baltimore Row (## 230, 232, 235, 236 and 238), built in 1870 on the site of the first Second Presbyterian Church which had been organized in 1841.  A great many more residences can be found on High Street.   

High Street Residences

The Exchange Building, built between 1839 and 1941,&nbsp;may be one of the most impressive commercial buildings in Petersburg. Its grandeur reflects financial capabilities of its&nbsp;founders, many of whom&nbsp;grew wealthy&nbsp;in the Virginian&nbsp;tobacco industry. &nbsp;In 1839, a group of planters, merchants, and bankers sent a request to&nbsp;the State of Virginia to establish a new bank in Petersburg. One of them was David Dunlop, previously the director of&nbsp;<a href="https://theclio.com/web/entry?id=45488" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Farmers Bank</a>&nbsp;on Bollingbrook Street.&nbsp;Dunlop&nbsp;owned one of the most profitable tobacco factories in Petersburg at the time,&nbsp;where&nbsp;hundreds of slaves packed tobacco for shipping to American and foreign markets.1 Tobacco was, according to historian L. Diane Barnes, the "backbone of the economy in Petersburg" in the early to mid nineteenth century.2&nbsp;As the flourishing&nbsp;economy supported internal improvements in Petersburg, the Exchange Building was built. The Exchange Building is best distinguished by its Greek Revival architecture. Outside, tall, imposing&nbsp;columnns support a portico, or roof covering a porch. Through the front doors, the space opens into a circular, domed room. These features harken back to architecture found in temples of ancient Greece, the birthplace of democracy.&nbsp;In the United States,&nbsp;Greek Revival architecture was used in government buildings, banks, and courthouses,&nbsp;a popular way to identify&nbsp;the "temples" of American ideals&nbsp;in the mid-nineteenth century.&nbsp;Greek Revival&nbsp;was first&nbsp;brought to the United States&nbsp;by Benjamin Henry Latrobe, one of the&nbsp;architects of the <a href="https://theclio.com/web/entry?id=20279" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Capitol</a> in Washington, D.C.3 Over time, the&nbsp;Exchange Building served a number of purposes for downtown Petersburg. It functioned as a bank, a commodities wholesaler for tobacco, cotton, and grain, an office space for lawyers, newspapers, and police, a series of shops, and a Juvenile and Domestic Court. One story from the Exchange Building is of Henry Elebeck, a free man of color&nbsp;who owned a barber shop in the building.&nbsp;Situated&nbsp;in Petersburg's main commercial district, Elebeck's business strategically tapped into a market of wealthy visitors conducting business in&nbsp;the Exchange Building. At the same time, white citizens found barbering an undesirable trade, and free men of color, like Elebeck, filled this niche.&nbsp;As L. Diane Barnes wrote, "In a region where dark skin designated servitude and bondage, free African Americans challenged the expectations of white society."4&nbsp;The Exchange Building, built by tobacco planters and occupied by diverse occupations, reveals a complex history of commerce in Petersburg. Since the 1970s,&nbsp;the Exchange Building has been&nbsp;home to&nbsp;the Siege Museum, which&nbsp;interprets the history of civilian life in the Civil War. As the second largest city in Virginia during the Civil War,&nbsp;Petersburg endured&nbsp;efforts to cut off supply lines and capture the city. Though not formally a siege, the ten months of fighting is often called the Siege of Petersburg.&nbsp;In 1864, it was at the Exchange Building that militiamen were called to fight in the First Battle of Petersburg, also known as the&nbsp;Battle of Old Men and Young Boys. The&nbsp;museum looks at how civilians lived their lives&nbsp;at the center of these conflicts.5&nbsp;Today, the museum preserves these stories and the beautiful building that witnessed it.

The Exchange Building in Petersburg's Old Town Historic District was completed in 1841 and housed a Merchants Exchange bank. Over the years, its purpose and use has changed, though its striking Greek Revival architecture has remained unaltered. Today, the Exchange Building is home to the Siege Museum, which provides a civilian perspective on the Civil War in Petersburg. The Exchange Building is the only National Historic Landmark in the City of Petersburg and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1969. 

Exchange Building and Petersburg Siege Museum 

Hiram Haines was a Petersburg newspaper editor, poet and
friend of Edgar Allen Poe’s.

In 1829, he took over the “restorative” at 12 West Bank
Street, and moved his wife and six children into the adjacent 16 West Bank
Street.&nbsp; Together, they operated the coffee
house/ restorative from 1829 until late in 1836, when he sold it.

Petersburg was a bustling commercial center on the
Appomattox River when Poe visited in 1836. The once-fancy upstairs suite has remained largely untouched
since the building opened; there is no electricity or heat, though the elegance
of its woodwork and other architectural trappings remain evident.&nbsp; It appears to have been repainted only once
in 200 years.&nbsp; Confederate soldiers
reportedly were holed up in the space during the Siege of Petersburg.

The building dates to 1814.  Although not well documented, Poe is reported to have honeymooned there with his child bride Virginia Clemm, staying in a second-floor suite above his friend’s coffee shop.  

Hiram Haynes Coffee House

After
a design by Calvin Pollard of New York, the structure is best described as Classical
Revival with Greek and Roman detailing. Pollard was the architect of many
prominent buildings including mid-nineteenth century New York townhouses, the National
Theatre in New York (1833), and St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Petersburg, Virginia,
constructed in 1838 and burned in 1854.&nbsp;
His design improvisations and combinations of different classic motifs
on the exterior of the building are unique in the area.

&nbsp;

The
clock and bell tower combination and location is most interesting
architecturally and the hung plaster ceiling in the second floor courtroom is
noteworthy.&nbsp; The tower was not
anticipated in the original design and is positioned in an unusual manner on
the plan. Its graceful double-tiered bell and clock tower looms high above the
ridgeline of the facade's pediment. Parts of the tower are modelled, in a
modified octagonal form, after the choragic Monument of Lysicrates in Athens
and employing the Ionic and Tower of the Winds orders. Generally, when a tower
was built on a temple type building, the tower base projected onto the portico,
giving the effect of supporting the tower. Being set back from the pediment,
the Courthouse tower appears to be supported by, the roof. It is surmounted by
four circular clock faces and a symbolic figure holding the scales of justice.

&nbsp;

As
there are no high-rise structures in its immediate vicinity, the building still
dominates the Petersburg skyline as it was intended to do.&nbsp; Courthouse Avenue lies approximately 100'
from the portico of the building. At this point, there are large stone pillared
gates through which one passes to get to the series of steps that lead up to
the embankment directly in front of the portico.&nbsp; There are two small nineteenth century brick
structures located to the south and southwest of the Courthouse that serve as
Sheriff’s offices.

The Courthouse, constructed between 1838-1840, is a Classical Revival structure that is of both architectural and historical importance to the City of Petersburg and to the State of Virginia. The Petersburg Courthouse houses one of the five remaining hustings courts in Virginia and, for that matter, in the entire United States.  Historically, the courthouse played a major role during the 1864-1865 Siege of Petersburg. Union troops used the tower for a sighting mark and spared the structure from the bombardment. Both sides relied upon the clock in the tower as an accurate timepiece. 

Petersburg Hustings Courthouse

In 1850, with a
population of 14,010, Petersburg became the third independent city in
Virginia.&nbsp; It was during the 1850’s that the
city's tobacco factories expanded, with wholesale and commission houses flourishing.&nbsp; Cotton factories and iron foundries also
boomed at this time. Prosperity was reflected in changes in the municipal
streetscape, resulting from a surge of building activity.&nbsp; The city's economic prosperity was to be
halted by the Civil War.

The Customs
House and Post Office served as a federal building for only a short period, becoming
the headquarters of the Confederate Army for the duration of the conflict. During
the Siege of Petersburg, the building was used as a signal station, to view the
fighting on the city's eastern front. On April 3, 1865, the day of the city's surrender,
the Second Michigan Sharpshooters raised the U.S. flag over the building, bringing
an end to one of the longest battles of the war.

In 1870, the
federal government appropriated $10,000 for repairs and improvements to the
building; further work on the building occurred between 1908-1910, when a
three-bay addition was added to the building's south elevation. The addition
provided for an extensive remodeling of the interior but was most sympathetic
to the exterior, which it duplicated. By 1936, the post Office was moved to
Franklin Street, and in 1938 the building became the Petersburg City Hall, a
function it continues to serve.

Situated on the
corner of Tabb and Union Streets, the Petersburg City Hall is a rectangular (46
' x 100’), three-story building, eight bays by three bays, three bays having
been added to the south wall in 1908. The building is faced with Dinwiddie granite
over brick core walls and is exemplary of the Italian Renaissance Revival style,
as designed by federal architect Ammi B. Young.

The front
(west) entrance is approached by four stone steps leading to a granite stoop at
the front entry. The stoop projects 4 feet from the wall and is flanked on each
side by a 10-foot, cast-iron lamp pole with a glass-enclosed, cast-iron lamp on
the top.&nbsp; The north entry is similarly approached
and is also flanked by cast-iron lanterns, which are attached to the wall. The
front (west) entrance is comprised of two single doors, each with twelve
lights. Above each door is an arched transom of six lights blocked off by
plywood paneling. The north exterior entrance consists of a double doorway with
a six-light, arched transom above the entry. According to the original specifications
and early photographs, several alterations have been made to the exterior&nbsp;doors. The
north elevation originally consisted of three double doors, which have been replaced
with windows.

All the windows
are identical for each respective floor. The first-floor windows are treated as
an arcade and are single-hung with only the bottom sash moveable, each total
window being four lights by five high. The top of the window is framed in a stone
arch, terminating at a molded spring projecting belt course which extends the perimeter
of the building. The second-story windows are double-hung, 6 x 6 sash. A stone
pediment caps each window; the jambs and sills are of molded stone. Below each sill
are two scrolled iron brackets, also found on the third floor. The third-floor windows
are similar to the second but lack the pediments.&nbsp; A large stone denticulated cornice extends
the entire perimeter of the building, broken by four chimneys - two on the
front and two on the rear. The building is covered by a small hipped roof.

The Petersburg City Hall stands as a superb example of mid-19th-century Revival architecture. Constructed between the years 1856-1859, to serve as the U.S. Customs House and Post Office the building, it was designed by Ammi B. Young, then Supervising Architect of the U. S. Treasury Department. The dignified granite "palazzo" is a commanding symbol of both federal authority in architecture and the city's antebellum economic prosperity.  

Petersburg City Hall 

The facade of St. Paul's Church faces east. It is dominated
by a three-story entrance tower. The first stage of the tower. The first stage
of the tower contains the main entrance which consists of a double-door, equilateral-arch opening executed in stone.
Above the door is a lancet-arch opening with a stained-glass window. The
tower's first story has corner buttresses. The second stage of the tower is marked by arch openings containing twin
lancet windows. The third stage consists
of a spire covered with slate shingles.The tower is flanked on the first story by crenelated brick
wings each pierced by lancet-arch openings containing stained glass. Each wing
has a side entrance. The building's north and south elevations have a single
free-standing buttress off each of the side entrance wings. Each elevation has
five lancet-arch openings with stained-glass windows.&nbsp; The openings are flanked by clasping
buttresses. The rear (west) elevation has a large equilateral-arch opening
containing a stained-glass window. The rear elevation has five-course
American-bond brick. The gable roof is covered with slate shingles.The interior of St. Paul's Church is richly decorated, the
scheme largely dating to renovations completed in 1903. At this time the
chancel was enlarged and a baptistry added to the space south of the altar.
Before the 1903 enlargement the chancel contained tromp l'oeil painting which
framed the space with columnns and created the illusion of an apse. As a result
of the remodeling the chancel was extended to the west and a wood and painted
reredos installed on the west wall together with a large arched opening
containing a stained-glass window. Carved wood paneling further embellished the
space. Exposed timber trusses found in the original interior were extended into
the chancel. Most of the present furniture dates to the 1903 remodeling.A gallery runs along the south, east, and north walls
supported by composite capitals on slender posts. The pews date to the late 19th century. The present
stained-glass windows date from the late 19th to the early 20th century and
most probably replaced leaded-glass lights.&nbsp;The parish of
St. Paul's Church descended from Bristol Parish. Formed in 1662, the original parish
was located on either side of the Appomattox River and encompassed what is
today the City of Petersburg and Dinwiddie County. According to Bishop William Meade's,
Old Churches, Ministers and Families of Virginia, St. Paul's Church was founded
in 1802 to serve, "the increasing prosperity and numbers of
Petersburg." Its first edifice stood near the courthouse and served the
growing congregation until 1839 when a larger church was erected on a new site. This second building burned in
February,1854.&nbsp; The cornerstone of this
third edifice was laid in full masonic ceremony on June 20th, 1855. The
church was dedicated on May 19, 1857 with Bishop William Meade presiding.&nbsp;

St. Paul's Church was constructed between 1855-57 in the Gothic style after the plans and supervision of the Baltimore architects Niernsee and Neilson. Modifications were made to the building in 1903 when the chancel was enlarged and in 1922 when a Parish House was built adjacent to the structure. The Rectory, built in ca. 1860, stands to the north of the church. One of the most famous communicants of St. Paul's was General Robert E. Lee who worshiped at the church during the Siege of Petersburg in 1864-65. Lee's son, W.H.F. Lee was married in the church in 1867. 

St. Paul's Episcopal Church

Centre Hill Mansion may be best known for its beautiful architecture, which is the compilation of work by&nbsp;three of the property's owners. The first owner,&nbsp;Robert Bolling IV, built the mansion between 1818 and 1823. After serving as a&nbsp;cavalry&nbsp;captain in Revolutionary War, Bolling made his fortune in tobacco, building several warehouses along the Appomattox River in Petersburg. &nbsp;Bolling was the descendent of some of America's earliest settlers, including Robert Bolling of England and Jane Rolfe, the granddaughter of Pocahontas and John Rolfe.&nbsp;He built a Federal style mansion atop a scenic hill in Petersburg. The symmetrical, rectangular shape and rows of windows are typical of the style named for the new government and nation.&nbsp;Bolling's son, Robert Buckner Bolling, added Greek Revival elements in 1850. While Federal architecture was partly inspired by ancient homes, Greek Revival's grand columnns made a bolder statement. Then, in 1901, attorney Charles Hall Davis&nbsp;initiated restorations of the house and landscaped grounds.1 The house has welcomed a number of famous visitors. The Bollings&nbsp;first hosted President John Tyler.&nbsp;During the Civil War, it&nbsp;served as a headquarters for both Confederate and Union leadership. In 1864, Confederate General James Longstreet occupied Centre Hill. Following the Third Battle of Petersburg in April 1865, which took place on the current <a href="https://theclio.com/web/entry?id=4487" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Pamplin Historical Park</a> property outside of the city,&nbsp;ten months of entrenched warfare ended. The&nbsp;city of Petersburg fell and Union&nbsp;Major General G.L. Hartsuff made his headquarters at&nbsp;Centre Hill.&nbsp;Shortly before the Confederate surrender at <a href="https://www.theclio.com/web/entry?id=25239" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Appomattox</a>,&nbsp;Abraham Lincoln visited Centre Hill&nbsp;to speak with Hartsuff and his soldiers.&nbsp;Less than a week later,&nbsp;Lincoln was shot at <a href="https://theclio.com/web/entry?id=15220" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Ford's Theatre</a> in Washington, D.C., and died on April 15.2 Decades later, the&nbsp;Civil War remained palpable. Centre Hill played a small role in larger stories of memorializing the conflict and segregation of the Jim Crow era.&nbsp;On May 19,&nbsp;1909,&nbsp;President William Howard Taft visited Petersburg to&nbsp;dedicate a&nbsp;monument to Civil War General John F. Hartranft and his Pennsylvania troops. Afterward,&nbsp;Taft was an "honored guest" at a reception held at&nbsp;Centre Hill, which the Daily Press&nbsp;described as "one of the most beautiful old homes in all the Southland." In dedicating a monument to a Union soldier on former Confederate ground, Taft&nbsp;spoke of a "closer union of Northern and Southern hearts in a common love for the country."3&nbsp;Meanwhile, the crowds remained divided, as white families gathered and children sang patriotic songs on the Centre Hill lawn, while "on the streets beneath the wall surrounding the mansion grounds,&nbsp;colored residents were gathered in the thousands."4 A speech centered around unity to a segregated audience was part of what historian David Blight calls a "romantic, sentimentalized road to reunion" in the Jim Crow era.5 While the mansion has remained relatively unchanged since the nineteenth century, the grounds surrounding Centre Hill developed. Today, these grounds are part of the Centre Hill Historic District, comprising 81 architecturally significant houses. While a few&nbsp;houses remain standing from an&nbsp;1840s neighborhood, most were constructed after Charles Hall Davis sold the grounds to John H. Hayes's Centre Hill Company (later Centre Hill Building Corporation). Between 1914 and 1923,&nbsp;Hayes built a&nbsp;neighborhood with&nbsp;modest Colonial Revival, Bungalow, and American Foursquare&nbsp;houses. During World War I, Petersburg industry, and therefore its&nbsp;population, surged. To accommodate these new residents,&nbsp;new construction&nbsp;in the city rose by 450%.6&nbsp;The neighborhood surrounding Centre Hill is part of this larger story of Petersburg's growth. Today, Centre Hill Mansion is a museum belonging to the city of Petersburg. The mansion is restored and contains nineteenth and twentieth century furniture. The&nbsp;gardens were restored by the Garden Club of Virginia. With its beautiful architecture and grounds, Centre Hill has been featured in the PBS series&nbsp;Mercy Street and used in set design for&nbsp;Stephen Spielberg's&nbsp;Lincoln.7

Built between 1818 and 1823, Centre Hill Mansion is an historic mansion overlooking the Appomattox River that has been home to a Revolutionary War veteran, a plantation owner, and a several social and political leaders. The residence was used as both a Confederate and Union headquarters during the Civil War. Owing to the influence of the families that called Centre Hill home, three United States presidents have paid visits to the house. Centre Hill was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972 and is part of the Centre Hill Historic District. It is now a museum open for tours.

Petersburg Historical Sites Walking Tour

The Trapezium House

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context

Sources