From the first clash of European and Native American cultures, the history of Richmond parallels the story of Virginia and the nation. Abundant land, natural resources and trade routes at the Falls of the James fueled the growth of Richmond from a trading post to a small town and eventually to a Southern city. As the nation’s frontier moved westward, Richmond evolved from a society based on agriculture and slave labor to an industrial, commercial and financial center. Riddled with contradictions, the history of Richmond remains a complex story of human enterprise and business development.
1606
King James I granted royal charter to the Virginia Company of London to settle colonists in North America; Captain John Smith and fleet of three ships set sail from London
1607
First permanent English settlement established at Jamestown; Captain Christopher Newport traveled up the James River to Powhatan Hill where he placed a cross inscribed “Jacobus Rex 1607”
1609
Expedition of 120 men from Jamestown first attempted to settle at the Falls of the James
1614
John Rolfe sent first marketable shipment of new type of tobacco to England
1619
Virginia’s first General Assembly convened in Jamestown; The first women and the first Africans arrived in Virginia
1622
In the Powhatan Uprising, widespread Indian attacks wiped out every English settlement except Jamestown
1624
King James revoked the Virginia Company of London’s charter and declared Virginia a royal colony
1634
Henrico County, consisting of present-day Henrico, Charles City, Powhatan, Chesterfield and Goochland Counties, was created
1644
Fort Charles, built at the Falls to guard against Indian attacks, was the first lasting settlement at the James River Falls
1646
Indian treaty ceded all territory below the Falls of the James to the English
1671
William Byrd I settled at the Falls
1676
Bacon’s Rebellion
1698
Capital moved from Jamestown to Williamsburg
1730
Warehouse Act, which required inspectors to grade tobacco at 40 different locations, led to development of a town at the Falls
1737
William Mayo laid out the original street plan for the town of Richmond
1741
St. John’s Anglican Church (Henrico Parish) built
1742
Richmond chartered as a town
1756-1763
French and Indian War
1767-1768
William Byrd III forced to sell lots (10,000 acres) in Richmond in lottery
1775
Patrick Henry delivered his “liberty or death” speech at the second Virginia Convention, held in St. John’s Church
1775-1783
Revolutionary War
1776
Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence
1780
State Capital moved from Williamsburg to Richmond; Richmond’s first newspaper, The Virginia Gazette and General Advertiser, established;
Richmond Baptist Church formed
1781
Richmond burned by British under the command of General Benedict Arnold
1782
Richmond incorporated as a city
1785
St. John’s Anglican congregation reorganized as an Episcopal Church;
James River Co. formed with George Washington as honorary president, and development of the James River and Kanawha Canal began; Cornerstone of State Capitol laid
1786
Statute for Religious Freedom passed in Virginia; Masonic Hall, the first Masonic building in America, constructed
1787
Mayo’s Bridge, the first bridge across the James River, built; Cornerstone of Benjamin Henry Latrobe’s state penitentiary laid
1789
U.S. Constitution ratified; Beth Shalome Hebrew Congregation, the first Jewish congregation in Richmond, organized
1790
Population of Richmond: 3,761
1791
Bill of Rights became part of the Constitution
1794
The Mutual Assurance Society, Richmond’s first insurance agency, organized
1795
Society of Friends, or Quakers, organized
1798
Virginia Manufactory of Arms authorized by the General Assembly
1799
First Methodist congregation organized
1800
Population of Richmond: 5,730; Gabriel’s Slave Rebellion; First police force organized in Richmond
1803
Louisiana Purchase; Jefferson, Madison & Monroe Wards defined as city’s first political districts
1804
General Assembly chartered the city’s first bank, the Bank of Virginia
1806
The Library Society of Richmond established first public library
1808
Congress passed law prohibiting the African slave trade
1810
Population of Richmond: 9,785
1811
Fire in Richmond theater killed Governor Smith and more than 70 others
1812
Richmond’s First Presbyterian congregation established
1812-1815
War of 1812
1813
First stagecoach lines to Richmond established
1814
Monumental Church dedicated on the site of the 1811 theater fire
1815
First regular steamboat service on the James River
1816
First City Hall built; Richmond’s first public school, the Lancasterian School, opened
1820
Population of Richmond: 12,067
1828
The Virginia State Library established
1829-30
“Great Convention” first state constitutional convention since the Revolution
1830
Population of Richmond: 16,060
1831
Nat Turner’s slave rebellion; Chesterfield Railroad Co. opened its horse-drawn rail line between Richmond and the Chesterfield coal mines
1835
St. Peter’s Church, the first Roman Catholic Church in Richmond, built; Franklin Manufacturing Co., first paper mill in Richmond, established
1836
Tredegar Iron Company opened; First stretch of the Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac Railroad opened, bringing Richmond’s first steam locomotive
1838
Richmond & Petersburg Railroad opened
1840
Population of Richmond: 20,153
1841
First African Baptist Church established from the First Baptist Church
1842
William Thalhimer opened dry goods store
1849
Hollywood Cemetery dedicated
1850
Population of Richmond: 27,570; Richmond Dispatch began; Louisa Railroad became Virginia Central, with lines to Staunton
1852
Bethlehem Lutheran Church established
1854
Medical dept. of Hampden-Sydney separated and chartered as Medical College of Virginia; The Virginia State Agricultural Society held first state fair in Western Park, now called Monroe Park; Richmond YMCA organized
1856
Richmond & Danville Railroad opened
1858
George Washington Monument dedicated on Capitol Square
1860
Population of Richmond: 37,910; Franchise for the first horse-drawn streetcars granted in Richmond
1861
Richmond & York River Railroad opened;
April 17, Virginia Convention approved the Virginia Ordinance of Secession;
April 21, On “Pawnee Sunday” public hysteria arose due to supposed sighting of federal warship named The Pawnee;
April 22, Robert E. Lee accepted the post of major general of Virginia forces;
May 15, Battle of Drewry’s Bluff proved attacking Richmond by water impractical;
May 20, Richmond became the capital of the Confederacy;
July 21, First Union prisoners brought to Belle Isle, where as many as 6,300 men were held at one time
1862
Feb. 22, Jefferson Davis inaugurated as President of the Confederate States of America;
March 1, Jefferson Davis placed Richmond under martial law;
June 26-July 2, Seven Days Campaign
1863
Jan. 1, President Lincoln signed Emancipation Proclamation;
April 2, During Richmond Bread Riot, mobs of armed women, angry over the shortage of food, plundered local shops;
May 10, General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson’s body laid in State Capitol;
Nov. 19, President Lincoln delivered Gettysburg Address
1865
April 2, On Evacuation Sunday, large parts of Richmond destroyed in fire set by retreating Confederate soldiers;
April 4, Richmond visited by President Lincoln;
April 9, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House;
April 14, President Lincoln shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theater in Washington;
Congress established the Freedmen’s Bureau to aid former slaves and refugees; Reconstruction began;
Thirteenth Amendment to Constitution abolished slavery;
Richmond Theological School for Freedmen, which became Virginia Union University, established
1866
First organized Memorial Day in Richmond held at Oakwood Cemetery
1867
Annexation doubled city’s size to 4.9 square miles
1869
State public school system for both races–but segregated–begun in Richmond;
Black voters registered at Richmond’s first municipal election since end of the war
1870
Population of Richmond: 51,038;
Virginia readmitted to the Union with a new Constitution; Federal troops removed from Richmond
1871
Richmond acquired Jackson Ward, its sixth
1873
Richmond High School, the city’s first, opened
1874
Cigarette manufacturing introduced by P.H. Mayo & Bro. Tobacco Co.
1877
Last Federal troops withdrew from the South, and Reconstruction ended; Richmond’s first civilian hospital, the Retreat for the Sick, opened
1879
Telephone service inaugurated
1880
Population of Richmond: 63,600; Kanawha Canal closed; railroad tracks laid on its path
1882
Women’s Christian Temperance Union chapter organized in Richmond
1884
Richmond’s first professional baseball team, the “Virginias,” organized
1885
Miller & Rhoads founded; Robert E. Lee Camp Soldiers Home for Confederate Veterans opened
1886
Electric lights introduced to Richmond; Richmond Times established
1887
Richmond YWCA organized
1888
First electric streetcar system in U.S. started;
The Grand Fountain, United Order of True Reformers, founded the first black-owned and -operated bank in U.S.
1889
Sheltering Arms Hospital opened
1890
Population of Richmond: 81,388;
Statue of General Robert E. Lee unveiled
1893
Southern Aid and Insurance Co. founded; Body of Jefferson Davis reinterred in Hollywood Cemetery
1894
Soldiers and Sailors Monument dedicated in Libby Hill Park; New City Hall, a Gothic structure, completed
1896
Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that “separate but equal” does not deprive blacks of civil rights guaranteed under Fourteenth Amendment; Confederate Museum opened;National Confederate Reunion, first of five held in Richmond
1897
Richmond chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy established
1898
Spanish-American War; The Valentine Museum opened; Union Theological Seminary opened separate from Hampden-Sydney College
1900
Population of Richmond: 85,050; The C&O Railway moved its headquarters to Richmond
1902
Virginia Constitution eliminated thousands of black voters and some poor whites from the rolls
1903
The Times merged with the Dispatch and the News merged with the Leader
1905
Richmond annexed Fulton Hill, Fairmount & Lee Districts
1907
J.E.B. Stuart and Jefferson Davis Monuments unveiled
1910
Population of Richmond: 127,628; Richmond annexed city of Manchester
1914
Richmond became headquarters of the Fifth District of the Federal Reserve Bank; Richmond annexed Ginter Park, Highland Park and Barton Heights
1914-1918
World War I
1919
Stonewall Jackson Monument unveiled on Monument Avenue; Philip Morris Inc. established in Richmond
1920
Population of Richmond: 171,667; Nineteenth Amendment gave women the right to vote
1922
Women in Virginia granted suffrage
1924
Richmond Public Library opened
1925
Richmond’s first radio station, WRVA, began broadcasting
1926-1931
Carillon in Byrd Park constructed as memorial to WWI dead
1926
Maymont Park opened
1927
Loew’s Movie Theater, now the Carpenter Center, built; Byrd Airfield dedicated with visit by Charles Lindbergh
1929
Stock market crashed; Matthew Fontaine Maury Monument unveiled
The Valentine Richmond History Center is accredited by the American Association of Museums.
