By Charles Poole, 1995
This is the story of a house, a small house, a very old house. It is not a fancy house; the Quaker who built the house was one of the “plain people,” who used “plain speech” and dress. The very bricks of the house have a story to tell, likely formed from the clay soil of the site by the free black apprentices of one of the most prominent Quakers and builder-developers of his day, George Winston.
This small, plain structure, known as the Jacob House, stands at 610 W. Cary Street. It was built about 1817, making it the earliest built and oldest surviving townhouse in the neighborhoods that became the Fan and Oregon Hill.
Through the experience of the remarkable people connected with the building, this plain house on Cary Street becomes a touchstone to Richmond’s physical, material, social and even psychological growth. It becomes more than the sum of its bricks and mortar. The building becomes a window through which we see Richmond’s past more clearly.
The effort of researching the history of the house has been an odyssey of discovery for the Oregon Hill Historic District, a 19th century working-class neighborhood tucked between the James River and Kanawha Canal, Tredegar Iron Works, Hollywood Cemetery, and the site of the State Penitentiary.
The story starts at the beginning of the 19th century. As architectural historian Professor James Kornwolf has written, the history of the house “. . . may be traced back almost to the city’s origin or at least to its founding family, the Byrds of Westover.” William Byrd I had patented the land in 1673, his son had cleared the place for cultivation and named it Belvidere, for its spectacular views, by 1744, and his grandson had constructed the villa known as Belvidere for his new wife, to take advantage of those views, by 1755. But the financially troubled William Byrd III had sweetened the attractiveness of his great 1768 lottery by throwing in Belvidere and its surrounding hundred acres at the last moment. The property had been won by John and Daniel Lawrence Hylton, and had passed in the 1790s successively to Light-Horse Harry Lee, to Bushrod Washington, and to Colonel John Harvie, who consolidated his holdings in the area by acquiring hundreds of acres in every direction. Jacqueline Harvie had inherited 500 acres of this land, including all of the Belvidere tract except for the house and the seventeen acres surrounding it, after his father’s accidental death in 1807.
Jacqueline Harvie’s land was in a bucolic setting of pastures and timber lands. In the real estate boom of 1817, Harvie joined with George Winston and Benjamin James Harris to lay off these 500 acres in an ambitious development that they called the Town of Sydney. (The established street grid survives today in the Oregon Hill and Fan Historic Districts.) Winston, a master-builder, was to provide the construction; Harris a wealthy tobacco and cotton manufacturer, was to provide the capital.
Winston’s share of the land included “Lot No. 4.” It was on this elevated lot, Winston’s most valuable because it was closest to town, and on the newly established Westham Turnpike (Cary Street), that he built the first townhouse in the Town of Sydney. One can imagine that it created quite a stir to see this small brick house being constructed on the new western lands. Originally only two-bays in width, this would have been a landmark as one of the smallest brick houses in Richmond. As Winston’s free black apprentices lay the bricks they had made themselves, and raised the pinioned rafters, with mortised collar beams, they could look out at the splendid view with pride; visible to the east was the Virginia State Capitol that they helped to construct, to the southeast the new Penitentiary, for which they had made every brick, and to the south Belvidere itself.
As a devoted Friend, Winston had emancipated his slaves and had taken on these free black apprentices, many of whom were orphans, to teach them the skills of his building trade. Winston also served on the board of the first school for free blacks in Virginia, the Gravelly Hill School in Varina, founded by fellow Quaker Robert Pleasants, the leading abolitionist in Virginia. Together, Winston and his free black apprentices had participated in building the Capitol and the Penitentiary, and had constructed perhaps a hundred major brick buildings in Shockoe Bottom and thirty or more houses on Church Hill. They had erected the famous Bell Tavern and other buildings for fellow Quaker Nathan Bell, whose wife Sally is credited with founding the South’s first “underground railroad.” They were undoubtedly quite excited, as they raised the small brick house on Lot #4, about their prospects for years of construction activity on Sydney’s 500 acres.
But it was not to be. The Jacob House, perhaps the model home for the Town of Sydney, was the only house that was built in the development by the triumvirate of Winston, Harvie and Harris before the depression of 1819. It was Benjamin J. Harris who next purchased the Jacob House from the trustees of his business partner and brother-in-law. Harris was cushioned from the real estate bust by his successful tobacco interests; he was one of the three most important Richmond tobacco manufacturers of the period.
Harris had purchased Belvidere and its walled enclosure from the Harvie family in 1814. That same year he built a cotton mill below the house on the James River Canal. He may have noticed the site for the factory when working earlier as an engineer for the canal. Harris, also a Quaker, advertised that his cotton mill would include such progressive amenities as housing and education for his employees. Perhaps he considered the Belvidere property as a potential location for housing his workers. It is known that by 1817, he had divided the 17 acres within the serpentine wall of the Belvidere compound into lots and offered them for sale. The purchaser of the first lots in this “Plan of Belvidere” was Samuel P. Parsons, a Quaker and the Superintendent of the Penitentiary. Parsons’ home, built about 1818 on lots No. 1 and 4 in the Plan of Belvidere, survives at 601 Spring Street.
An auction notice in 1825 advertised the sale of Harris’ property in Sydney, including: “Lot No. 4 with a small Brick House on it, in the rear of the late Mr. Mutter’s house, on the Westham Turnpike Road.” (Harris was selling the Woodward House in Rocketts at this same auction.) It was the Secretary and Special Agent for the Mutual Assurance Society, Lewis Rivalain, who purchased the Jacob House at this auction. Rivalain was well acquainted with Harris, having written policies for his Belvidere and Clifton properties. And he had written an insurance declaration, with a fine elevation, for Mr. Mutter’s House, on the site of the Commonwealth Club on Franklin Street. It is an indication of the sparseness of the development to the west of Richmond that the Jacob House was referenced as being in the rear of a house on Franklin Street.
Rivalain was also well acquainted with George Winston. He wrote many insurance policies for Winston’s buildings and he utilized Winston as a signatory on other declarations attesting to the value of the properties.
As Special Agent for the Mutual Assurance Society, Rivalain, a French citizen, left a remarkable legacy of detailed drawings, often including front elevations, of buildings throughout Virginia in the first quarter of the 19th century. Mary Wingfield Scott used ten of his drawings to illustrate her classic, Old Richmond Neighborhoods.
Business records in the State Archives include many letters from Rivalain which document his travels throughout the state, carrying his portable writing desk by horse and stage, selling the prominent property owners of the day on this new concept of fire insurance. In an 1803 letter Rivalain reported his tribulations from Petersburg:
…I hope [my friends] enjoy a better health than myself. My Cheek is not well cured yet, it looks almost like a Pomkin stuct to my Face. Therefore when I call upon these great folks for insuring their Houses, they cannot help laughing at my sight, Specialy the young Girls, all these I would not Care for, if they would pay well the fees, but I find it is the contrary.
It is intriguing to consider the many prominent personages of the period who were visited by Rivalain and who invited him to be a guest in their homes. Rivalain’s fine elevations include those of Stratford Hall, for Henry Lee, and Mt. Vernon for Bushrod Washington, both former owners of Belvidere. Rivalain was motivated to draw in meticulous detail the entire grounds of Mt. Vernon, since Washington was one of the founding directors of the Society.
At Rivalain’s death he left $100 to build a wall of a Catholic Church at 4th and Marshall, reported to be, “…the first building created in Richmond to be surmounted by a cross.” Rivalain also bequeathed prized possessions to his favorite nephew: the portable desk on which he drew the detailed insurance declarations for houses throughout Virginia, and Lot 4 in the Town of Sydney.
The Jacob House was purchased from Rivalain’s nephew by George Hendree in 1827. Hendree was the most noted cabinet-maker in the Richmond of his day. An exquisite mahogany cylinder desk made by Hendree was a key piece in a formative 1952 exhibit of Southern Furniture, 1640-1820, at the Virginia Museum.
Hendree and Chester Sully, brother of the famous painter Thomas Sully, opened a Richmond branch of their Norfolk cabinet shop around 1813. By 1815 Hendree had taken over the Richmond business himself. He sold everything from mahogany furniture to imported European finery, such as pianos. As did other cabinet shop owners of the period, Hendree also rented hearses and made custom caskets.
Hendree’s business was quite successful. He periodically advertised auctions where up to $10,000 of furniture at a time was sold. Hendree built a saw mill in Manchester and advertised, “Having purchased the Patent Right for Virginia of the Circular Saw for Vineers, it will be put in operation with all possible dispatch.”
Hendree’s interest in the Jacob House may have been sparked by his lease of the Belvidere estate from Benjamin J. Harris in 1819. Hendree advertised the Belvidere property for rent, “…that beautiful SEAT, with 17 Acres of Ground, enclosed with a brick wall, and now in high cultivation.” He described the idyllic landscape in another advertisement, “…that beautiful summer retreat called BELVIDERA… where will be received a few horses to graze on grass and clover during the summer.”
In the January 19, 1822 edition of the Mercantile Advertiser, Hendree presented two pages of depositions disputing a bill filed in Chancery Court, “. . . charging my mother with being a colored woman, and wearing caps to conceal the hair on her head.” The depositions, from persons as prominent as John Marshall, traced Hendree’s ancestry back to Zurich, Switzerland. It is evidence of the dismal racial climate of the period that such a bill, if successful, would have had the effect of rendering Hendree and his brother John “incompetent [to provide] evidence in a court of law,” and rendering his suit to recover several thousand dollars unwinnable for lack of testimony. It is a tribute to the courage of the Richmond Friends, including George Winston, that during this same period they were working to educate and free blacks from such prejudice.
The first known occupant of the Jacob House was John Jacob, for whom the house is named. Jacob, an assistant superintendent at the nearby Penitentiary, purchased the house for $475 in 1832. Himself a descendent of Quakers, Jacob served under the prominent Friend, Samuel P. Parsons, the Penitentiary Superintendent. Parsons was hired largely for his woodworking experience; earlier he was a maker of Windsor chairs, in partnership with his father, and later a wagon-maker. We can assume that Jacob also had woodworking experience, since his son, Caleb Jacob, took up the craft of carriage making. Benjamin J. Harris purchased a wagon made at the Penitentiary shops. For the last half of the 19th century, Caleb Jacob had his own carriage shop, the partnership of Minor and Jacob.
In 1838, tax records indicate that John Jacob had made improvements to his house. It was at this time that the house was expanded from the original two-bay house, to a three-bay house, to meet the needs of Jacob’s growing family of seven children. Before he sold the house in 1853, Jacob saw much growth on Cary Street, including the 1842 construction of both the substantial William Smith and Charles Philips Houses across the street. In October 1853 Jacob moved to his estate called “Woodlawn” (now demolished) located on Mechanicsville Pike. Heavy artillery was positioned on his property during the Battle of Cold Harbor.
Today businessmen consider it a good bet to buy up property near an interchange of the interstate. In 1856, the Jacob House was purchased by Larkin Glazebrook because it was near the terminus of the Westham Plank Road. Glazebrook was on the Board of the Westham Plank Road which rejuvenated the Westham Turnpike, established in 1816, because it had fallen into disrepair. Glazebrook was also a prominent lumber merchant; it was probably his “plank” that was used to improve the road. The Plank Road was also referred to as Dover Street, since it led to the Dover mines.
Although he was against succession, Glazebrook was elected to the Richmond City Council throughout the Civil War. A resident of Clay Street, he spearheaded the committee which proposed the purchase of the home at Clay and 12th for Jefferson Davis. Glazebrook made the motion in 1862 authorizing the erection of defenses around the city. He spoke for allowing the Hollywood Cemetery to be expanded to accommodate the Confederate dead; other councilmen expressed the concern that it was too near the water reservoir.
During the Civil War, the Jacob House was occupied by the Stott family. Representative of the “sons of Vulcan” for which Oregon Hill was renowned, William Stott was an iron “moulder” who may have worked at Tredegar Iron Works during the Civil War.
Stott’s step-son, Edward P. Vial, went on to start his own foundry after the war. He literally turned from making swords to plowshares. The E. P. Vial foundry in Shockoe Bottom specialized in producing the “Stonewall Plow,” probably named to compete with the more popular “Dixie Plow” made by his competitor, P. H. Starke.
E. P. Vial purchased the Jacob House from the estate of his grandfather, Seymour P. Vial in 1869. He went on to build a row of brick houses, 604-608 Cary, on a portion of the original lot of the house. The Vial House, 608 Cary Street, was built around 1878 and is representative of the substantial tenements being constructed as infill on available lots in Oregon Hill during the 1870s and 80s.
In 1874 John Messler began renting the Jacob house from E. P. Vial. It was a short walk from Messler’s home to his canal boat building business in the Penitentiary Basin. When Levy and Cohen photographed the John Messler and Son business, opposite Tredegar Iron Works, in April 1865, they captured an adult and youth at work building a canal boat. Typical of the skilled craftsmen who occupied the neighborhood in this period, Messler passed his boat building trade on to the next generation.
The Messlers contributed in a vital way to the economy and transportation of Richmond, which relied heavily upon the James River and Kanawha Canal for shipping goods and raw materials. For almost forty years the Messler family was involved with building canal boats below Oregon Hill in the Penitentiary Basin. The technological development of the railroad eventually rendered the Messlers’ canal boat building business obsolete. The Penitentiary Basin, not only used for floating canal boats but also for baptizing members of the nearby Second African Baptist Church, was drained and replaced with railroad tracks.
Another French artist who was attracted to the charm of the Jacob House was Eugene Crehen, who occupied the house with the Duesberry family from 1886 to 1895. Crehen was Richmond’s most prominent lithographer. He was a leading illustrator of the Confederacy who contributed to the design of the Southern uniforms and created portraits of many Southern leaders, such as J. E. B. Stuart, Jefferson Davis, and “Stonewall” Jackson. One of his many Richmond landscapes, “View of Richmond from Belle Isle,” was published as the frontispiece to the 1985 book, Richmond, An Illustrated History. Crehen also published sheet music during the Civil War to boost the moral of the South.
Crehen mailed to the 610 W. Cary Street address elaborately illustrated envelopes. In one of the surviving letters, Crehen drew a humorous caricature of himself as a donkey and explained:
At evening I like to watch the cresent moon and the Star Venus.
I think the Space is so Grand , and I feel so small. Except my ears.
I look upon the past and feel I’ve done many things very much like a Dunkey.
Crehen lived with his in-laws, the Duesberrys. George Duesberry earlier worked as an assistant at The Great Southern Hat and Cap Manufactory and Depot, owned by John Dooley, father of Major James Dooley, builder of Maymont House. He worked for the Confederate Treasury during the Civil War, and after the war was a commissioner of the Department of Internal Revenue. As appropriate for such a commissioner, Duesberry promptly paid his rent of $12.50 for the Jacob House on the first of each month in cash.
There is a beautiful symmetry to the story of the Jacob House, just as there is a beautiful solid symmetry to its architecture. Exactly a century after the Jacob House was built by George Winston, who made all of the brick for the Latrobe designed Penitentiary, it was owned and occupied by another prominent brick maker, E. T. Mankin. In huge hive-like kilns, Mankin fired the brick that was used to construct the Virginia Museum, the Carillon, the MCV Hospital and many Colonial Williamsburg buildings.
Mankin lived in the Jacob House for the first two decades of the 20th century, and continued to own the house, occupied by his brother, a bricklayer, until 1940. While living on West Cary Street, Mankin constructed in Henrico County his mansion, which he call Irvin Place in honor of his son killed in World War I. Mankin Mansion, built a century after the Jacob House, is itself listed on the State and National Register of Historic Places.
Undoubtedly, Mankin was attracted to the architectural merit of the Jacob House, as described by Professor Kornwolf, “…bearing the proportions and detailing that can be associated with the Federal idiom — austere cubicity, low roof, strong horizontal eaveline and window lintels, six-above-six sash, and Flemish Bond brickwork.”
From 1947 to 1974 the Jacob House was home to the Cary Street Baptist Center. This Center carried on a tradition of urban missions in Oregon Hill established half a century earlier by an Episcopalian, Miss Grace Arents. The house was featured on revival handbills which were distributed throughout the neighborhood. The mission of the Cary Street Center was to, “stand as a [lighthouse] beacon…in an area which has been called the hot spot for juvenile delinquency; a community of broken hearts and broken homes, where sin is rampant and God is forgotten.” Now known as the Oregon Hill Center, the agency is still actively playing an important role in the life of the neighborhood. It is now affiliated with the Pine Street Baptist Church at 400 S. Pine Street, where E. T. Mankin was a member.
The latest custodian of this property, which is a vital piece of the neighborhood’s and the City’s heritage, is Virginia Commonwealth University. It is hoped that the preservation of the Jacob House and the attached Vial House will be a priority for this new owner of the property. If VCU chooses to build an engineering school on the same block as this property, it is hoped that they will recognize that the story told by the owners/and occupants of the Jacob House goes a long way toward interpreting the evolution of industry and engineering in this area. This small house should be saved in order that its large story can be told.
[The staff of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources has recently recommended that the Jacob House is eligible for individual listing on the State and National Register of Historic Places under Category B, for its contribution to the industrial history of the area. The property is already listed on the State and National Register of Historic Places as a contributing structure to the Oregon Hill Historic District.]