The September issue of the Forest Hill Flyer had a quick, 5 question quiz about our neighborhood history. In case you missed it, here are the questions and answers!
Questions (to see the answers, click read more)
- Which Civil War general retreated from Richmond along Forest Hill Avenue at the end of the war?
- Who built the gray stone house at the end of Taylor Avenue?
- Which Supreme Court justice lived in the first block of Forest Hill Avenue, the second house on the north side of Forest Hill Avenue, west of Forest Hill Park?
- For what was Boscobel Street named?
- Who was the City Sergeant (sheriff) who built the house at 4314 Forest Hill Avenue?
Answers:
- General Ewel’s wagon trains retreated along Forest Hill Avenue. When Lee saw that Richmond and Petersburg had to be given up, he ordered General Ewell’s force to cross “from north of the James River…to Manchester and start towards Amelia by way of the Midlothian Turnpike, while the wagon trains were to follow the old River Road (Forest Hill Ave.) to the Genito crossing of the Appomattox River….”(Francis Lutz, Chesterfield, vol. l, 260). After the surrender at Appomattox, General Lee returned to his home in Richmond on the old River Road which is Forest Hill Ave. (Lutz, 261).
- The gray stone house at 4500 Reedy which is made of cement blocks, not stone, as of January 29, 1925, still belonged to the owners of the subdivision, Forest Hill Terrace. Will post additional information as I research it.
- Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell lived there in the 1930s (B.B. Weisiger, “A Memoir.”)
- Boscobel was the name of the Stone House at Forest Hill Park which Holden Rhodes built.
- John Saunders, who brought some of the prisoners from the jail to work on his property (Ann Snoddy, 4318 Forest Hill Ave., deceased).
Learn about the history of your home by going to the Clerk’s Records Office at the Chesterfield County Courthouse and the John Marshall Court in Richmond.
The line between the City of Richmond and Chesterfield after the annexation in 1914 ran along the alley east of the houses on the east side of Taylor Avenue and west to the end of the 4400 block of Forest Hill Avenue and then north along Cedar Lane. A strange bit of gerrymandering!!
Share your information on Forest Hill history with the Committee for Historic Designation by using our contact form. We’ll publish additional stories as they come in.
Don’t miss Tuesday’s panel discussion on obtaining historic district status for the neighborhood!