We are now accepting orders for the official Historic District Plaques. There are two options, shown below:

Brass Plaques are $95.00 each including delivery and engraving of the construction date for your individual house or property:

Bronze Plaques are $184.00 each including delivery and engraving of the construction date for your individual house or property:

To order your Historic Designation Plaque, please download and complete the order form here. Make checks payable to the Forest Hill Historic Designation Committee and deliver/mail to Carolyn Paulette, 4312 Forest Hill Ave., Richmond, VA 23225.

The Forest Hill Historic Designation Committee is pleased to announce that the Department of Historic Resources Boards passed their nomination for historic designation this morning at their quarterly meeting. As of today, June 21, 2012, the 740 + properties listed as contributing properties within the boundaries indicated on the linked map are listed on the State Register of Historic Places and are eligible for state tax credits and other benefits which this nomination grants.

The Department of Historic Resources will forward the nomination to the National Park Service to be approved for listing on the National Register of Historic Places as well. In two months or less the NPS will notify the committee whether they have been listed or not on the National Register.

We are now the Forest Hill Historic District similar to other historic districts already listed in Richmond: Woodland Heights, Ginter Park, West of the Boulevard, the Fan, and Monument Avenue. We have the right to display a plaque indicating that our individual property is listed in the Forest Hill Historic District with the construction date of the house on the plaque. Look for more about Forest Hill Historic District plaques on this site in the near future.

Many thanks to all of the residents and the committee members who have worked to support this nomination.

Carolyn Paulette
Forest Hill Historic Designation Committee

Yesterday Kerri O’Brien of WRIC attended the combined board hearing and created the following segment for the 5 & 6:00 news:

We are in the process of requesting the full roll from the hearing. If we’re able to obtain it, we’ll post it here with their permission.

Today the Historic Designation committee had the opportunity to present the Forest Hill historic district nomination at a joint meeting of the State Review Board and the Historic Resources Board. More than 20 neighborhood residents also attended the meeting, and 11 gave 2 minute prepared remarks to the boards.

The State Review Board voted unanimously against recommending the nomination as written for listing in the Virginia Landmarks Register, echoing Virginia Department of Historic Resources staff concern that: the period of significance of 1804-1961 was unsupported by existing resources, the boundaries included a discontinuous architectural character and that criterion D, archeology, was unsupported by the existing research.

The Historic Resources Board voted unanimously to defer the nomination to the National Park Service for an intensive level review.

The Historic Designation committee was allowed 15 minutes to present 37 new historic sites and structures requested at the December 16 2010 Board hearing.

We will begin posting additional information regarding the proposed boundaries, period of significance and architectural character here next week, as well as clarifying the path forward for Historic District status.

If you support historic designation for the area, please sign our petition!

edited 9.26 to change architecture to archeology

On Thursday, September 22, 2011, the Forest Hill Historic Designation Committee will meet with the Department of Historic Resources Boards’ to present our nomination for the neighborhood. Having strong neighborhood support for the nomination is critical to its passage.

If you support Historic Designation status for the Forest Hill Neighborhood, please sign our petition of support:

Your information will be kept confidential and not used for any purpose other than showing your support for historic designation.

Waterworks (Structure) 127-6069-0790

Possible Sluice Gate, Forest Hill Waterworks

Water Ledge

One likely outcome of the efforts to harness the Falls was the subsequent establishment of waterworks that provided municipal water for Manchester. Near the end of West 22nd Street, east of Forest Hill, settling basins and a pumping station were built adjacent to the tracks of the Richmond and Danville Railroad. A water tower, at the corner of West 19th Street and Stonewall Avenue, flowed water by gravity to the City of Manchester from up-river. At this time, the starting point is unknown. In 1845, Charles S. Morgan acquired 185 acres of “islands, rocks, shoals and unnavigable water” an extensive stretch of the James River, at the Falls.

Water Channel

The Richmond & Danville (R&D) Railroad was chartered in 1847, with the railroad tracks completed by 1850 between the City of Richmond and Coalfield Station in Midlothian, Chesterfield County, Virginia. Within the boundaries of Forest Hill, Rockfield Station was situated near the north end of West 43rd Street. The station was the third stop on the line from downtown Richmond, after Manchester and Belle Isle.

The impact of the Richmond & Danville Railroad in Richmond was significant. By 1856, 140 miles of railroad tracks extended from Richmond to Danville. The operation of the R&D was important in the economic growth of Richmond in the antebellum period: “The railroads led to increased agricultural and industrial production…Before 1847, tobacco was the dominant crop in the South which required a mode of transportation to export the goods to the North and West. The Richmond and Danville Railroad was the railroad which could assist in the marketing of this crop…Railroads were the seeds of growth in Antebellum Richmond.”

1882 Map of the Richmond and Danville Railroad

An early advertisement and map depicting the R&D Railroad stations proclaim “good eating houses at convenient stations, meals at regular intervals, close and prompt connections, and polite and attentive employees.” During the Civil War, the Richmond & Danville Railroad played a vital role in the war effort, connecting Richmond with other parts of the state. When Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his cabinet evacuated Richmond in 1865, they traveled to Danville on the R&D railroad, passing through Forest Hill. During Reconstruction, 1865-1894, the R&D Railroad, under the leadership of Algernon S. Buford and James H. Dooley, expanded to cover more than 3,300 miles of track in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Texas. Following a period of financial instability, the R&D was reorganized by J.P. Morgan, emerging in 1894 as the Southern Railway Company.

Bernard Markham was one of the first prominent resident-owners of the land area encompassing the Forest Hill Historic District. On June 18, 1768, Markham purchased a 1,730-acre tract of land from William Byrd III.

It is likely that Markham lived in a dwelling near the site of Maple Crest as subsequent property deeds refer to “Markham’s high hill” and “Markham’s old road”. Markham contributed to the commercial development in Forest Hill in the late-eighteenth century, erecting two mills near the mouth of Reedy Creek. During colonial times, “Mills provided the economic base for many communities because they encouraged the development of other trades, such as barrel making and blacksmithing. Mills also attracted farmers from great distances providing a reason for road construction…”

The main road through Forest Hill, Westham Road in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, was constructed, improved and/or maintained by Markham’s slaves, as was required by Virginia law. A prosperous lawyer and businessman, Markham played an important early role in the governance of the City of Manchester where he served as a Burgess, a magistrate, and a trustee. He also was the sheriff of Chesterfield County.

Upon his death in 1802, Markham willed to his wife 500 acres of his estate “near Manchester with the buildings thereon. In 1815, Markham’s heirs sold Frederick Clarke the 238-acre house-tract.

John C. Robertson

In the 1870s, he lived in Baltimore where he promoted the development of the coal and timber industries. Upon his return to Virginia, Robertson became “active in suburban and municipal railway development”. His connections in Baltimore proved beneficial; Robertson obtained financing for the development of Forest Hill from the City of Baltimore. Robertson may be credited for naming the historic district. “Jno. C. Robertson…Forrest Hill” is inscribed on the Rhodes’ survey plat. no. 29-C-2, for the eastern lobe of Forest Hill.

Robertson is credited with developing both Woodland Heights and Forest Hill; with directing the construction of the Forest Hill street railway; with organizing and serving as the president of the Richmond Telephone Company; with constructing the Westhampton streetcar line and the Westhampton suburb in Richmond on the north side of the James River; with directing the Broad Street Traction Company; and with “perfecting the preliminary work” which led to the construction of the Richmond-Petersburg electric railway. In Forest Hill and throughout the Richmond metropolitan area, Robertson was instrumental in popularizing the telephone and in organizing local telephone companies to enable long distance communication. He was working on a plan to build a railway from Richmond to West Point and Urbanna when a paralyzing stroke ended his career.

The Chamber of Commerce published a laudatory account of John Robertson, with a handsome photograph of “Brookside: Chesterfield county, fronting Forest Hill Park, in the West End of Manchester”. Robertson served as a trustee for the Forest Hill School. Robertson was married to DeGraffenried Taylor, daughter of Dr. Samuel Taylor of Manchester and one of the first teachers in the Forest Hill School. The Robertsons lived throughout their long marriage in Forest Hill. After her husband’s death, Mrs. Robertson continued her husband’s vision, developing the Brookside residential section of Forest Hill in the 1920s. John C. Robertson is buried in Hollywood Cemetery.

Holden Rhodes

Beginning in 1836 and continuing through 1840s, Rhodes either purchased or secured in trust, from multiple property owners, more than 639 acres of land along the Falls, extending from the edge of Manchester westward into Forest Hill. Rhodes worked in tandem with his friend and next door neighbor, Richard Archer, an attorney and gentleman farmer, who purchased the balance of the land that today constitutes Forest Hill.

Holden Rhodes died before completing the suburban development of Forest Hill. His nephew Charles Rhodes continued the process, surveying and subdividing the lands assembled by his uncle. The 2002 nomination for Forest Hill Park notes “The property and its Stone House are also significant under National Register Criterion B for their association with the productive period in the life of a locally prominent citizen, Holden Rhodes (1799- 1857). Rhodes was a wealthy Richmond resident who served as a tutor and a lawyer, and was successful as an astute businessman.”