#twentiethstreet

[rocketwerks]

Butler & Bosher

AKA, American Tobacco Center

117-121 North Twentieth Street

Built, 1902

July 2019 — looking towards 117-121 North Twentieth Street at the southeast intersection of Grace & Twentieth Streets

Don’t mess with Buck Duke.

(Duke University Libraries) — James Buchanan Duke

James Buchanan Duke was many things. A philanthropist, an industrialist, trust builder, and creator of the modern tobacco industry, he was not the kind of person who had much patience for weak-kneed associates who sniveled about minor things like legalities, nor was he apt to let such annoyances get in the way of his ruling the market.

[RVCJ03] — Arthur St. Clair Butler, circa 1903 

In January, 1903, Mr. A. St. Claire Butler, of Butler & Bosher Co., Richmond, Va., and a friend spent a day at No. 111 Fifth Avenue, New York, with Mr. Duke, Mr. Fuller, and one other trust representative. Mr. Duke wanted to buy and offered to buy 51 per centum of the capital stock of the Butler & Bosher Co., whose business for several years previously has been supplying the Navy Department with tobacco, and manufacturing and selling tobacco in the South and New England.

(Chronicling America) — Richmond Times advertisement — Tuesday, February 14, 1893

Mr. Duke, in offering to buy 51 per centum of the stock, told Mr. Butler that the business was to continue just as it had been managed, and their interest in it to remain a secret. Mr. Butler was to continue an independent manufacturer, continue to use the union [7564] label, and continue to associate with independent manufacturers. When Mr. Butler said that this would not be honest, Mr. Duke replied, “Plenty are doing it to-day, and if you do not do it, we will ruin you and drive you out of business.” Mr. Butler asked time to consider the proposition, and returning home consulted his lawyer, who, happily, was a lawyer of the old school, as he advised Mr. Butler he would not be able to do what was proposed and be honest. Then Mr. Butler declined to sell. 

(Pinterest France) — a tin of Butler & Bosher Pipe Full Cut Plug

Thereupon the trust started out in its campaign against him. Mr. Butler had worked up quite a trade in New England on a smoking plug under the brand “Butler's Light and Dark.” which was much the same as Mayo's “Eglantine” and “Ivy,” brands owned by the trust, and which were large sellers, and on these the trust placed a deal, which so cut down Mr. Butler's business that he was greatly demoralized. Later the Navy contract was again awarded to Mr. Butler, and then the trust began bidding up the price of sun-cured tobacco, out of which the contract had to be made, and when Mr. Butler was thoroughly frightened, again offered to buy him. This time, however, they offered to buy his business outright, and finally they did so, continuing him as manager upon a salary. 

(Library of Congress) — Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Richmond (1905) — Plate 41 — showing Butler & Bosher Tobacco Factory at Twentieth & Grace Streets

The foregoing is a copy of the statement made January 20, 1905, to the Hon. James R. Garfield, Commissioner of Corporations. Mr. Butler was continued as manager of the business of Butler & Bosher Co., owned and controlled by the American Tobacco Co., from the time of its purchase, July 1, 1903, until March, 1906. Then the factory was closed, and Mr. Butler thrown out of employment. He, like 98 per cent of the manufacturers who have sold out, being under contract not again to enter into business, is now in the prime of life unable to engage in a business in which his whole life has been spent. Thus his experience as a tobacco manufacturer is lost to the country. [BDCRT]

[RVCJ03] — Butler & Bosher factory, circa 1903

It’s not clear when Butler & Bosher started as a business, but the earliest advertisements appeared in the Richmond Times and Richmond Dispatch in 1892. The 1893 edition of Richmond, Virginia: The City on the James (RVCJ) identifies Robert S. Bosher as President of the T. C. Williams Company but he must have found a way to dedicate time to this other enterprise. Regardless of they started, they were an independent tobacco firm, and not part of Duke’s voracious trust, the American Tobacco Company (ATC).

(VCU) — 1889 Baist Atlas Map of Richmond — Plate 3

They started their business in a four-story brick tobacco factory on the west side of Twenty-Second Street, remarkably, a location that is also still standing [RT19020518]. The Navy tobacco deal they won in 1902 vaulted them into the big time, requiring them to produce 200,000 pounds of plug tobacco over the three-year contract [RD19020403], and it must have been with giddy anticipation that they announced the construction of a new six-story factory at Twentieth and Grace barely a month later [RD19020529].

It also effectively put themselves squarely in ATC’s crosshairs, and by September Butler & Bosher was in active denial of the inevitable [RD19020910]. However, Duke wasn’t about to let minor players gum up his grand schemes, and the darlings of the Navy capitulated in July the following year.

(Find A Grave) — Arthur St. Clair Butler in later years

After the acquisition, ATC made good on its intention to have the “independent” Butler and Bosher continue to bid on the federal contract when it came up again for renewal in 1905. The truly independent tobacco manufacturers cried foul, but it appears to have changed no minds. ATC won and would continue to win until the 1911 smackdown by the Supreme Court forced its breakup. 

By then it was too late for Arthur Butler, whose non-compete ejected him from the industry. He bought a piece of land in Mathews County called Poplar Grove and got the hell out of Richmond.

(Butler & Bosher is part of the Atlas RVA! Project)

Print Sources

[BDCRT] Bills and Debates in Congress Relating to Trusts: 1902-1913 Fifty-Seventh Congress, Second Session, To Sixty-Third Congress, First Session, Inclusive (December 1, 1902–December 1, 1913) Vol. 2 Pages 1115–2403. Office 1914.

[RD19020403] Richmond Dispatch. Thursday, April 3, 1902.

[RD19020529] Richmond Dispatch. Thursday, May 29, 1902.

[RD19020910] Richmond Dispatch. Wednesday, September 10, 1902.

[RT19020518] Richmond Times. Sunday, May 18, 1902.

[RVCJ03] Richmond, Virginia: The City on the James: The Book of Its Chamber of Commerce and Principal Business Interests. G. W. Engelhardt. 1903.

[RVCJ93] Richmond, Virginia: The City on the James: The Book of Its Chamber of Commerce and Principal Business Interests. G. W. Engelhardt. 1893.

[pax677]

#dogsofinstgram #thesetwo #twentiethstreet #chicocalifornia #beauty (at Chico, California)

[rocketwerks]

Wayback RVA (149)

Fairmount Avenue Methodist Church, Richmond, Va.

Fairmount Avenue Methodist Church, Fairmount Avenue and 20th St., Richmond, Va. Organized April 1889 in a chapel at Steward and Redd Sts., with 23 members, then known as Howards Grove Methodist Church. In 1892 a new church was erected at the present location and name changed to Fairmount Avenue. The first preacher in charge was Rev. LeRoy J. Phaup who was appointed by the Va. M. E. Conference in November 1899. 14th appointment 1912 Rev. E. V. Carson. Present building erected 1913-14.

Today, it goes by the name of Bethlehem Baptist Church.

Rocket Werks RVA Postcards

1920 Fairmount Avenue

July 2019

[rocketwerks]

B. A. Grasberger

1011-1013 West Broad Street

Built, after 1889

J. A. Grasberger Carriage Works

AKA, Grasberger Vehicle Company 16-18 North Twentieth Street

Built, before 1877

Demolished, unknown

AKA, General Hospital #14 (Second Georgia), Castle Thunder Hospital 20-24 North Twentieth Street

Built, 1849

[RVCJ93] — showing B. A. Grasberger shop on West Broad Street

A tale of two carriage makers.

(VCU) — 1889 Baist Atlas Map of Richmond — Plate 10 — showing the theoretical location of B. A. Grasberger’s shop

B. A. Grasberger, carriage and wagon manufacturer, of 1011 and 1013 West Broad Street, has been established about two years. He pays special attention to the making of light work to order, like buggies, carriages and delivery wagons, and he has a first-rate trade and is prospering.

May 2019 — looking towards 1011-1013 West Broad Street from Hancock Street

Mr. Grasberger is a Pennsylvanian by birth, but has lived here nearly all his life. He learned his trade here, and was considered one of the most expert mechanics in it in this city before he started on his own account. He makes superior work a specialty. His factory is equipped with all the necessary appliances for the expeditious turning out of his productions. [RVCJ93]

(Library of Congress) — Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Richmond (1905) — Plate 60

Grasberger’s location at 1011-1013 West Broad Street, while technically within the city limits at the time, was like having a shop at the edge of the known universe. It wasn’t a location that sported regular business traffic, and the 1889 Baist map shows nothing at the location. The 1905 Sanborn map calls both of these addresses as sheds, so the operation must have been small.

This might explain the new business established by his older brother.

[RVCJ03] — 16-18 North Twentieth Street

Curiously enough, at the time of the 1893 edition of Richmond, Virginia: The City on the James Boniface A. Grasberger’s brother, Julius A. Grasberger was working for a competitor, James McDonough & Co., a carriage manufacturer, whose shop stood at 5-17 North Eighteenth Street. However, by the time of the 1903 edition, there is no mention of B. A Grasberger, and instead, J. A. Grasberger Carriage Works down in Shockoe Bottom took his place. [RVCJ93]

May 2019 — looking toward 16-18 North Twentieth Street

What happened to Boniface? Did he join his brother and together form a new business, and it just didn’t have his name? There is nothing that states so, but he would have only been 38 in 1903, and he lived until 1945. Unless he suffered something catastrophic that made him stop working, it makes sense that he would continue to be a carriage maker, just like the days of old. Going into business with his brother doesn’t seem like a stretch, but we don’t know.

(VCU) — 1889 Baist Atlas Map of Richmond — Plate 3 — showing both of 16-18 North Twentieth Street shop

Julius set up shop in a pair of two-story industrial buildings that at the least, pre-date the 1877 Beers maps, and which may have been at least as old as the building that directly faced it from across the alley.

(Newspapers.com) — advertisement in Richmond Times-Dispatch — Sunday, February, 14 1909

However, unlike Samuel Cottrell, Julius A. Grasberger could see the future. By the early twentieth century seems to have gravitated away from carriage and wagon business, and made the transition to selling automobiles. 

(Library of Congress) — Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Richmond (1905) — Plate 45 — showing both 16-18 North Twentieth (bottom) and 20-24 North Twentieth (top)

His place of business was across Rose Alley in what at one time was General Hospital #14, Castle Thunder Hospital. Not to be confused with Castle Thunder military prison, which was close by, but a four-story brick tobacco factory that was built in 1845.

May 2019 — looking toward 20-24 North Twentieth Street

It was managed under the auspices of the Georgia Hospital Association and became the second of four hospitals established for sick and wounded Georgians (the first was General Hosptial #16, the third was #19, and the fourth was #17). It was older and smaller than similar buildings but the capacity was still listed as 150. There were three wards and each bed was numbered in paint on the footboard. A “very insufficient privy” was located in the small yard behind the building.

It remained a Confederate hospital from October 1861 to March 1863. [RWH]

(Newspapers.com) — advertisement in Richmond Times-Dispatch — Sunday, September 1, 1912

Eventually, Julius expanded his business all the way to Franklin Street, which if he still used the other two properties, gave him command of most of the west side of Twentieth Street. No clues when the original factory buildings were pulled down, but a likely candidate would be when that portion of Twentieth from Rose Alley to Main Street was converted to a parking lot for the Poe Museum.

(B. A. Grasberger & J. A. Grasberger Carriage Works are part of the Atlas-RVA! Project)

Print Sources

[RVCJ03] Richmond, Virginia: The City on the James: The Book of Its Chamber of Commerce and Principal Business Interests. G. W. Engelhardt. 1903. 

[RVCJ93] Richmond, Virginia: The City on the James: The Book of Its Chamber of Commerce and Principal Business Interests. G. W. Engelhardt. 1893.

[RWH] Richmond’s Wartime Hospitals. Rebecca Barbour Calcutt. 2005.

[rocketwerks]

Trinity Methodist Church (2nd building)

AKA, Trinity United Methodist Church, New Light Baptist Church 2000 East Broad Street Built 1859, 1975 Architect, Albert L. West VDHR 127-0401

April 2017

Trinity Methodist Church is a substantial Italianate brick building conspicuously located on the west slope of Church Hill on Richmond's Broad Street. The building was constructed between 1859 and 1875. Although the building has suffered the loss of its distinctive, very tall spire, and has undergone various minor alterations, it maintains its integrity as an architectural landmark.

[ORN]

Recognizing the value of the Christian spire in defining neighborhoods and vistas, architect West designed the building so that the spire would dominate Broad Street on the east-west axis; it is also directly on axis with Hull Street across the James River. 

(Wikimedia Commons) — All Souls' Church

The composition of the building was derived through Georgian prototypes, ultimately from Wren's London city churches. The tall spire and staged tower, and the landmark siting, owe something to John Nash's 1822-1824 All Souls' Church, Langham Place, London. The details of the building, including the simulated quoins, the heavy bracketed cornice, and the semicircular windows and fanlights, reflect the prevalent Italianate taste of the 1850s.

April 2017

The Broad Street Methodist Church, also designed by West, was of comparable quality with a similar composition and detailing. For many years the spires of the Broad Street, and Trinity churches dominated Broad Street from opposite hillsides above Shockoe Valley. The destruction of the Broad Street Methodist Church renders Trinity Methodist Church all the more important.

April 2017

Richmond's "First Church" Methodist congregation was organized in 1799. The congregation adopted the name Trinity by 1812. In 1827-1828 Trinity congregation constructed a church building on Franklin Street next to the Exchange Hotel. This building was destroyed by fire in 1836 and quickly rebuilt, on the same location.

(VDHR) — 1986 nomination photo

In 1859 it was determined to sell the old church building, and to relocate the congregation in a new building near the Church Hill residential neighborhood. A substantial segment of the congregation, however, separated from Trinity and planned another church building at Broad and Tenth streets. Architect Albert L. West, a member of Trinity, prepared plans for both new churches. The dissenting congregation built the Broad Street Methodist Church in 1859-1861.

April 2017

Construction of the new Trinity Church at 20th and Broad Streets began in 1859. On 3 February, 1860 the building's ground floor "school auditorium" was dedicated. The congregation met in this auditorium pending the completion of the remainder of the church. Completion was delayed by war, and the main auditorium was not finished until November, 1866. The cost of the construction was estimated at $35,000. The spire was not erected until 1875.

(Richmond Times Dispatch) — Why Richmond, Why?!? What Happened to Church Steeples? — Philip Riggan — May 21, 2012 

Trinity congregation relocated to a new building in the west end of Richmond, at Forest Avenue and Stuart Hall Road, in 1945. The old church was sold in 1947 to the New Light Baptist congregation, which has occupied it since that time. The 225-foot spire was damaged by Hurricane Hazel in 1954, and the remaining fragments were dismantled in 1955. Plans are under way to restore the building to its historic appearance, including reconstruction of the spire. (VDHR)

The above was written in 1986, when the church was added to the Richmond Historic Registry, but thirty years later, there is still no steeple.

Architecture Richmond also has a write-up on Trinity Methodist, which is worth checking out.

[rocketwerks]

John Holt Rice House

AKA, Rice-Greaner House, Greaner House 1920 East Broad Street Built, 1818 Demolished, 1934

[HOR]

This house was built in 1818 by the Reverend John H. Rice. He had purchased the site from Dr. John Adams on April 27 of that year, paying $7000, which seems a high price even in that boom time. An insurance policy taken out in that same month describes the house as “entirely unfinished.” The date of the policy might indicate that the $7000 partly included the building itself. By 1819 Dr. Rice was living there.

(USGenWeb Archives) — Reverend John Holt Rice

John Holt Rice was born in Bedford County in 1777 and in 1804 was ordained to the Presbyterian ministry. By 1806 he had begun the efforts to establish on a firmer basis the theological seminary at Hampden-Sydney, the success of which endeavors was to be the great achievement of his life. In May, 1812 he came to Richmond, with the purpose of consolidating the scattered Presbyterians here into a church. At first he preached in the Masons’ Hall, and on October 17, 1812 was installed as pastor in “the new Brick Church near Rocketts,” the first pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Richmond. Finding this too remote for his congregation he built a church on Grace between 17th and 18th Streets. This was in 1815.

(LOC) — Thomas Jefferson’s copy of the Virginia Evangelical and Literary Magazine — Volume V, February 1822, No. 11 

During his thirteen years’ residence in Richmond Dr. Rice also founded two religious papers, the Christian Monitor, and the Virginia Evangelical and Literary Magazine.

While here, Dr. Rice says, his salary was supposed to be $2000 but never amounted to more than $1600. His ability is evident from the fact that he was simultaneously elected Professor of Theology (which really amounted to head and entire faculty) of the infant seminary at Hampden-Sydney, and, in that same year, 1822, President of Princeton! He declined the latter offer, attractive as the salary of $2500 was, but accepted the call to Hampden-Sydney, resigning his pastorate of the First Presbyterian Church on June 2, 1823. At the end of that summer he moved his family to Hampden-Sydney and spent the remaining years of his life building up the Seminary, which involved many trips to New York, Philadelphia, and Boston in search of funds. He died in 1831.

(LOC) — Beers Illustrated Atlas of the Cities of Richmond & Manchester, 1877 — Plate G

From 1826 to 1837 the house belonged to Sterling J. Crump, who lived there between his residence on Nineteenth Street and his last years in the Tinsley house on Sixth. From 1837 to ’39 it was the home of William Beers, just before he built his house on Broad at College Street.

In 1839 it was purchased by William Greaner who added four or five outbuildings. Greaner lived there until his death in 1868 and was so much associated with the property that it was generally referred to as the “Greaner house.” This name was evidently pronounced “Grainer” and is often so spelled. William Greaner had been born in Baltimore in 1793 and moved to Richmond in 1815. Raised as a tobacco manufacturer, he was engaged in that business without interruption, being widely known through the cities of this country. His factory became the famous “Castle Thunder,” where local lawbreakers were confined during the Civil War.

April 2017 — 1920 East Broad Street, showing remains of the house, including brick terrace and granite retaining wall

After Greaner’s death the house was rented and passed from his estate in 1887. In its later years it was in a very neglected condition but still impressive with its solid proportions and commanding location. In 1934 it was demolished, the only traces left being one of the two big magnolias that used to stand in front of the house, and the steps, made before the vogue of granite, that formerly led up to the high yard.

(Google Maps) — aerial view of 1920 East Broad Street, showing footprint of front portion of house

The Rice-Greaner house had much that linked it with the past and other features that looked toward the architecture of the 1840’s. It was stuccoed, had at least three triple windows and a beltcourse. The approach to the porch, as more informal than that of similar mansions built twenty years later, but the porch itself closely resembled those of the Greek Revival period. This was the type of house which the builders of the ’forties harked back to in designing the mansions of that period. [HOR]

[pax677]

#dogsofinstgram #thesetwo #twentiethstreet #chicocalifornia #beauty (at Chico, California)

[pax677]

#butmommmm #ifoundasnail #dogsofinstgram #twentiethstreet #chicocalifornia #beauty (at Chico, California)

[pax677]

#dogsofinstgram #chicocalifornia #twentiethstreet #beauty (at Chico, California)

[rocketwerks]

Wayback RVA (104)

Twentieth and Broad Streets looking west from Church Hill.

From Richmond, A Pictorial Hisory from the Valentine Museum and Dementi Collections. Thomas Hale and Louis H. Manarin.

Twentieth & Broad Streets Atlas RVA Project

February 2017