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April 23, 2005
old maps of Richmond and our neighborhood
In our one prior attempt at tracking down some of the history of our house, we had previously discovered that the date that it was built won't be easy to ascertain. Yesterday I found a map from 1864 that shows the streets in our area.
Metafilter had a post yesterday about the site Civil War Richmond that has, among other things, a collection of maps of Richmond from around the time of the Civil War. While I'd seen some of these before, I'm always interested in maps that might provide some clues about the development of our neighborhood.
Our area, while part of the city now, was annexed from Henrico County in the early 1900s. For us, this means that our streets don't show up on most city or Sanborn maps because we were just outside the city limits. One of the maps, from 1864, from Civil War Richmond, though, shows the streets in our area. Interestingly, the map is based on an earlier map from 1853. This makes our area at least 20 years older than I'd though possible, and gives some credibility to my private thoughts that out house may be circa 1880.
Map of Richmond from the Official Records Atlas, Plate LXXXIX, #2. Prepared in 1864 by A. D. Bache for the U. S. Coast Survey. (source)
Union Hill, Church Hill, and then our area
north of Venable Street , east of the Mechanicsville Turnpike
Posted by john m at April 23, 2005 8:38 AM
Comments
I've had the worst luck with researching my house. Which dept at City Hall in Richmond is the best place to do research? My home is in Battery Park, built around 1919, basic 4-square.
Posted by: Rick at April 26, 2005 9:43 PM
We haven;t really looked too hard into the house history, but we have an idea of a few places to start looking.
The assessors office at city hall would have a file on your house. This file might have an older photograph, and probably info about sales, building permits, older assessment info, etc.Also, online you can get some basic info about your house at the Richmond GIS pages.
The place to go, though, would be the Library of Virginia on Broad Street. If you explain what you are doing, they will point you in a few directions. One of the coolest things for us so far was getting to look at the Sanborn Fire Insurance maps. We ran into a wall there, though, because our area was Henrico County until 1905 or so. I have the notion that your area was annexed even later than that.
Posted by: john m at April 27, 2005 7:24 AM
Start at City Hall (the Marshall Building) with property research. Go to the records room. All deeds are kept there. Your deed should have the previous deed info, and that deed will have the previous deed info, and so on. You should be able to trace as far back as the deeds are legible. I made it back to 1905 before I couldn't read the deed. The Sanborn Fire insurance maps at the LOV typically cover only brick dwellings, and if you live in a stick house like I do, they're of little help. There are several interesting annexation maps there also, and the staff is very friendly and helpful. Good Luck.
Posted by: Nick at May 4, 2005 11:51 AM
Hey where can i find some up to date maps of all the old Richmond neighborhoods, Fan, Church hill, etc.?? Hit me up, if you know, phil_crawley1@yahoo.com
Thanks
Posted by: Phil Crawley at July 26, 2005 4:52 PM
ACORN has a map of some neighborhoods and I think that the city site gis pages have some related info.
Posted by: john m at July 27, 2005 1:41 AM
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