History

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Virginia's "rich" history comes alive in Richmond! We have sites and museums dedicated to early settlement and struggles of our nation, as well as tributes to notable Virginians and important events in the Commonwealth. See all the history Richmond and the surrounding area have to offer!

Civil War History
Colonial Williamsburg
Historic Richmond Foundation
Monument House - Historic Richmond
Richmond History Center
Richmond Riverfront
Virginia Historical Society
Virginia Holocaust Museum

A smattering of Richmond's history:

1607: Captains Newport and Smith arrive in the area, attempt to settle at the Falls of the James
1611: Citie of Henricus is established
1612: Tobacco is planted, to become a major cash crop for Virginia
1671: William Byrd I successfully settles at the Falls
1742: Richmond becomes a town, named after Richmond on the Thames in England
1775: Second Virginia Convention with Patrick Henry's "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death" speech
- *photo above is St John's Church, site of the speech
1782: Richmond becomes a city
1786: Statute for Religious Freedom passed in Virginia
- recognized as the first time in history religious freedom is codified
1801: John Marshall, of Richmond, is appointed US Chief Justice
1835: Edgar Allen Poe moves to Richmond
1836: Tredegar Iron Works opens
- later provides most of the armor used in the Civil War
1838: Medical College of Virginia is established
1861-1865: Richmond is capital of the Confederacy
- Richmond and surrounding areas are the sites of a good deal of fighting in the war
- Much of Richmond is destroyed by fire at the end of the war
- President Lincoln visits Richmond 5 days before his assassination
1870: Virginia is readmitted to the Union
1879: Richmond is the first city in the South to have telephone service
1903: Maggie L. Walker becomes the country's first woman bank president, she is also African-American
1914: Richmond becomes the headquarters of the Fifth District of the Federal Reserve Bank