The Daily times. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1886-1889, 1888-08-21

PROSTATE.
-Four years of wSr had stripped her; her
labor was metemorphased into an incubus !;
her institutions were overthrown; her debts
and burdens were increased; her property
and taxable values were annihilatcd; her
energies were paralyzed; her very existence
was suspended.
! This was twenty.three years ago. During
a large part of this period the problem of
existence, the paramount question of simple
being engrossed all her powers. Misunder-
stood and Stunned by all without, threat
ened and burdened by many within, she had
to devote all her facilities TO the imperative
demand of the hour, the preservation of her
being as a State and a people.
At last she stands upright again in the
yigor of renewed strength, in the joy of re-
stored health in thefull power Of a sovereign
state and the pride Of a hale and prosperous
people.
As such her Capital City, her beautiful
Richmond on the James now sets her
house IN order prepares her feasts, sets ont
her wares and stretching out her hands unto
her sister cities, gays to them
GONE AND SIZE NE"
Richmond the Capital Of Virginia. is the
Queen ofthe South enthroned upon her tree
clad hills. and crowned with the diadem Of
beauty and health.
Situated on the elevated plateau at the
Falls ofJames River once the Powhatan, she
stands at the gateway between the uplands
of the Pedmond and the lowlands of the
Tidewa,er The breath of the mountain
faas her brow, the tides Of the Ocean wash
her feet.
Old William Byrd Of Wcstover, whose
historic mansion not many miles below IS
one of the landmarks Of the continent, and
one Of the herlooms Of American history
gentleman Of Virginia member of the Kings
Council, Representative Of the Colony, Bur
CESS of his County, was entrusted to run the
much questioned line between Virginia and
her sister North Carolina. Thus occupied,
lying awake one night in the Juniper recesses
Of the Dismal Swamp, came to him thoughts
of his home. and with them one Of those in
spirations which may be the whisper of
passing angel, and may be the emanation of
genius. He would found a city, nay he
would found two: one shoult be on the APP
pomattox, but the other should be on yet
fairer spot on q queeniier river, his own
majestic James.
He knew the spot for it. There Nature
herself had laid the site-a more skillful en-
gineer than he had drawn the plaza diyner
architect had laid the foundations.
II was already a city and wanted but the
buildings and the people. These must in
eyitably come in time. Indeed that most
rash but most brilliant and farseeing young
man who had been once his fathers neigh
Dor had chosen the spot with his rare Wis
dom and had there plantation or quarter,
and when the Indians had come down and
killed his overseer and cattle had he not
camored for revenge until he had started a
revolution which came deuced near up:etting
His MajeSty's Government, and played the
devil generally. Il would be the chief city
in Virginia, the largest in the Southern
colonies if not on the continent. if the peO-
pie would but recognize its advantages and
build it up. What "a spot it wasi
An elevated plateau right at the falls of
the river, above malaria and ague, with
the fresh air of the mountains, keeping it
cool in summer, and Incompatible climate
and purest water from unpopulated
springs; view Of the foamng
waters, glancing and dashing over
immense boulders for nearly two miles,
made a landscape whose rauty was UNI
rivaled as place Of residence for a bcauty-lov-
ing people, this side of the oak clad reaches of
the Thames. The river front was easily ac-
cessible, and evenly distributed and at the
same time so immense that it would grind
the grain of continent, and run the factor
les of a nation. Behind it was the rich Pied
mont running up to the Blue Ridge and yet
further back behind the azure mountains an
unexplored region which stretches to the
French territory, Louisiana. Before ii was
the
HEAD or DEEP WATER NAVIGATION
with its diurnal tides whi6 could float any
vessel that His Majesty's marine could send
across the seas
How could il be otherwise than city?
Thus must have thought Colonel Vim.
Byrd lying under the stars reading the future
with prophetic vision, for on the completion
of his mission, he laid out the streets and
squares of city, on the fairspot at the Falls
of the James, and the head of deep water
which had haunted his dreams IN that then
far distant shore of the Dismal Swamp, and
as there was no place this side the sea whose
beauty was comparable, he named it after
that incompatible spot upon the loved and
winding Thames,
RICHMOND.
This was in 1877 and from that day to the
present, Richmond has been the Gem City of
the South.
For beauty, for salubrity for convenience,
for all the charms and advantages which can
make home delightful. or place of bust
ness desirable Richmond stands supreme.