brothers sought to hasten the event. The chapter on "Flush times" gives the result.

George Nicolson, once mayor of the city (as was also Dr. John Adams), resided on one of the adjacent and most commanding heights overlooking the city and the surrounding country. The land west of it and south of Mr. Marshall's and Governor Smith's, embracing the slope of the hill, has recently been purchased by the city for a public square. Mr. Nicolson's residence was destroyed by fire some years ago. His descendants are among our worthy citizens.

One of his daughters married Carter B. Page, an enterprising man; another was the wife of Robert Gwathmey, a merchant of eminence in Liverpool and in Richmond; a third was the wife of the distinguished lawyer and politician, Chapman Johnson; and the fourth and surviving one has been a mother to the orphans of her sisters.

On Main street, near the foot of Church Hill, stood in old times and until lately, the residence of Friend Couch-a neat house, with a large garden attached. In my younger days this square was shaded on two sides by a number of spreading elms, the only row of trees on a mile of street. It was like an oasis in a desert, and furnished a refreshing shade to the pedestrian on a hot summer day-of which I can speak from experience. It was said that there were attractions also within

the walls, but these it was not my good fortune to discover till late in life. The house, the elms, the spacious garden with its flowers and bee-hives, have all disappeared; even the soil itself on which they stood, has been deeply excavated, to furnish bricks for the erection of other structures. But some of the former occupants who cultivated those flowers still flourish, if not in immortal youth, in ripened years, engaged in social and benevolent avocations.

John Foster, a useful public servant, was one of their nearest neighbors; his residence yet stands, partially restored from the dilapidations of time and fire. John Strobia, a worthy father of a worthy and yet surviving son,* Friend Clarke, and Col. David Lambert, father of the late Mayor, were also their neighbors, but more remote. Their residences may yet be traced, and also some of their descendants, in other parts of the city.

A short distance east of where Seabrook's Warehouse is built, was the pleasant and rural-looking residence of Adam Craig, Clerk of the Hustings Court. The green slope in rear of the house was washed at its base by a clear rivulet, which now flows, mixed with less pure waters, through a culvert to Shockoe creek; but the house remains. with its fine trees and hedges of box. The Clerk's

*This gentleman died in October, 1856.

office was in the small Dutch-roofed house, at the corner on Grace and Eighteenth streets. Here Andrew Stevenson, who was successively Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, of the Congressional House of Representatives, and Minister to Great Britian, acquired the elements of legal lore. Robert Stanard, his cotemporary, a distinguished lawyer and a Judge of the Court of Appeals, married a daughter of Mr. Craig. Mr. Stevenson died in 1857. Judge Stanard in 1846.

A most worthy couple, residing at the foot of Church hill near Rocketts, should not be forgotten. The home and good works of Mr. and Mrs. Wm. Rowlett are coeval with the century, and while I write this, his good works have just ceased, and he has gone to his reward, after attaining to nearly fourscore and ten years. He was the first to engage in the occupation of ship-broker in Richmond, and pursued it for more than half a century; but his charitable offices were of longer duration.

A neighbor of Mr. Rowlett at Rocketts, was Richard Young, City Surveyor, but who did not limit his investigations, to the surface of the earth. He was an instance of the pursuit of knowledge under difficulties. He would have been a Geologist, Zoologist, and all the other logists from A. to Z., had his education and opportunities favored such acquirements. His desire to make them

obtained for him the title of Philosopher Young. His accurate knowledge of the localities of Paris, acquired by studying the map, was remarkable. He quitted this sublunary sphere, many years ago, but his widow and her sister, whose lives have been devoted to good works, still pursue the occupation at an advanced age. The widow though childless, has been a mother to many orphans, and her fireside has rarely, if ever been without such an object of her benevolence. The father of these ladies was a steward to General Washington for many years, and their early life was spent on the Mount Vernon estate. They are probably the only survivors of those who lived there cotemporaneously with that great and good man. I trust they will pardon this intrusion on their privacy, but such examples should be commemorated that they may be imitated. Mrs. Y. saw, in 1860, Rossiter's picture of Washington at home, and declared the likeness to be excellent.

The ascent of Church Hill in old times, and even lately, could be attained by carriages on only one route-the road from Main street directly to the church-yard-and even this was "a hard road to travel," especially by funeral processions. The first time that I ascended it was on the solemn occasion of a funeral pageant, a few days after the death of Washington, when with other lads I followed at the close. Small as the population of

the city then was, I doubt if a funeral procession of greater length has extended along the street than on that occasion, except at the funeral of Washington's friend and biographer, Judge Marshall, many years after.

CHAPTER IX.

THE MAYOR.

AMBITION prevails in every sphere, and although it may have no room "to expand itself," will seek to be the centre of a circle even of very limited circumference. Aspirants for city honors, though then devoid of emolument, were as ambitious in former days as they are in the present. Among them was a worthy Irish blacksmith, who by dint of perseverance attained to the mayoralty, and his administration deserves to be recorded by the pen of a Knickerbocker. He was of the genuine Irish-Bull breed, but his attainments in public speaking fell far short of some modern city orators, of the Malaprop and Ramsbottom school, in amusing his hearers.

Butler's description of his hero, would apply to