History
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The
history of Bandy Field and the surrounding area is quite interesting.
Bandy Field as a natural landmark.
Richmond is reported to be founded like Rome on seven hills. According to Mr. Peter Wren, this information is incorrect. Douglas Southall Freeman wrote that
Richmond is founded on 67 hills and that the highest is at the intersection
of Three Chopt Road and Patterson Avenue. This fact explains that the
general area of Bandy Field serves as a watershed. Some of the rivulets in
our area flow to the James River and some to the Chickahominy.
Two old roads.
Even though it seems impossible to find precise information about the
eighteen acres constituting Bandy Field, we know that the history of this
area reaches back into colonial times. The Field is located between two
roads already known to the colonists and almost surely to the Indians.
The two roads are Three Chopt and Horsepen Roads. Three Chopt Road, also
named “Three Notched Trail,” formed the connection between the James River
Estates and Charlottesville and was marked by three axe marks along the
way. Horses were kept in a pen just north of Three Chopt Road with a gentle
brook flowing through it. The path leading to the pen was named Horsepen
Road and the brook Horsepen Brook.
The
Civil War and Dahlgren's Raid.
During the Civil War, earthworks were constructed in the southwest corner
of the Field. In all likelihood they were dug by slaves, according to
the book, History of Henrico County, by Louis H. Manarin and Clifford
Dowdey (1984). At that time the Field was part of Henrico County. The
authors write:
“Henricoans had escaped the war for a year and a half…[but
in March of l864] a Federal cavalry column under General Judson Kilpatrick
had slipped around the right flank of Lee’s army, posted on the Rapidan
River and was heading towards Richmond. The object of Kilpatrick’s cavalry
raid was to free the Federal prisoners in Richmond and to set fire to
the City.”
Colonel Ulric Dahlgren was ordered to move with 500 men by way of Goochland
Courthouse and across the James River to attack the City from the South.
Dahlgren sent a detachment of 100 men under Captain John Mitchell down
the north bank of the James with orders to advance as far as Westham Creek
and await developments on the other side of the river. Because of the
rain and high water, Dahlgren could not cross the river and met up again
with Mitchell’s troops in Short Pump. Dahlgren then moved down Three Chopt
Road toward Westham Plank Road (River Road) in cold and drizzly weather.
The Federal troops met some resistance from home guard and militia forces
from Richmond, but they continued their march. At night they were caught
by surprise by concentrated fire and retreated. Whether any of this firepower
came from the earthworks at Bandy Field we don’t know, but we can assume
that Southern troops were stationed there. At that time and at least till
l931 Bandy Road was referred to as Battery Road, which points to the importance
of the earthworks. Dahlgren was separated with 100 men from the main force
and killed a few days later. The majority of Dahlgren’s troops, now under
the command of Captain Mitchell, rejoined the main Union force under General
Kilpatrick, and Richmond was spared from further attacks for at least
a few months.
Green's farm.
Probably before the Civil War and certainly thereafter, farms were located
on Bandy Field. In the 1840s Benjamin W. Green put together a farm of
almost 500 acres with the main house located at 6510 Three Chopt Road
which has been preserved. On the north side of Three Chopt, the Green
farm extended east beyond Patterson Avenue to Horsepen Road. On the Bandy
Field side of Three Chopt, it ended at Boatwright Drive and extended to
the University of Richmond lake. It is possible that another farm was
located on Bandy Field at that time.
The
Council of Ham and the Sons of Ham Cemetery.
After the Civil War there were a number of farms on Bandy Field, and it
is particularly interesting that sources suggest that freed blacks occupied
these farms. They usually built log cabins and owned a horse, a cow, chickens
and pigs. They belonged to a community, called Council of Ham. According
to Henrico County records, a one-acre plot was sold to the Sons of Ham
in 1873. It was used for building a meeting hall and putting in place
a cemetery.
 The
meeting hall no longer exists, but the remnants of the cemetery can still
be seen. It is located on the part of Bandy Road that is closed to traffic
at the top of the steep incline at the South western corner of the Field,
just beyond its limits. The history behind the cemetery plot tells us
a lot about black organizations after the Civil War. Certain fraternal
orders had been formed by slaves even before the Civil War, but afterwards
two personalities stand out in the formation of black insurance and fraternal
societies: Maggie Walker and William Washington Browne. Browne served
“for almost seventeen years as the innovative head of the Grand Fountain
of the United Order of True Reformers,” a fraternal society that W.E.B.
DuBois characterized as “probably the most remarkable Negro organization
in the country” (David Fahey, The Black Lodge and White America, Wright
State University Press, l994). Browne also founded an “old folks’ home”
on the Westham farm where he had bought 634 acres with money probably
collected from members of the fraternal order. A community with the name
of Brownesville was established there and 1-4 acre plots were given to
small farmers.
Maggie
Walker and the Independent Order of St. Luke.
While Browne’s enterprise is very interesting, it is only located in the
vicinity of Bandy Field. Another insurance company and fraternal order
had an immediate connection to Bandy Field: the Independent Order of St.
Luke, founded by the remarkable entrepreneur, Maggie Walker, in 1867 as
a fraternal benefit association which offered mortuary insurance to members
of the association. The national or governing body was known as the Grand
Council (also Right Worthy Council), and member groups were referred to
as Subordinate Councils. Each subordinate Council adopted a unique name,
and as the number of Subordinate Councils increased, they were assigned
numbers by the Great Council. Later, members were offered accident and
sickness policies. Members paid monthly premiums, a portion of which was
retained by the Subordinate Council, a portion went to support the Grand
Council, and the rest went into the Trust Fund to pay benefits.
The Bradford family.
 One
of the Subordinate Councils of the Order of St. Luke was Ham’s Council.
The Order of the Sons and Daughters of Ham later became extinct, as did
the Order of St. Luke. Of particular interest is the Bradford family.
According to Henrico County deeds, Moses Bradford paid $175 for a five
acre plot on Bandy Field in 1873, the same year in which the Sons of Ham
purchased their lot. Since according to the l880 census he was born in
1830, it is likely that he was a freed slave. A brother of his or a son
from a first marriage, David Bradford bought also a five acre lot in 1881.
What makes the life of the Bradford family so interesting is the fact
that his son, Moses Bradford, Jr., served in the Spanish-American War
of l898. Because of the records kept by the Federal Government on its
veterans, we know that he was born in1869. He seems to have been literate,
since he signed his name neatly on the enlistment papers. We know from
other sources that there was a one-room school, named after Green, which
was located on Three Chopt Road. It is possible that Bradford attended
this school. He served in Cuba where he suffered a heat stroke in 1898.
He was eventually judged unfit for duty by a medical board due to constant
headaches. He died in l936. A relative requested a military tombstone
which is still standing in the overgrown cemetery, long after the small
black farms were abandoned. Altogether there are definitely fifteen gravesites
on the cemetery, maybe even more. The last known burial there took place
as late as 1945. Besides the extended Bradford family, other black families
lived on Bandy Field. A l931 plat for a Virginia Power Company easement
lists at least six families, among them names of families that still live
in the vicinity of Bandy Field. Among those is Grace Truman. Her descendant
owns a refuse business, and the Truman refuse truck can be seen weekly
in the neighborhood. It would be very interesting to look into when and
why the inhabitants moved away. For more information about the cemetery
and the Council of Ham, see “The African-American Community at Bandy Field,”
unpublished manuscript, 2006, by Selden Richardson, a member of the Friends
of Bandy Field and the President of The Alliance to Conserve Old Richmond
Neighborhoods.
Other farms.
Besides small black farms, there seem to have been some substantial white
farms on or near Bandy Field. Records show that a large farm belonged
to the Browning family as early as 1893. Mrs. Helen Wren remembered that
in the 1930s the Browning farm house stood at the corner of Patterson
and Three Chopt, where the Exxon Station is located now. It seems that
the Browning farm extended to the present Village Shopping Center and
the Northern part of Bandy Field. A member of the Browning family told
Mrs. Wren that her brothers used to roll the watermelons down to the creek
in order to keep them cool.
According to Mr. and Mrs. John Williams, who have resided adjacent to the
Field for almost fifty years a Mr. Brown owned a two story house at the
corner of Three Chopt and Everview Road. They also mentioned that one can
still see the traces of two wells on Bandy Field. There used to be a ravine
on the Field near Everview which was filled in with aspalt and concrete
debris. This explains the traces of asphalt on the Field.
We heard from a granddaughter of Gilbert Jennings Franklin who told us
that her grandfather owned a farm on Bandy Field and that her father,
Gilbert L. Franklin, was born on the farm in 1893. The son did not take
over the farm. In the l950s Mr. Adolph A. Platz and Mr. L. Peter Wren
negotiated a land purchase from a Mrs. Lipscomb for the establishment
of the Ridge Top Pool. According to a report by Mr. Platz, at that time
Mrs. Lipscomb’s brother still lived in a farm house on Bandy Road, just
opposite the cemetery site.
Purchase
of the property by the City of Richmond.
Originally all of Bandy Field lay in Henrico County. When the City of
Richmond annexed part of Henrico in 1942, the land was split between the
City and Henrico. In 1955 the City purchased the remaining County land
for a potential school site, because there were plans for further annexations.
But those plans did not come to fruition because of the cost. Because
of its location and the fact that it was undeveloped and its use unspecified,
the site was considered by the City as surplus property.
A
neighborhood park for decades.
City and County residents alike had adopted Bandy Field as their neighborhood
playground for all ages. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, there was increased
pressure to sell the property for a variety of developmental purposes
that included construction of single family homes, apartments and office
buildings, Little League fields, a retirement home, and, at the end of
the 1990s, athletic fields for the University of Richmond and a private
school. Surrounding residents and neighborhood civic associations consistently
opposed selling the last piece of open green space and
the only available
“park” in Richmond’s West End.
There are many remaining questions about the history of Bandy Field, and
any reader who may have additional information is encouraged to contact
Regine Gunlicks (agunlick@richmond.edu). We wish to thank those who helped
us with this report, including in particular the Virginia Historical Society. |
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