Wholesale and Retail, Wines and Liquors
Mr. S. W. Robinson, Prop.
Corner 18th and Franklin Sts.
Souvenir Views Negro Enterprises and Residences, Richmond, Va. D. A. Ferguson & Co. 1907.
Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Richmond (1905) — Plate 45.
Richmond Planet, Volume 12, Number 3, 5 January 1895. Spottswood William Robinson, Sr.
21-23 North Eighteenth Street
Spottswood W. Robinson was born in King William Co., Va. Dec. 15, 1858, attended school in the country only six months and has never attended any educational institution since. He left King William Co., and came to Richmond and stayed with Dr. O. A. Crenshaw attending to milk dairy etc. He remained with him about one year. He then went to Mr. N. J. Smith and remained with him in business from '71 to '79. At that time he went into business for himself on Main St., bet. 18th and 19th Sts. He removed then to 16 N. 18th St., and from there to his present location, No. 23 N. 18th St. (Richmond Planet)
And there’s Masonic Hall right behind where this used to be.
This is one of the oldest tobacco box factories in the city, and the largest in its line in the United States. The proprietor of this immense business has four factories, the largest, of which the following is an illustration, is at the corner of Eighteenth and Cary streets, Richmond, one in Danville, one in Lynchburg, and one at Tiffin, Ohio.
These factories have a working capacity for the consumption of 4,000,000 feet of lumber per annum. He employs about seventy-five hands directly, and several hundred indirectly in this industry.
(American Rails) — Baltimore & Ohio 4-4-0 “American Type” — St. Marys, West Virginia — circa 1910
The Tiffin factory is located in the best section of the Sycamore country, and the principal portion of the lumber used comes from this belt. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and the North-western Ohio Railroad, both have side tracks running to this factory, thus affording competing freight rates to all points between the great rival corporations, the Baltimore and Ohio and Pennsylvania Railroads. The sidings are on the property of Mr. Whitlock.
(PicClick) — Old Virginia Cheroots tobacco box
Boxes in shooks are shipped in car lots at the lowest figures. The trade of this concern is chiefly through Virginia and North Caolina, but shipments are often made to foreign countries. Mr. Whitlock has been in this line of business since March, 1867, and he has ample means for all his purposes. He is an ex-member of the City Council. [IOR]
[RVCJ93] — Harwood & Jones’ Box Factory, circa 1893
Things change quickly in business. Whitlock died in 1893 at the tender age of 53. The building did not long remain inactive.
Harwood & Jones, manufacturers of tobacco boxes and shooks, at Eighteenth and Cary streets, are successors to R. H. Whitlock, who started this enterprise of theirs about the year 1867. Since the establishment of the business; so many years ago the manufacturing plant has been greatly enlarged and new machinery added from time to time, until, at present, the firm has unsurpassed facilities for carrying on the large and increasing business they enjoy.
(Farm Collector) — a Corliss steam engine which offered the best thermal efficiency of 19th-century steam engines — Appleton’s 1885 Cyclopaedia of Applied Mechanics
Their factory is located on the comer of Eighteenth and Cary streets. It covers nearly one entire square. Steam is the power used to operate it, and the daily capacity is upwards of two thousand boxes of all description. Tobacco boxes are the leading specialty, and they are produced of excellent quality and superior workmanship, at a comparatively low cost, and are rapidly disposed of to the trade in all the tobacco manufacturing sections.
(Library of Congress) — Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Richmond (1905) — Plate 45
This firm cuts upwards of 2,000,- 000 feet of lumber yearly, and, with the numerous advantages possessed, Messrs. Harwood & Jones are prepared to compete with any concern of the kind in this section of the country. [RVCJ93]
Unfortunately, they didn’t compete for very long. They took over Whitlock’s enterprise in 1893, and by 1905, Sanborn shows that it had transformed into C. W. Hardwick & Co., still making boxes.
[FLIN] — Mrs. R. H. Whitelock, the former Miss Lou Ford, circa 1891
Robert Henry Whitlock may not have been long-lived, but he does appear to have been lucky in love. Indeed, his wife was well regarded enough to rate an effusive and gushing write-up in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper:
Among the gay society leaders of charming old historic Richmond, Mrs. R. H. Whitlock stands conspicuous. Nor is her social success due to wealth, position, and and attractive personality than to the innate graciousness and kindness of heart — the true secret of abiding popularity — that is her fairest heritage.
Mrs. Whitlock excels in the beauty and elegance of her toilettes, Worth and her own inherent taste-combining always to make her one of the most effectively gowned women in any assemblage. She has a beautiful physique, and her skin is as white and smooth as marble A sharp contrast is furnished by her densely dark hair and brows. She entertains magnificently. [FLIN]
November 2019 — looking towards 1800 East Cary Street today
Whitlock plucked her from the wilds of Covington, Kentucky, and they made their crib on fashionable Franklin Street. [FLIN] Alas for Richmond, when he died Miss Lou found a new husband in William Ambrose Wilson of Kansas City, Missouri, which was where she died at the very young age of 42 in 1899. (Find A Grave)(Ancestry)
(R. H. Whitlock Tobacco Box Factory is part of the Atlas RVA! Project)
Note
Readers of this space who pay attention to things like the links for reference attribution should know that VCU Libraries has reorganized their public site, and has relocated the Baist Atlas maps. The correct link appears with this post. Sadly, however, there are not enough hours in the day to chase down and correct the hundreds of previous posts which will continue to have the incorrect link. Alas.
Print Sources
[FLIN] Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper. Saturday, February 21, 1891.
[IOR] Industries of Richmond. James P. Wood. 1886.
[RVCJ93] Richmond, Virginia: The City on the James: The Book of Its Chamber of Commerce and Principal Business Interests. G. W. Engelhardt. 1893.
What shameful abuse of a this perfectly fine small commercial building — decorative parapet and cornice ripped away like a used band-aid, leaving noticeable scarring on the facade. Such a pity.
314 North Eighteenth Street
Library of Virginia, Carneal & Johnston Negative Collection
(VCU) — 1889 Baist Atlas Map of Richmond — Plate Index — showing Church Hill tunnel extent
In 1875, the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway completed a 4000-foot tunnel that ran through Church Hill. It connected nicely with Park Siding, a junction of C&O tracks near the intersection of Brown and Fifteenth Street in the Shockoe Valley. This area formerly lay between Clay and Leigh Streets, now covered by the Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike.
January 2018 — Eastern tunnel mouth
Unfortunately, the tunnel was dug through soil, not bedrock, which presented problems. Church Hill is composed of blue marl clay, which expands when wet and contracts when dry. Combined with a tendency for the tunnel to collect groundwater from 70 feet above, the result was a maintenance headache for C&O. They ditched using it in favor of the James River Viaduct, when the latter was completed in 1901.
January 2018 — showing the Eastern tunnel seal
It stayed out of sight, but not out of mind, until 1925, when C&O was looking to expand rail capacity. They turned to the tunnel to address the problem, but it didn’t go well.
On October 2, 1925, about 3:30 P.M. the tunnel collapsed while a work train and several gangs of laborers were inside. Two white men and two Negroes lost their lives. Fireman Benjamin F. Mosby, who was fatally injured was on of the first of the wounded to make his way to the surface. The body of Tom Mason, engineer, was dug out the night of October 11. The bodies of the two Negro laborers who were believed to have perished in the tunnel were never found. (Richmond Public Library — Richmond Times Dispatch, 1947)
Only two others made it out alive. The State Corporation Commission ordered the tunnel sealed — bodies and train still inside — and it’s stayed that way ever since.
September 2016 — Western Portal
Both the tunnel portals are still available to view, although it is far easier to see the Western portal at Eighteenth & East Marshall. It’s formally contained with the Atrium Lofts property, but you can get a look from the street or the parking lot.
(Google Maps) — ravine containing the Eastern Portal
The Eastern Portal requires a little more work. You can get there via rough trails from either Thirty-first Street or the playground at Twenty-ninth. However, before you jump up and race over there, pause for a moment to use the noodle you were born with.
As seen from the photos above, the area around the portal is wet and muddy, and the tunnel itself is full of deep sandy water. Richmond journalist Mark Holmberg has documented some of the issues with getting there, comparing the mud to quicksand. Use care, expect to get dirty, and watch your step.
Above all, don’t try to qualify for a Darwin Award and enter the tunnel, because no one’s going to hear you if that goes south. Besides, it is a tomb; let the dead rest in peace.
The most notorious of the C&O assets depicted on the mural located at 1748 East Cary Street. Originally excavated in 1873, it was so troublesome that the railroad stopped using it in favor of the James River Viaduct in 1901.
Capacity issues eventually forced an attempt at fixing the problems in 1925, with tragic results. The tunnel collapsed near the western portal with a work crew, locomotive, and ten flat cars inside. Only three managed to crawl out. The State Corporation Commission decided the tunnel was a bad idea, and ordered it sealed.
