Nickel Savings Bank (new site)
and office of Dr. R. C. Brown, Dentist
Cor. 29th and Leigh Streets
Urban Set, a hip-looking bridal shop, owns this building now and says that the wrought iron bars are original. There are bars visible in the 1907 photo, but it’s so grainy it's hard to compare. No shade at Urban Set’s claim of authenticity!
Dr. R. C. Brown was the Historian for the Old Dominion Dental Society, a fraternity of dentists that then became the Tri-State Dental Association and the Interstate Dental Association, before settling on the National Dental Association.
Coincidently, Richard Tancil, founder of the Nickel Savings Bank, was formerly in the medical space, graduating from Howard University with a degree in medicine in 1882, and practicing at Freedman’s hospital in D.C., before settling on a new life in High Finance. (newafrican77)
Souvenir Views Negro Enterprises and Residences, Richmond, Va. D. A. Ferguson & Co. 1907.
AKA, Armstrong High School (2nd location)
21 East Leigh Street
Built, 1876
November 2017
This is the story of Armstrong High School, kind of a meandering stream with a few twists and turns, plus a bit of drama thrown in for good measure.
(Encyclopedia Virginia) — Twelfth & Leigh Streets — original location
In the aftermath of the Civil War, all the available money floating around was used to rebuild the city center. The Evacuation Fire of 1865 gutted the city’s industrial core, removing one layer of philanthropy. Piling on, the Union limited the number of Southern banks which could lend money, so finding cash for education was tough.
(LOC) — Beers Illustrated Atlas of the Cities of Richmond & Manchester, 1877 — Plate G
Richmond was too poor to educate white children, let alone newly freed slaves. Into this vacuum, Northern enterprises like the Freedman’s Bureau and The Peabody Fund gave money and moral support to Negro education (William & Mary). In 1873, the first secondary school for blacks opened at Twelfth and Leigh with Rabza Morse Manly as principal, a man so respected, that the Armstrong yearbook is still named Rabza in his honor. (Richmond Public Schools)
(Encyclopedia Virginia)
Eventually, they outgrew the space.
The Freedmen's Bureau gave financial aid to the erection of a school at 12th & Leigh Streets, to be used for both normal and high school classes. This school preceded City-financed secondary education for colored children; it was occupied in April 1873, with Mr. Manly as principal. One Armstrong historian has written that "...a large part of the labor was donated by colored 'mechanics' and laborers." (Richmond Public Schools)
(LOC) — General Samuel Chapman Armstrong, between 1860 & 1870
The building at 12th & Leigh continued in use until condemned for school purposes during the session of 1908-09, at which time the teachers and pupils were moved to Baker School.
In September 1909, the normal and high school programs moved to Leigh School which had been closed as a white school. The high school was then named Armstrong while the normal school was variously referenced as Armstrong High & Training School, Armstrong Normal School, Armstrong High & Normal School, and the Training School. (Richmond Public Schools)
Why Armstrong? It turns out Samuel C. Armstrong, Union general, was also the first principal of the Hampton Institute, today’s Hampton University, a private black school founded to provide education to freedmen.
(LOC) — Booker T. Washington — between 1905 & 1945
One of Armstrong’s Hampton Institute alumni was Booker T. Washington, who eventually applied the lessons learned at Hampton as the first leader of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. The Leigh Street building was, at one point, named after him.
That gave the Armstrong name some street cred, but Washington was also the author of the Atlanta Compromise, an agreement with white politicians in the South that blacks would work and submit to white political rule, as long as basic guarantees for education and due process were upheld. Other black leaders, like W.E.B. Du Bois, were not impressed.
November 2017
Armstrong moved to a new facility in 1923, today’s Richmond Alternative School, and then to its current location at 1611 North Thirty-first Street, in 1951.
November 2017
Today, the former school, like so many downtown buildings, has been converted to living space, and is now called Washington Plaza.
(Richmond Normal Colored School is part of the Atlas RVA! Project)
We can't wait to check out @plain_jane_adelaide 😍 Taking over the old Cos restaurant site, the new owners have completely transformed this beautiful building 🙌 Contact us today if you would like help with your leasing requirements and to see how we get results!⠀ ⠀ #commercialrealestate #plainjaneadelaide #realestateadelaide #leighstreet (at Leigh Street) https://www.instagram.com/p/ByzIrCYjZQ6/?igshid=5qya7cw4awv7
Looking forward to Plane Jane opening this weekend!⠀ ⠀ Taking over the old Cos restaurant site on Leigh Street, the new owners have completely transformed this beautiful building 🙌⠀ ⠀ #adelaide #adelaidebars #adelaiderestaurants #adelaidefood #leighstreet #restaurants #bars (at Adelaide, South Australia) https://www.instagram.com/p/ByjUfSwDBtB/?igshid=mn30l2kutwdj
Leigh Street looking east from Brook Ave.,
showing Ebenezer Church Spire and Monroe School Tower.
Ebenezer Baptist Church
Rev. Wm. H. Stokes Pastor
Cor. Judah and Leigh Sts.
Souvenir Views Negro Enterprises and Residences, Richmond, Va
216 West Leigh Street
The original configuration of Ebenezer Baptist Church was rearchitected by Charles Thaddeus Russell following the steeple-purge of 1911, when the city’s first Building Inspector declared war on unsafe church steeples.
Wait, a second. Isn’t this the “Pin Money” Pickles factory? Yes, in fact, it is! Sometimes a location has more than one story to tell about it.
(Library of Congress) — Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Richmond (1905) — Plate 72 — showing the factory location of “Pin Money” Pickles
It seems probably that Mordecai was correct in saying that this house was built by Joseph Jackson. Jackson bought the square on January 3, 1795 from the administrators of Patrick Coutts, and while the deed mentions “all Houses, buildings . . . ” the price, 36 pounds, could hardly have included a two-story brick dwelling. As the value of the property was increased the following year it would seem that Jackson built the house almost immediately. He soon put a mortgage on the property, and in May. 1798 it was purchased at auction by Thomas Rutherfoord. The greatly increased price, 1075 pounds, again confirms the hypothesis that Jackson built the house.
(Find A Grave) — Thomas Rutherfoord
In his unpublished memoir, Rutherfoord gives a curious sidelight on this transaction. Jackson had come to his assistance when Mr. Rutherfoord broke his leg while crossing what is now the square between Main, Franklin. Sixth, and Seventh Streets on a dark night. He returned Jackson’s kindness by buying this house and the land later called Jackson’s Addition but was eventually disillusioned about the young man and tried to save something from the wreck of his affairs for his children. Rutherfoord held the house only two years. In April, 1802 it was first insured, the owner at that time being Bartlett Still, who sold it the following year to Patrick Gibson.
(Speak, Memory: Time Regained) — print of the Richmond Theatre fire of 1811 — Alexander W. Weddell, Richmond, Virginia, in Old Prints. 1737-1887 (Richmond, 1932), plate 12
Mordecai describes Patrick Gibson “as respectable merchant, connected in business with a nephew of Mr. Jefferson.” This seems unflattering for the ancestor of some of Virginia’s most distinguished citizens, until one remembers that the word “respectable’’ was purely laudatory in connotation until long after Mordecai’s book was written. In the Theatre Fire of 1811 not only Gibson’s first wife but a girl who lived with the Gibsons, Nancy Green, whose parents were actors, perished.
Gibson, who had just returned from a trip abroad, escaped the fire and lived to marry again and have a number of children by his second wife.
(Find A Grave) — Nicholas Mills
In 1823, when Gibson’s affairs were embarrassed, the house had been bought by his second wife’s aunt, Mrs. Martha Jones. That Mrs. Jones was revered as the good angel of the household is evidenced by the fact that two of the Gibson children were named for her two successive husbands! After Patrick Gibson’s death she sold the property, in 1828, to Nicholas Mills.
Immediately after his death the whole block from Seventh to Eighth was sold to William Allen of Surry County for $76,244 (Confederate). During the ’seventies the house was occupied by J. W. Cringan and later by the St. Paul’s Church Home for aged women. In 1882 William J. Johnson, who had meantime bought a part of the property, including the house, sold it to Everard B. Meade. During Mr. and Mrs. Meade’s occupancy, which lasted until 1898, the old house had another renascence as the centre for a lively group of young people, who called themselves Mrs. Meade’s “chickens.” The gay foolishness centering around the house at that time has recently been recalled in a pamphlet written by one of those who enjoyed it.
(Facebook) — Mrs. Ellen G. Kidd, proprietor of “Pin Money Pickles “
In 1898 the house was sold to Mrs. Ellen G. Kidd. In a building in the rear Mrs. Kidd began her experiments in cookery which resulted in the famous “Mrs. Kidd’s Pin-Money Pickles.” She owned the house up to 1922, though the pickle-factory had long since moved to larger quarters. After that the property was very run down and was rented to a low class of Negroes. In 1931 the house was demolished.
(Souvenir Views Negro Enterprises and Residences, Richmond, Va) — Y. M. C. A. Rev. S. C. Burrell, Sec’y.
The many outbuildings which had belonged to the place in Gibson’s day had long since disappeared, the block being closely built up. The house itself was probably very little changed. It had a wing which was added sometime before 1811 and a charming two story porch, unique in Richmond, of which the date is unknown, since it is not shown on the insurance policies. The interior woodwork, which was bought by the Richmond Art Company, was beautiful, especially the mantels and an arch across the hall.
March 2019 — looking towards 706 East Leigh Street today
Mary Wingfield Scott: a woman of opinions.
As an architectural historian, her two volumes on Richmond houses are priceless, but some of the racist things she says in them are truly cringe-worthy. When she says that it was rented to a low class of Negros, she really means that it was used as the Jackson Ward YMCA. Her comment added nothing to the narrative, and yet she had to say it. Makes you shake your head.
(Patrick Gibson House is part of the Atlas RVA! Project)
Print Sources
[HOR] Houses of Old Richmond. Mary Wingfield Scott. 1941.
Built, (new factory) after 1893, (2nd factory) before 1912
[RCVJ03] — the home of Pin-Money Pickles at 706 East Leigh Street
Another successful Gilded Age businesswoman, in the company of Maggie Walker, Mrs. Jane King, and Mrs. Alice Jones Pyle.
(Facebook) — Mrs. Ellen G. Kidd, proprietor of Pin Money Pickles
Mrs. E. G. Kidd, manufacturer of "Pin Money" pickles, resides here at 619 North Sixth street. The stranger passing there is aware, perhaps, of a grateful aroma of vinegar and spices. Looking around, he sees only a modest residence, with nothing to indicate that it is the seat of a celebrated enterprise.
(LOC) — Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Richmond (1905) — Plate 72 — showing the original location at 619 North Sixth Street
Yet here, in her basement and in that of the adjoining house, with ample buildings in the rear, Mrs. E. G. Kidd, who prepares these celebrated relishes, gives personal attention to every detail of her expansive business, not only in the far tory, but often at the desk; and, in emergencies, on the. road even, she has shown herself equal to the occasion.
March 2019 — looking towards 619 North Sixth Street today
Begun some years ago, as the name signifies, for a little “pin money,” her industry has today attained a national—yes, it may be said an international reputation. Throughout the country her oil mangoes and other sweet pickles may be seen on the shelves of the leading grocers, in the buffets of the palace cars and on menus of the famous clubs, hotels and summer resorts.
(FindAGrave) — Pin-Money Pickle jars
Among her patrons, also, are the steamship companies. Orders have been filled for the American Colony in Paris and in other European capitals. Even from diplomatic circles there come occasionally “assurances of distinguished consideration.”
Under conservative management, this business, begun in a small way and with some embarrassments, shows, from year to year, such steady and healthy growth as to be worthy of mention among the notable enterprises of Richmond. [RVCJ93]
(Chronicling America) — Richmond Times advertisement, September 1, 1912
So went the 1893 official history of the Richmond Chamber of Commerce. A 1912 write-up for the Times-Dispatch by Frank S. Woodson, Women Builders of Big Richmond, was more effusive.
(Chronicling America)
Of all of Richmond's great business women I guess Mrs. R. G, Kidd Is entitled to a place at or near the head of the column. She is the "Pin Money Pickle" woman. A young woman, a mere girl, learned how to make good pickles, and just as a matter of pride she put some of them on exhibition at one of the old-time State Fairs. They won premiums and somebody wanted to buy them.
(LOC) — Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Richmond (1905) — Plate 73 — showing the new factory at 706 East Leigh Street
The young woman needed a little pin money, and she thought she would sell a few. She did, and then there came a demand for them. Mrs. Kidd was a good business woman, and she saw a big future for pin money pickles. She took to the road and became the first woman drummer the world ever saw.
March 2019 — looking towards 706 East Leigh Street today
To make a long story short, she Introduced her pickles all over the United States, and in one way and another they got Introduced in foreign lands, and to-day Pin Money Pickles are being sold in all the wide world.
(Facebook) — showing the newest factory at Bowe and Marshall Streets
The factory that makes them in Richmond has grown from a little kitchen proposition and cook stove environment to a six-story factory at Bowe and Marshall Street, in which over sixty people are employed. (Chronicling America)
Okay, business was so good that the time of the 1912 article, Mrs. Kidd had built a second factory building in the burgeoning west end of the city. What the hell — those must have been GREAT pickles. Note that by the time of moving to West Marshall, they had traded up from a three-story building to a five-story one. Impressive.
As for the name of the business, Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote that A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. So was it “Pin Money” Pickles, Pin Money Pickles, or Pin-Money Pickles? Imagine a modern branding expert rolling eyes and reaching for the ibuprofen.
("Pin Money” Pickles is part of the Atlas RVA! Project)
Print Sources
[RVCJ93] Richmond, Virginia: The City on the James: The Book of Its Chamber of Commerce and Principal Business Interests. G. W. Engelhardt. 1893.
[RVCJ03] Richmond, Virginia: The City on the James: The Book of Its Chamber of Commerce and Principal Business Interests. G. W. Engelhardt. 1903.
North First Street looking from Leigh
Sharon Baptist Church, Rev. A. D. Thomas, Pastor — on left
Residence of Mr. Jessie Williams — on right
Spire of Colored Catholic Church — in background
These days, you can’t look this direction without danger of being run over by oncoming traffic.
Souvenir Views Negro Enterprises and Residences, Richmond, Va
Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Richmond (1905) — Composite view of Plates 67 & 71
North First Street, looking north from Leigh Street
Atlas RVA! Project
