Stranica 122 [122]
CHURCH. HILL,
TG) . Mordecai’s “Richmond in By-Gone Days” he
DS, speaks of the Adams family as original proprietors
of the eastern portion of the city. Certainly this
statement is true if we may judge by their once
stately homes and ornamental gardens.
Colonel Richard Adams, son of Ebenezer
Adams and Tabitha Cocke, was born in 1723 and became a man
of wealth and influence, being a member of the House of Burgesses,
also a member of the famous Convention of 1775. Colonel Adams
had three sons, each of whom were prominent men of that day and
whose homes were the rendezvous of many distinguished Virginians.
By some strange trick of fortune, the oldest of these homes,
built by the first Colonel Adams in 1760, is the only one which
has withstood the onward march of progress, and today is stand¬
ing almost unchanged after a period of one hundred and sixty¬
three years. Built in the shadow of old St. John’s Church, it has
shared alike its joys and sorrows and many of its traditions.
We are indebted to Mrs. Edmund Randolph Williams, the fifth
-in descent from Colonel Adams, for the photograph of this in¬
teresting old home.
Tucked away behind the high walls of the Roman Catholic
Convent of Monte Maria it stands, far from the ‘‘weariness, the
fever and the fret’? of the busy world; mellowed by the sunshine
of years, gently touched by the hand of Time. From its lofty height
it has watched a ‘‘scattered village growing into a city, far out
on the landscape seen the iron roads bringing commerce to its
merchants, heard the multitudinous sounds of a great city.’’
The Sister who showed us through the house and grounds told
us, with much pride, that portions of the ceiling had never been
repaired. The plaster walls with their delicate tracery, and the
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