American Adventures: A Second Trip 'Abroad at home'Street, Julian
General
American Adventures: A Second Trip 'Abroad at home'
Street, Julian
Southern States -- Description and travel; Southern States -- Social life and customs
Norfolk has grown so fast and has so rapidly replaced the old with the
new, that the visitor must keep his eyes open if he would not miss
entirely such lovely souvenirs of an earlier and easier life, as still
remain. Who would imagine, seeing it to-day, that busy Granby Street had
ever been a street of fine residences? Yet a very few years have passed
since the old Newton, Tazwell, Dickson and Taylor residences surrendered
to advancing commerce and gave place to stores and office
buildings--the two last mentioned having been replaced by the Dickson
Building and the Taylor Building, erected less than fifteen years ago.
Freemason Street is the highway which, more than any other, tells of
olden times. For though the downtown end of this lovely old thoroughfare
has lapsed into decay, many beautiful mansions, dating from long ago,
are to be seen a few blocks out from the busier portion of the city.
Among these should be mentioned the Whittle house, the H.N. Castle
house, and particularly the exquisite ivy-covered residence of Mr.
Barton Myers, at the corner of Bank Street. The city of Norfolk ought, I
think, to attempt to acquire this house and preserve it (using it
perhaps as a memorial museum to contain historical relics) to show what
has been, in Norfolk, as against what is, and to preach a silent sermon
on the high estate of beauty from which a fine old city may fall, in the
name of progress and commercial growth.
To the credit of Norfolk be it said that old St. Paul's Church, with its
picturesque churchyard and tombs, is excellently cared for and properly
valued as a pre-Revolutionary relic. The church was built in 1730, and
was struck by a British cannon-ball when Lord Dunmore bombarded the
place in 1776. Baedeker tells me, however, that the cannon-ball now
resting in the indentation in the wall of the church is "not the
original."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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