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'They're alive with stories'
Church Hill's old buildings give Richmond students a tangible lesson in history
BY LINDSAY KASTNER
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Friday, February 23, 2007
Students from Mary Munford Elementary School tour the grounds of the Hardgrove House on Church Hill as part of an "Early Richmond and Black History" field trip. The photo was shot from the second floor of what had been slaves' quarters.
In a little corner of Richmond, you can find old slave quarters, the site where a Union spy lived, and the church where Patrick Henry delivered his "Give me liberty" speech.
Yesterday, a group of Richmond schoolchildren got to see the history in their own backyard.
The Alliance to Conserve Old Richmond Neighborhoods led a field trip to sites on Richmond's Church Hill to show elementary school students that old buildings are more than bricks and mortar.
"They're alive with stories," said Jennie Dotts, who helped coordinate the trip for the Mary Munford Elementary School fourth- and fifth-grade students. "It's all part of ACORN's effort to have kids connect with the buildings around them."
Some of the kids were fascinated by the slave quarters behind the Hardgrove House at 2300 E. Grace St. The small, two-story building has a fireplace, once used for cooking and heating, that is now filled with Tonka trucks and other toys from the property's owners.
A few kids even said they could imagine living in the tidy, little house, though not during antebellum times. Author and ACORN historian Maurice Duke told the students that six to eight slaves -- likely from more than one family -- would have shared the building and worked in the much larger house a few steps away.
"No slave should be around," Tyrone Green, 9, said later. "It should be a free country."
The kids were impressed with a small museum in the city's Bellevue Elementary School at 2301 E. Grace St., where some expressed envy that students there get to have a field trip without leaving the building. The museum features photographs and such artifacts as old irons and oil lamps.
"It was so cool that they could have a museum in an actual school," said Chloe Buchanan, 9. "They're just in a historical place." The spot where the school sits had been the site of Union spy Elizabeth Van Lew's home.
But a highlight of the trip was visiting St. John's Church, the site of Patrick Henry's famous speech, where the students said history really did seem to come alive.
"You could just imagine him saying, 'Give me liberty or give me death,'" said Lizzie Graumlich, 10.
Contact staff writer Lindsay Kastner at lkastner@timesdispatch.com or (804) 649-6058.