A Tour of Historic Richmond

Richmond is a city that wears its history like a second skin, and this affectionate guide walks you through its cobblestone streets and Confederate monuments, its Georgian mansions and forgotten colonial taverns, with the intimacy of someone who knows every corner. Frances Leigh Williams, writing with the verve of a storyteller and the precision of a scholar, traces Richmond from its 1737 founding by William Byrd II through the Revolutionary War debates at St. John's Church where Patrick Henry's voice rang out, to its role as the Confederacy's capital. This is not a dry catalogue of dates and buildings but a living portrait of a city where the past never quite settles into the past. You'll learn which taverns still stand where history was made, which monuments mark pivotal moments, and how a small frontier settlement at the falls of the James River became a capital that shaped America's bloodiest conflict. For visitors and natives alike, this book transforms sightseeing into time travel.