Richmond Day Trip

For the cold returns in autumn when the wind rakes the trees
And the summer lies forgotten in a cold bed of leaves
As winter begins aye mind Boney, it wasn't only you
Who was broken on the field of Waterloo
-- "Battle of Waterloo" by Jim Malcolm

Last week was vacation for me, so having some free time, I decided to take quick day trip down to Richmond to cross some things of my research to-do list.  This seems to be becoming an annual trip for me.  Dad (also on vacation) decided to come along.

First stop was Shockoe Hill Cemetery, which isn't exactly in the best part of town.  After pulling through the narrow gate, the first thing we saw was a prison detail under police guard cleaning up the grounds.  Nice!  Anyway, we quickly found the marker I was looking for:

Lorenz Paul and his wife Charlotte emigrated from Germany to the U.S. in 1839, and Christina Paul, my 3rd-great-grandmother, traveled with them.  While Lorenz is the right age to be Christina's father, Charlotte is rather young to be her mother, so I've been trying to figure out how they're all related.  They're certainly connected somehow, as Christina's husband John Boschen purchased the plot where Lorenz and Charlotte are buried, and their grandson, my great-grandfather Dr. Charles Lawrence Siegel, was named for Lorenz/Lawrence.

The next stop was the Library of Virginia.  I could spend weeks here digging through the old microfilm records!  Happily, they now have digital scanners for the microfilm, which makes saving images so much easier.  Searching through old newspapers turned up Lorenz Paul's obituary.

Rather interesting tidbit:  Lorenz was a veteran of the Battle of Waterloo and "received a special mark of honor from his sovereign for distinguished services."  Unfortunately, while it mentions that he is survived by six children, it doesn't give their names.  Oh well.

On to Pop Pop's side of the family... Dad & I browsed through a book, Pioneer Recollections of Southwest Virginia, a large collection of stories, including my great-great-grandmother Lucy Swindall Dotson, and her siblings John Calvin Swindall and Ura Swindall Grizzle.  Among some of their memories of their parents, my 3rd-great-grandparents John Wesley and Polly Phipps Swindall, are:

• "Uncle Preston Phipps and a Ramey owned what is now called Ramey Flats, near Isom, Virginia.  Uncle Pres went to West Virginia, and gave his half interest in this land to Daddy.  Columbus Phipps agreed to law for the Ramey part.  He got it and Daddy's part, too, and kept it all.  He paid some of Daddy's heirs $5.00 each, but didn't pay several of them anything."
• "My father, John Wesley Swindall, served four years in the Union Army ... He was in the battle of Cynthianna, where the dead was so thick he could walk all over the ground on the dead.  The bodies were scattered for a mile or more and blood was all over the valley.  He killed only one man, and that man was chasing my father on a horse."
• "My father was a good neighbor.  He often helped some of his improvident neighbors through hard winters without asking for repayment.  I remember a few who did not appreciate his help, and would say hard things about Daddy."

Going back to the Siegel side of the family...

We got to see the scrapbook that Charles L. Siegel, my 3rd-great-grandfather, kept for the Gesangverein Virginia, a German men's singing group.  Here's a few photos of tickets and a program for a masque ball held on February 6, 1883:

And an article from 1879 (included in the scrapbook, but this image was pulled from the microfilm) about the group's production of H.M.S. Pinafore, directed by Charles Siegel:

As Dad and I left the Library of Virginia to walk around the downtown area, I stopped to take a photo of their display window, which was perfect, since I'd just been learning about my great-great-great-granddaddy.

We went looking for the address where Charles Siegel's shoe store had been, only to discover that it's now a seven-story car garage.  We had better luck when we got to Main Street, where his son Dr. Charles Lawrence Siegel had his office.  It's now a law office, but the secretary told us that the building has been there since the 1820s.

Our last stop was the historic Hollywood Cemetery, where many Siegel family members were laid to rest.

We stopped by the cemetery office, and there's a possibility that the plot where Dr. Charles Lawrence Siegel is interred might still have available space.  The plot was purchased by his wife, Grace, who only had one surviving child, Grace, who in turn had only one daughter, Gloria.  So this means that Uncle Bob is now the proud owner of the plot!  We're still waiting to hear back from the office manager just how many places are open, and how much the plot was purchased for.  Certainly far less than the $2,000-5,000 that it would cost nowadays :)