Page 4 - Lynchburg Area Timeline 1700-2009

taverns were licensed to serve liquor in a town of 3,000 (70)
1816- Known as the “year without a summer”. Snow falls in June after a lunar Eclipse (221)
1817- Toll bridge replaces Lynch’s Ferry (38)
1817- Sampson Diuguid establishes funeral home at 616 Main Street (40)
1817- Norvell Otey House built at 1002 Federal Street (70)
1817- (Nov. 1): Franklin Hotel opens for business at 10th and Main streets. Hotel is demolished in 1885 (70)
1818- Dec. 8): Lynchburg Thespians present their first play in a wooden building opposite the Franklin Hotel on Main Street. In 1820 a new theater is built on Court Street near Fifth. The 1818 theater had side boxes, pit for a local amateur orchestra (225)
1818- Main Street becomes paved at cost of $5,000 (43)
1819- First Episcopal church services held at Methodist Meeting House (70)
1820-1830
1820- (Oct. 31): Lynchurg founder John Lynch dies (42)
1822- Lynchburg Literacy and Library Company incorporated by the state
Legislature in hopes of establishing a public library, but plan fizzles. (43)
1822- (Aug. 14): Brown’s Company of Richmond gives the first professional theatrical performance at a theatre on Sixth and Court streets (189)
1836- Lynchburg Hose Company , city’s first organized fire company, formed (93)
1836- Turnpike-tollroad is built between Lynchburg and the Campbell County Courthouse. Lynchburg toll portion began on Grace Street (142)
1837- First Lynchburg agricultural fair is held (225)
1840-1850
1840- (Dec. 3): First packet boat, the William Henry Harrison, reaches Lynchburg on the James River and Kanawha Canal (41)
1842- Nathaniel Guggenheimer and Isadore Untermyer open a dry goods store on Main Street which becomes Guggenheimer Department Store at Seventh and Main . Store operated until 1962. (47)
1843- Piedmont Mills begins producing flour. Remained in business until 1987 (46)
1844- Lynchburg Female Seminary started by Mrs. J.M. Gordon, moved to Court Street and 12th Streets in 1854 (70)
1845- Appomattox County formed from Buckingham, Prince Edward, Charlotte and Campbell counties (127)
1846- African-American Baptist Church is formed when all black members of First Baptist Church transfer. After the Civil War the name is changed to Court Street Baptist (225)
1848- Lynchburg’s first railroad is chartered, the Virginia & Tennessee. 1848- Ann Norvell Orphan Asylum started (43)
1850-1860
1850- Nightwatch is established to patrol for blacks (50)
1850s- Prostitution flourishes. In 1860, 60 women are listed as prostitutes
or one prostitute for every 33 free men. Area most frequented by men seeking female companionship of this sort is known as Buzzard’s Roost (225)
1851- James River and Kanawha Canal opens from Lynchburg to Buchanan (43)
1851- Lynchburg’s first telegraph link to other areas is completed. (48)
1851- (Dec. 1): First daily newspaper, The Daily Express, is published (47)
1851- Court Street United Methodist completed. Most of the church’s 69 Founders are women (51,127)
1852- (Aug. 25): Lynchburg is chartered as a city by legislative act (42)
1852- First steam train arrives in Lynchburg. First passenger train depot
completed on Ninth Street, used until 1875. (40,70)
1852- (Dec. 7): Gas company begins supplying subscribers. By 1854, 30 gas street lamps served the city (47)
1852- Lynchburg and Abingdon Telegraph Company organized (221)
1853- Ammon Hancock builds tobacco factory on Cabell Street (70)
1853- Ordinance establishes Lynchburg’s first Board of Health (225)
1853- Franklin Hotel renovated, reopens as Norvell House (225)
1854- Southside Railroad completed from Petersburg to Lynchburg (40)
1855- Lynchburg is the second wealthiest city in the United States per capita, second only to the whaling town of New Bedford, MA (221)
1855- Lynchburg’s first college is established by the Rev. Samuel Cox on College Hill. Known as the Lynchburg Military College, it lasted Only until 1861 when most of its student body enlisted in the Confederate cause
1855- New courthouse, designed by William Ellison of Philadelphia, Completed (40)
1855- The first “penny paper,” the Lynchburg Daily Ledger is established (47)
1855- Spring Hill Cemetery, designed by John Notman of Philadelphia, opens. Howell Robinson is the first person buried there (70)
1855- Lynchburg’s first sewer system begins (225)
1856- (Jan, 8): Blizzard dumps 58 inches, 3 separate snows followed
quickly thereafter (43)
1822- Press and Advertiser becomes the Lynchburg Virginian newspaper (43)
1822- Rev. John Percival purchases the island in the James River from the Estate of John Lynch, It was previously known as “Chain Island” (170)
1823- (Dec.): Ordinance prohibiting the buying and selling of slaves enacted, but repealed because it is unconstitutional under state law. Slaves were sold at City Market and the Indian Queen Tavern (47, 221)
1824- Presbyterian Cemetery established (43)
1825- Bishop John Early forms Lynchburg Colonization Society in efforts to
return African-Americans to their native land (43)
1826- (May 18): St. Paul’s Church dedicated and the first pipe organ installed. (50)
1826- John Warwick Daniel House built on Court Street (70)
1827- Willis-Davis-Glass House built. It was the home to Carter Glass from
1907 to 1923 when his influence was at its peak (70)
1828- John Early and John Victor establish the city’s first water system with water pumped from the James River Canal 235 feet to a reservoir at Seventh and Court streets (43)
1828- City’s first textile plant, the Lynchburg Manufacturing Company, opens (42)
1828- Heirs of Edmund Tate build a house to accommodate guests near a sulphur springs known as Tate’s Spring (70)
1830-1840
1830- Court Street Baptist Church organized when an abandoned theatre is purchased to start a black church (51)
1831- Joel Sweeney of Appomattox, known as developer of the 5-string banjo, begins a series of minstrel tours with his brothers (127)
1832- James River and Kanawha Company chartered to build canal from Richmond to Lynchburg (46)
1833- (Aug. 27): Earthquake shakes the town considerably (225)
1833- (Nov. 13): Meteor shower causes many to fear judgment day is at
hand (225)
1834- First inn opens at Peaks of Otter, Polly Wood’s Ordinary. It has 63 rooms available (168)
1835- First balloon flight is made from Lynchburg’s 6th and Church Street. Hydrogen-filled balloon is used with over 4,000 people turning out To see it (6)
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