CHURCH HILL 



N Mordecai's "Richmond in By-Gone Days" he 

 speaks of the Adams family as original proprietors 

 of the eastern portion of the city. Certainly this 

 statement is true if we may judge by their once 

 stately homes and ornamental gardens. 



Colonel Richard Adams, son of Ebenezer 

 Adams and Tabitha Cocke, was born in 1723 and became a man 

 of wealth and influence, being a member of the House of Burgesses, 

 also a member of the famous Convention of 1775. Colonel Adams 

 had three sons, each of whom were prominent men of that day and 

 whose homes were the rendezvous of many distinguished Virginians. 



By some strange trick of fortune, the oldest of these homes, 

 built by the first Colonel Adams in 1760, is the only one which 

 has withstood the onward march of progress, and today is stand- 

 ing almost unchanged after a period of one hundred and sixty- 

 three years. Built in the shadow of old St. John's Church, it has 

 shared alike its joys and sorrows and many of its traditions. 



We are indebted to Mrs. Edmund Randolph Williams, the fifth 

 in descent from Colonel Adams, for the photograph of this in- 

 teresting old home. 



Tucked away behind the high walls of the Roman Catholic 

 Convent of Monte Maria it stands, far from the "weariness, the 

 fever and the fret" of the busy world; mellowed by the sunshine 

 of years, gently touched by the hand of Time. From its lofty height 

 it has watched a "scattered village growing into a city, far out 

 on the landscape seen the iron roads bringing commerce to its 

 merchants, heard the multitudinous sounds of a great city." 



The Sister who showed us through the house and grounds told 

 us, with much pride, that portions of the ceiling had never been 

 repaired. The plaster walls with their delicate tracery, and the 



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