Fall 2023

Table of Contents:

• A Letter from Our History Team
• Hechler Village
• From the Archives: Head of Household
• Henrico County & the 250th Commemoration
• Down on the Farm
• Rec & Parks App

Greetings, and happy fall to all you wonderful history people. It’s been a while since we chatted, so we figured we should catch you up on some of the things you might have missed, as well as some of the things on the Henrico horizon. Think of this as the awkward family Christmas letter from that great aunt whom you met once when you were five and who still spills the tea every year with that dot matrix printed form letter that keeps you up to date on all her family drama. Unfortunately, your third cousin, Ed, is locked up, yet again, and her aunt Sherry has had just a bear of a time getting over her latest bunion surgery.

Well, fortunately, or not, our news is not that salacious, but we have been busy!

The Henrico Historic Preservation Advisory Committee has approved four new historical markers which will be coming soon to a roadside near you. First, from Varina, two new markers will be installed to recognize the historic St. James School as well as the cemetery associated with the former St. James Lodge. The St. James community of free blacks and, later, formerly enslaved African Americans, thrived near New Market and Varina Roads. Many of the descendants of this community still call the area home. Next, Bungalow City is a small community located just west of Highland Springs on Nine Mile Road. The neighborhood was advertised starting in 1920 as a neighborhood for African Americans, during a time in Jim Crow Henrico when it was difficult for many African Americans to purchase property. Finally, from Tuckahoe, a marker recognizing the historic Sons of Ham Cemetery. Started by Moses Bradford, a veteran of the Spanish-American War, the Sons of Ham provided a final resting place for many local African Americans throughout the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. For more information on the Henrico Historical Roadside Marker program, contact Bryce Stanley.

Now for some news, on two wheels. Cyclists will be excited to know that The Fall Line Trail is underway! Breaking ground in mid-October, the Henrico portion of the trail will roughly follow the path of the former Ashland to Richmond streetcar line. Our history folks have been working with PlanRVA, the National Park Service, Richmond City, Hanover County, and the Town of Ashland to interpret this historic corridor. Future trail riders will not only be able to pump up those calves and quads, but they will also have the chance to learn some lesser-known Henrico history via trail signage and a digital Story Map.

For those who are a little less blessed with balance, stamina, and the fearlessness of a 15-year-old, there is something in the works for us as well. A new exhibit in the Recreation and Parks Administrative building is in the works! The exhibit will include a photographic journey through the history of Henrico Recreation Parks as well as a separate exhibit showcasing the overall history of the County through unique pieces from our museum collections. Keep an eye out for an open house event coming in 2024.

Finally, the holidays are approaching, and we all know what that means. If you are looking for some fun-filled family events and programs, or if you just want to take some time to get away from your family for a couple of hours, feel free to digitally thumb through our fall and winter program guides.

Happy Holidays, however, you decide to celebrate, and please enjoy the rest of our content!

Sincerely,

Bryce Stanley

Senior Historic Preservation Specialist

Henrico Recreation and Parks

Email us at REC-HistoryGroup@henrico.us

The Hechler Village Subdivision in eastern Henrico sits south of Nine Mile Road and straddles Laburnum Avenue to the east and west. The area has undergone a major transformation from its former use as a dairy farm to the current residential housing and retail mall, Eastgate Town Center (formerly named Eastgate Mall and Fairfield Commons).

The whole area was once a dairy operation and farm, consisting of 400 acres, known as Miller’s Dairy. It was started by German-born Charles Louis Miller (1840-1900). Arriving in America in 1839, he lived a few years in Charlottesville before moving to Henrico. Miller was active in the community and held a position as a county school trustee for many years. He served as president of the Richmond and Seven Pines railroad, which he was involved in building. Additionally, Miller was president of the Bodeker Drug Company (several of his sons were druggists by profession) and was an active member of the St. Johns German Evangelical Church. He married Margaret Brauer, a native of Henrico, and they had eleven children. At their father’s death, two of his sons, August C. and John L. Miller continued the family dairy business.

1926 VHS map

Running a dairy farm was not without unfortunate occurrences. The Millers, in 1906, had a passenger car of the Passenger and Power Company on its way to Seven Pines run through a drove of cows at Millers Lane crossing, where the farm pastures ran parallel with the tracks. Two of the animals were killed and several others were injured. The farm was quarantined in 1915, following the outbreak of foot and mouth disease among the cattle. In another incident, two pilots en route from Washington, DC to Langley field were forced down due to fog, and crashed into two wire fences, narrowly missing several buildings and a herd of cattle. The plane was damaged but neither of the pilots was injured. 

RTD 1945

In 1943, the dairy operation was purchased from the Miller family by Alvin Henry Hechler (1905-1970). Hechler had his own misfortunes facing the loss of a great number of cattle condemned for tuberculosis and outbreaks of other diseases. Hechler was married to Leonia Virginia Taylor. They had one child and made their home in Highland Springs.  He renamed the property Farmington Dairy and acquired more land. In addition to the dairy, he owned Northberrry Farm on the Pamunkey River in New Kent County. Hechler was active in the dairy business for many years and served as Vice President of Curles Neck Dairy in 1945. Moving on to new ventures, he auctioned Farmington Dairy in 1963. Hechler was also very involved in the automobile business. On a parcel of land north of Nine Mile Road, he established the Hechler Chevrolet Automobile showroom ca. 1969. The name was changed to Patrick Chevrolet, in March 1995, then to Patrick KIA, in 2011. Patrick KIA closed in October 2018.

In 1956, the development of the land surrounding A. H. Hechler’s dairy farm began with the planned construction of more than 1,000 homes. Oakmont, Inc. acquired title to nearly 600 acres while managing the development. The new development was to be named Hechler Village, a 20-million-dollar housing and commercial project. The first homes were built south of Nine Mile Road and west of Miller’s Lane (Laburnum Avenue). The developers also rezoned 60 acres along both sides of Nine Mile Road for businesses and a shopping center. Development continued east of Laburnum Avenue with the final section of 12 subdivision plans recorded in 1970. The median year for the homes built in the area is 1966.

Subdivision Plat Section 1, 1957

Subdivision Plat, 2023

The retail centers that existed earlier have either failed or have been redesigned to meet a changing market. The Kmart completed in 1974, fronting Nine Mile Road and Laburnum, now sits empty. Eastgate Mall, East Richmond’s first major shopping mall, boasted a Sears Roebuck & Co and Thalhimer’s as anchor stores. Additional junior stores were Peoples Drug and G. C. Murphy’s. The land around Hechler Village has grown from a rural dairy farm to a thriving community creating a new identity as it evolves.

Eastgate Mall Groundbreaking ,1967

Eastgate Town Center, present day

Essay by Nancy Knight

Research Historian and Guest Curator

Head of Household: The Sheppard Family Women at Meadow Farm

The following essay accompanied an exhibit of the same name which opened to the public on October 14, 2000. Research historian and guest curator Nancy Knight examined the lives of Elizabeth Mosby Sheppard, Mary Glen Crenshaw Austin Sheppard, and Virginia Young Sheppard from the late eighteenth century through the Civil War, as documented in the Sheppard family papers. Each of these women married into the Sheppard family and with their husbands, Benjamin, Mosby, and John raised their children and managed the farm. All three women were widowed in midlife and did not remarry. As widows, they supervised their households by directing the family affairs and operating the farm until they passed their responsibilities to the next generation. Much of the information about these women was gathered from journals, account books, receipts, and legal documents kept by Mosby and John Sheppard. A significant contribution also came from records the women kept after their husbands died and from Virginia Sheppard’s personal correspondence.



A woman’s world in antebellum America was saturated with the popular cultural image of the “ideal or true” woman as described by Virginia Cary in Letters on Female Character, published in Richmond in 1828. Many Americans believed that men and women were meant to live and work in separate spheres. A woman’s domain was her home. Young girls learned culinary arts, needlework, etiquette as well as other domestic skills needed to run a refined household. Once married, a woman needed to look no further than her own hearth, husband, and children for lifelong happiness. Ideal women were revered as the embodiment of all that was good and beautiful and were expected to grace their homes with warmth and joy. This vision of the ideal woman is reflected in a poem entitled “Home” which Virginia’s husband John copied and saved. It states in part:

Home is the found wife’s domain

The be all of her happiness

The spot which she is formed to bless

Where peace and love and friendship reign

Home is the pulse of joy – the life

Of all that’s worth possessing

But oh, how rich, how rich, how doubly blest the blessing

A home made happy by a much-loved wife.

While nineteenth-century society placed women on pedestals and attributed to them lofty characteristics, it denied married women basic legal rights. In Virginia, the laws of property ownership and inheritance governing married women put them in a state known as “civil death” according to Susan Lebsock author of “A Share of Honor Virginia Women 1600-1945” 1984 and “Free Women of Petersburg, Status and Culture in a Southern Town 1784-1860” 1984. This term meant that once a woman married her husband took control of all her property. He owned her earnings and her personal and real property. Even the property she inherited became her husband’s and could be used for any purpose, including paying off his debts. Fathers concerned about their daughter’s welfare circumvented these laws by creating a separate estate, usually in the form of a trust. Women could not enter any contracts or even execute a valid will.

The Sheppard women experienced many aspects of these laws. In his will, Benjamin loaned the use of their farm and five enslaved workers to Elizabeth until her death or remarriage and acknowledged her dower right to 1/3 of their personal property. This meant that as a widow Elizabeth owned outright 1/3 of the personal property she and Benjamin had acquired during their marriage, but could only use, not control the farm. At her death or remarriage, Benjamin desired his real and personal property to be sold and proceeds divided equally among his children. Mary fared somewhat better by Mosby in his will. Mosby gave his wife Mary her 1/3 dower right to their personal property, as well as 1/3 of their real property, stocks, crops, and all the buildings where they lived. He showed her great respect by observing that “he would as soon it [the estate] were under her control as that of any other person.” Mary sold her dower to her son John in 1845 for $1.00. In return, he promised to pay her $300.00 annually until her death.

After Virginia married John Sheppard and came to live at Meadow Farm, her father Mickleborough Young took steps to protect her well-being. He purchased Meadow Farm and put it in trust for her and her children’s benefit. He also willed her fifteen enslaved individuals. He then directed that his executors be the trustees of the enslaved and empowered the executors with the management of any profits made from their hire. Furthermore, he declared the enslaved and any profits were for the exclusive and separate use of Virginia, and not liable for her husband’s debts.

Regardless of a female’s 19th-century image of piety and goodness or their actual status before the law, women became active participants in education. Following the American Revolution, leaders of the new republic stressed the necessity of an educated populace. It became a woman’s patriotic duty to instill knowledge and wisdom in her sons so that they would grow into civic-minded men as reported in the Southern Literary Messenger, published in Richmond in 1840. Husbands expected wives to teach their sons the love of God and duty to country, and to oversee their education. To do this, women had to be well-educated.

Meadow Farm archival records show that Mary and Mosby Sheppard built a schoolhouse on their property and hired a schoolmaster to educate their children. Daughter Elizabeth eventually went to boarding school where she studied English and sciences. Before her marriage to John Sheppard, Virginia studied botany and composition. Virginia and John hired a live-in governess and teacher to help educate their children.

Women’s education also concentrated on artistic accomplishments. As an ideal woman, a wife adorned her home both by her presence and by her fine arts. Young girls learned needlework from their mothers and at their schools. They practiced sewing stitches on simple samplers and later began producing finely embroidered pictures and linens to take into their marriage. Excellent sewing technique was required not only to create art worthy to be hung on the wall but also to produce the clothing and linens needed by a large household. A young woman’s needlework demonstrated her character by the verses she chose to stitch, and the school she attended determined her parent’s social status. School girls also learned to draw, paint, sing, and play a musical instrument. Elizabeth subscribed to singing school for her daughter Nancy in 1799, and Mary’s daughter Elizabeth took drawing and painting at her boarding school. Virginia Sheppard played the pianoforte.

While women were valued for their more refined qualities, housewives of the period performed or supervised vast amounts of labor, which assured the orderly functioning of their households and produced some extra income for the family. The mistress of a southern farm managed work both within and outside of the home while ensuring the health and well-being of her family. Inside the home, the Sheppard women coordinated the work of the enslaved household workers who not only cooked and served meals for the family but preserved fruits from the harvest and made household necessities like soap and candles. As overseers of food production, the women directed the work in the garden and orchard as well as managing the functions of the dairy, the smokehouse, and the poultry yard. Sheppard farm accounts reveal that Elizabeth sold 45 gallons of brandy in 1802 and Virginia sold butter, eggs, strawberries, peas, tomatoes, cucumbers, and melons in 1847.

Most 19th-century married women performed their duties while pregnant and supervising the care of infants and young children. Pregnancy was a fearful prospect for young women because many lost their lives to childbirth, or their good health to complications associated with delivery and repeated pregnancies. Meanwhile, the threat of infant mortality cast a shadow over the joys of motherhood. Meadow Farm records indicate that Elizabeth and Mary each bore nine living children. Mary lost an infant son in 1809 and a girl child before 1835. Mary also suffered a difficult pregnancy and after birth in 1827 which required visits from the doctor and the help of two hired women. Virginia bore ten living children in the span of eighteen years. 

Women’s work changed very little in rural Virginia from the late colonial period to the mid-19^th century. Industrialization allowed Virginia to buy most of her fabric and even a few ready-made clothes for herself and John. She also purchased more food from the grocer. With the advent of the Civil War, came shortages of supplies and labor that forced Southern women to take on new roles and different methods of work. Virginia was fortunate that John did not leave to join the war effort and thus did not have to shoulder additional managerial responsibilities. Shortages did occur and Virginia made creative use of available supplies for food and clothing and reverted to older methods of producing necessities or did without.

Life at Meadow Farm after the war meant Virginia hired help to perform tasks once done by the enslaved or performed the work herself. Records show she had a sewing machine to help with clothing and household linen maintenance and production. In 1871, she paid a woman 60 cents for two weeks of washing. The Sheppards were also forced to change their traditional methods of educating their children. It is likely that they could no longer afford to employ a live-in teacher, as both daughters Florence and Roberta Lee attended Glen Allen, the newly opened public school. 

Virginia suffered personal as well as financial hardships following the Civil War. Daughter Belle died in 1874, daughters Helen and Nannie in 1876, husband John died in 1877, and son Hammy in 1882. Virginia’s sufferings would have been familiar to her predecessors. Elizabeth’s son Joseph died prematurely in 1794 and her husband Benjamin only a year later in 1795. Her son Philip died as an adult in 1815. Mary lost a baby and a young child, and her husband Mosby died in 1831. Illness and death were never very far away in nineteenth-century America. 

Women encouraged each other to bear their sorrow with Christian fortitude as religion played an important role in the lives of women. Strong religious beliefs help them endure the physical and emotional stresses brought on by multiple pregnancies, lingering illness, and early deaths. Christian mothers shared their convictions with their sons and daughters and expected them to be believers. Daughters stitched maxims and Bible verses into their samplers. Children often learned to read through Bible study. Among Mary’s early purchases as a married woman were a Bible in 1811 and a Watt’s Hymnal in 1814. Virginia subscribed to multiple Christian periodicals of the day. Her children possessed many religious storybooks and texts including a hymnal published by the American Sunday School Union where daughter Florence marked her favorite songs.

Elizabeth, Mary, and Virginia lived at Meadow Farm for over 100 combined years. During this time, they enriched the lives of their families and worked hard as head of the household. They employed the education and domestic skills they acquired as young women to manage large households. They experienced the joys of motherhood and the heartache of illness and death. Collective they saw the Sheppard family fortune rise and fall, but their personal contributions left lasting legacies. 

Virginia 250 Website

Let’s talk turkey: Todd the turkey that is. I’m hearing rumblings about Thanksgiving and turkey dinners and I must admit…it’s making me a bit nervous. Emilee and the other animal care staff assure me I have nothing to worry about and I trust them, but maybe everyone should consider tofurkey instead.

My sister Varina and I have been watching the staff at the farm really close lately…they’ve been up to some really weird stuff… One day I saw two of my animal keepers walking around with a bunch of rocks. I’m not really sure what they were going to do with them. But then they put them on a table and little human kids kept coming up to the table. I tried to yell over to them, “You can’t eat rocks,” but they just couldn’t understand! The kids would come up, work on the rocks for a while, then walk away. I heard someone say, “We’re rocking the flock,” but I’m not exactly sure what that means. It’s just a rock with paint on it.

There have been a lot of changes here on the farm. We have new fencing to help us farm animals and our visitors stay safe. The cows will soon have a new pasture area available to them, which I’m sure will be a nice change of pace. We were all saddened over Mable’s passing. It’s always hard losing a friend, but she was having a hard time getting around and the animal care staff didn’t want her to suffer with the cold weather coming. I hear Mildred is getting a new companion so hopefully they can introduce themselves in the next newsletter. I’m glad to hear she will be getting a new friend. We are looking to get some more chickens and I wouldn’t mind having another turkey to talk to, turkey-a-turkey.

We had a nice crowd out for that funny light show with music on July 4. I lent my stunning vocals to several of the performances, but, alas, no standing ovations. I do have a wing to pick with our event organizers though. Why is there a Glen Allen Day but no Todd the Turkey Day? What’s that? Kim, our new facility coordinator, says Glen Allen wasn’t a person or animal, but the name of the community we live in that was named for the Allen family that lived here. Glen Allen Day started off very rainy, but the afternoon turned out well. People really enjoyed painting pumpkins though I would have liked it if they had left one plain and tossed it in my area. Yummy!

Next time I see Sandy, I need to have a "peck á peck” with her, too. There have been several Friday mornings where groups of small children and their adults come up the hill to look at us fabulous animals and I hear them talking about “Pearl the puppet”. It seems Sandy has been doing story times and puppet shows with assistance from Kim and Mark Shubert, history recreation specialist, featuring a puppet of Pearl the sheep! This is clearly turkey erasure! I think Sandy needs to add a turkey puppet to the lineup. Sure, Pearl is a cute sheep, but I have heard from very reliable sources that I am a very handsome turkey. They are planning two of these story times and puppet shows each month this winter. Surely, we can switch out the puppet from time to time!

I have heard there are some great adult winter programs upcoming, too. Kim has a book club that meets every other month at different historic sites around the county. In December, they are meeting at Armour House and reading Dead Wake about the last crossing of the Lusitania. Katie Nowak, history recreation specialist, is doing a program on “Victorian Flower Language and the LGBTQ+ Community” at Eastern Henrico Recreation Center in February. Mark is presenting on “The Art and Lives of Leslie Bolling and George H. Ben Johnson” here in the Parsons Community Center in February, too. I also heard that Sandy is doing a program called “Queen Molly of Virginia: Mary Randolph and Virginia Cuisine” in December. As long as Mary Randolph didn’t have a turkey recipe, I guess that program is okay with me.

I think that is all I have for farm updates right now. I hope you come to see me and all my farm friends soon. If you don’t see me Thanksgiving week, well, I’ve been planning a vacation to Mexico, that’s all. I’ve heard there are a lot of farms and museums there, too. Most importantly, they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving!

-Todd, the Turkey

Translated by Kim Schmidtmann