Richmond, VA news and local guide

In early 1737 the planter William Byrd II had Major William Mayo lay out a town grid, finished that April. Byrd named it Richmond because the bend of the James at the falls reminded him of Richmond on the Thames, and it was incorporated as a town in 1742. In 1775 Patrick Henry gave his "Give me liberty or give me death!" speech at St. John's Church. The state capital moved from Williamsburg to Richmond on April 18, 1780, and in 1781 Loyalist troops under Benedict Arnold raided and burned the city while Governor Thomas Jefferson fled. The city recovered within a year. The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, drafted by Jefferson, was enacted there in 1786, and the State Capitol, designed by Jefferson and Charles-Louis Clerisseau, was completed in 1788. George Washington helped design the James River and Kanawha Canal around the rapids, and a canal boatman appears on the city flag. Canal traffic and water power made Richmond a major industrial center, with some of the largest ironworks and flour mills in the country. It became an independent city, separate from Henrico County, in 1842, and during the Civil War it was the capital of the Confederate States of America. Sources Wikipedia: Richmond, Virginia