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Chimborazo Park
Chimborazo Park is a park and historic land site in Richmond, Virginia, United States. Created in 1874, the park was the site of Chimborazo Hospital, one of the world's largest military hospitals.
The name Chimborazo comes from a volcano in Ecuador. It is believed that the Richmond hill was dubbed Chimborazo around 1802, the year of Alexander von Humboldt’s unsuccessful attempt to scale the mountain in Ecuador. Chimborazo Hill was one of Richmond's "seven hills" and thought to have been so named by a local world-traveler because of its topographical likeness to the Ecuadorian volcano. A brewery had dug cellars in the Richmond hill to store beer. At the top of the cellars was a hole that acted as a chimney. A Richmond newspaper reported that any fire in the cellar would cause "billows of smoke [to come] through making the hill look like a miniature Vesuvius."
Shortly after being suggested as the location for the state Capitol building in 1780, the hill (while unclear as to whether it was yet named Chimborazo) was the assemblage place for a "couple of hundred raw, poorly equipped militia, who were hurriedly corralled and drawn up" to protect Richmond when Benedict Arnold and British troops converged on the city in January, 1781. "When the militia saw what was coming, they decided to a man, to live to fight another day, and skedaddled".
Toward the end of the 18th century and beginning of the 19th century, Chimborazo Heights was said to have been a "favorite dueling ground" and "several lives were thus sacrificed there." Before the war, it was "a common, chiefly occupied by grazing cows and ball-playing, kite-flying boys, and not unfrequently the scene of hard-fought rock-battles between the "Hill boys" and the "Butchertown cats."
Prior to its use as a hospital during the Civil War, the hill had been used to organize the troops coming into Richmond. When the war started, several large regiments camped on and around Chimborazo Hill and built extensive wooden barracks for shelter. As these soldiers went off to the front lines, they left behind as many as 100 nearly-new wooden buildings which were commandeered by Samuel P. Moore, the Surgeon General of the Confederate States of America for the establishment of a hospital. At the time the hospital was established, aside from the barracks constructed by the soldiers, only two buildings were located on the hill: a large house owned by Richard Laughton and a small office building.
On maps pre-dating the Civil War, "Chimborazo Hill" is shown located in Henrico County just to the east of the city line. That portion of Henrico County containing Chimborazo Hill was annexed by Richmond in 1867.
Chimborazo Hospital was a Civil War-era facility built in Richmond, Virginia, to serve the Confederate Army. It functioned between 1862 and 1865, treating over 76,000 wounded Confederate soldiers. It achieved a 9 percent mortality rate. The site is now owned by the National Park Service and is used as a visitor center for Richmond National Battlefield Park.
On the south side of the park, overlooking the James River, is a stone commemorating the hospital; it was placed by the Confederate Memorial Literary Society in 1934. The stone is appropriately sited, overlooking the Confederate Navy Yard on the James River and riverside Rocketts Landing.
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Chimborazo Park
Chimborazo Park is a park and historic land site in Richmond, Virginia, United States. Created in 1874, the park was the site of Chimborazo Hospital, one of the world's largest military hospitals.
The name Chimborazo comes from a volcano in Ecuador. It is believed that the Richmond hill was dubbed Chimborazo around 1802, the year of Alexander von Humboldt’s unsuccessful attempt to scale the mountain in Ecuador. Chimborazo Hill was one of Richmond's "seven hills" and thought to have been so named by a local world-traveler because of its topographical likeness to the Ecuadorian volcano. A brewery had dug cellars in the Richmond hill to store beer. At the top of the cellars was a hole that acted as a chimney. A Richmond newspaper reported that any fire in the cellar would cause "billows of smoke [to come] through making the hill look like a miniature Vesuvius."
Shortly after being suggested as the location for the state Capitol building in 1780, the hill (while unclear as to whether it was yet named Chimborazo) was the assemblage place for a "couple of hundred raw, poorly equipped militia, who were hurriedly corralled and drawn up" to protect Richmond when Benedict Arnold and British troops converged on the city in January, 1781. "When the militia saw what was coming, they decided to a man, to live to fight another day, and skedaddled".
Toward the end of the 18th century and beginning of the 19th century, Chimborazo Heights was said to have been a "favorite dueling ground" and "several lives were thus sacrificed there." Before the war, it was "a common, chiefly occupied by grazing cows and ball-playing, kite-flying boys, and not unfrequently the scene of hard-fought rock-battles between the "Hill boys" and the "Butchertown cats."
Prior to its use as a hospital during the Civil War, the hill had been used to organize the troops coming into Richmond. When the war started, several large regiments camped on and around Chimborazo Hill and built extensive wooden barracks for shelter. As these soldiers went off to the front lines, they left behind as many as 100 nearly-new wooden buildings which were commandeered by Samuel P. Moore, the Surgeon General of the Confederate States of America for the establishment of a hospital. At the time the hospital was established, aside from the barracks constructed by the soldiers, only two buildings were located on the hill: a large house owned by Richard Laughton and a small office building.
On maps pre-dating the Civil War, "Chimborazo Hill" is shown located in Henrico County just to the east of the city line. That portion of Henrico County containing Chimborazo Hill was annexed by Richmond in 1867.
Chimborazo Hospital was a Civil War-era facility built in Richmond, Virginia, to serve the Confederate Army. It functioned between 1862 and 1865, treating over 76,000 wounded Confederate soldiers. It achieved a 9 percent mortality rate. The site is now owned by the National Park Service and is used as a visitor center for Richmond National Battlefield Park.
On the south side of the park, overlooking the James River, is a stone commemorating the hospital; it was placed by the Confederate Memorial Literary Society in 1934. The stone is appropriately sited, overlooking the Confederate Navy Yard on the James River and riverside Rocketts Landing.