RVA Legends — Davenport & Morris

114-122 South Seventeenth Street

Another piece of the Davenport empire.

(VCU) — 1889 Baist Atlas Map of Richmond — Plate 2 — showing the Davenport & Morris Warehouses at Seventeenth & Dock Streets

Davenport & Morris, wholesale grocers, importers and commission merchants, at Seventeenth and Dock streets, lead all others here of their line, in capital and resources, variety and amount of stock carried and grand aggregate of sales. In 1891 their trade was upwards of $1,500,000. They cover all the States of the South east of the Mississippi river, and have ten men on the road in that field.

[IOR] — advertisement in Industries of Richmond, 1886

They occupy here six large warehouses, their own property, adjacent to the docks and with Richmond and Danville side-track, in which they usually have on hand a $200,000 stock. They have 30 employes here.

They make a specialty of the trade in tobacco manufacturers’ supplies and of the importation direct of coffee and liquors. They are, in fact, the largest importers here.

(Library of Virginia) — Isaac Davenport

Four partners hold interests in this house: Isaac Davenport, Jr., who, however, after a a long and busy life as merchant and banker, has practically retired; Junius A. Morris, virtually the head of the house, as senior now in its management; Isaac Davenport and Frank A. Davenport, sons of the late G. B. Davenport, formerly a partner in the house.

(Find A Grave) — Junius Albert Morris

Mr. Isaac Davenport, Jr., is also of Davenport & Co., bankers and insurance men, and agents for the Liverpool and London and Globe Company. He is one of the wealthiest residents of the city, and is interested in many of the most important enterprises here.

[RVCJ03] Albemarle — Paper Manufacturing Company on Tredegar Street, circa 1903

Mr. Morris is president of the Union Brokerage Company, a director of the First National Bank, the Albemarle Paper Company, manufacturers of blotting paper here, and the Southern Manufacturing Company, coffee roasters and spice grinders and manufacturers of baking powders. Mr. Frank A. Davenport is also a director of the Southern Manufacturing Company, and the Albemarle Paper Company, and is vice-president of the former.

(Library of Congress) — Beers Illustrated Atlas of the Cities of Richmond & Manchester, 1877 — Plate L — showing occupancy at 120 South Seventeenth by Edmond & Davenport

The house is the oldest of any note here. It was established in 1815 by Davenport & Allen. The Davenport of that firm was grandfather to the junior members of to-day. It has membership in the Chamber of Commerce, and Mr. Morris is one of its Committee on Banking and Currency, a selection indicative, surely, of a considerable degree of attain. [RVCJ93]

(Library of Congress) — Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Richmond (1905) — Plate 183 — showing the warehouses now under control of E. A. Saunders & Sons and Lefebvre-Armistead Co.

The real question, of course, is whether or not the buildings that stand there today are part of the original warehouse structure. Without a lot more substantial evidence, the answer is no.

Of course, City of Richmond says that this structure was built in 1905, and that means it could be older because you know CoR property searches don’t always yield an accurate construction date.

January 2019 — looking toward 112-122 South Seventeenth Street today

But that’s an easy notion to dispense with. Compare what’s there today, the two-story Canal Club that extends from Dock to Cary, with the top photo with the ship at the dock. The building in that engraving is four stories and has a clearly marked entrance on the Seventeenth Street side. The current building bears no scars of an entrance that has been sealed up, as you see on many other old buildings in Shockoe Bottom.

(Google Maps) — 2D aerial view of the area between Dock and Cary

Of course, the building might have been remodeled and lost a couple of floors. But if it did, it was completely retooled, and anything incorporated from the original structures was lost. Close inspection of the Sanborn, Beers, and Baist maps above clearly show that the warehouse buildings covered a little over half of the Seventeenth Street frontage, making room for an alley and a factory building to squeeze in. The Canal Club, on the other hand, consumes the entire eastern portion of the block.

(Chronicling America) — Davenport & Morris advertisement — Richmond Times — Friday May 3, 1889

Ultimately, however, Davenport & Morris was only one cog in the respective business interests of these two men, so the demise of the grocery business by 1905 meant little. As mentioned above, they also speculated on tobacco, Davenport ran an investment firm (now the oldest in the city), and Morris would eventually branch out into ice cream and confections.

(Davenport & Morris is part of the Atlas RVA! Project)

Print Sources

• [IOR] Industries of Richmond. James P. Wood. 1886.
• [RVCJ03] Richmond, Virginia: The City on the James: The Book of Its Chamber of Commerce and Principal Business Interests. G. W. Engelhardt. 1903.
• [RVCJ93] Richmond, Virginia: The City on the James: The Book of Its Chamber of Commerce and Principal Business Interests. G. W. Engelhardt. 1893.