HISTORY
ARCHER'S HILL

The following excerpt was taken from Edward A. Wyatt IV's Along Petersburg Streets.

Archer's Hill, a designation originally applied to the whole of the long bluff on the north side of the Appomattox River, opposite Petersburg and now embraced by the town of Colonial Heights, derived its name from George Archer, a seventeenth-century land magnate. He is thought to have married a daughter of Major General Abraham Wood, commander of Fort Henry, and his descendants have been conspicuous in Virginia history. Many families have lived here, and the hill itself has borne many names: Cool Spring Hill, Mount Ephraim, Hector's Hill, Dunn's Hill, and Oak Hill.

In the late eighteenth century this was the home of Jerman Baker, a lawyer and public figure who was held up as a model of a great orator for the young John Randolph of Roanoke by his mother. Baker in a letter once praised his hill as the most pleasant and healthful spot in Virginia. The western part of this hill in the early years of the nineteenth century became a resort -- "a sort of fashionable springs at home" - - known as Hector's Hill. Later it was the home of the Dunn family. It boasts an early nineteenth-century residence of distinction (now the Cuthbert home), one of the the highest boxwood hedges in the world, and the best elevation from which to view Petersburg.

Violet Bank is the name of the portion of old Archer's Hill which lies east of the Petersburg-Richmond highway. From this location, on May 10, 1781, Lafayette cannonaded the British in occupation of Petersburg, although more romantic souls have insisted that he fired his shells through the boxwood hedge to the west. The present Violet Bank house, now the Pierrepont home, was erected early in the nineteenth century, and the establishment was celebrated as one of exceptional beauty.