Richmond Press, Inc.                          Richmond, VA                          1938

The Swansbo

One afternoon late, while crossing the great field where was then the Battery, where, before the Battery, had been the Haunted House and where afterward was the water tower and where now lies the Cowardin Avenue approach to the Robert E. Lee Bridge-while crossing, I say, in company with several older persons, we saw a gang of boys come up from the Richmond & Danville railroad tracks and come running southwardly across the field.  They were a part of the Swansboro gang and were being pursued by the enemy. 

Now, the beginning of this battle was thus:

The Swansboro gang had chased the Belle Isle gang all the way from Swansboro over the Belle Isle bridge to that beautiful isle of the river (at that time a number of families lived on the Isle); but at the point several larger boys joined the Belle Isle boys, as well as some from Oregon Hill, and chased the chasers.

When the Swansboro cats neared the deep cut of the Richmond & Petersburg Railroad, I saw their leader turn, as he ran, and wave his handkerchief to the others; whereupon they made haste and ran.  And then the others began to run with all their might, so as to take the Swansboro cats at a disadvantage, when they should be at the bottom of the cut.  But the Swansboro cats contrived to scramble up the yon side of the cut before the pursuers reached the hither edge.  And, as the Belle Isle boys dared not go down into the cut for fear of being slaughtered, the battle raged across the divide.

Many of the boys who lived along Semmes Street and Sixteenth Street (as Semmes Avenue and Cowardin Avenue were then called) came to the support of the Swansboro gang; and a bitter war developed.  The Belle Isle boys were fewer in number, but what there were of them were full grown.  I recall one red-faced, raw-boned boy, six feet tall, who could make a rock hum whenever he threw it.  At length he threw a beef bone and hit a boy on the foot, breaking his foot.

Then came a scare, that Dinks Lipscomb was coming.  That was Captain Lipscomb, chief of police of Manchester (as well as City Engineer).  And the gangs fled in three different directions.

I wonder if any of the old boys who took part in that battle are still around town?