Richmond Press, Inc.                          Richmond, VA                          1938

The Decatur Street Gang

There was a large lot, half a square (they were two-acre squares in Manchester ) , at the corner of Twelfth and Decatur Streets. The lot was still larger, by reason of the three streets that bordered it, Twelfth, Eleventh and Decatur; that is, it was before the Council decided to grade the streets, and so made three great gaps in the surface of the earth at that point.

A great many boys used to play in that field and all over the streets, for you could scarcely tell where field ended and street began-no gutters, no pavements.  And once we had a fox-chase.  John Brodnax was the fox and we gave him three squares' start.  He led us a long chase, making for the open spaces that lay along the Petersburg Turnpike, and soon threw off all the chase-but one.  This diminutive cat, with a good pair of feet and legs, stuck to the trail like a good foxhound and could not be thrown off.  It was true that John was two years the elder and a swift runner (and a mighty good boy, too).  But, though out of sight, I constantly followed the trail and at last came up to him and made it a sight race to the place where the hunt had started.

Some of the boys who played in that field were: John and Danny Brodnx, Conway Sams (the minister's son), St. John CLarke, Henry and Lawrence Ingram (Henry, afterward called John-his name was John H. Ingram-became judge of the Hustings Court of Manchester and afterward a member of the Convention of 1901-02 and judge of the Law and Equity Court of Richmond), Sheppy and Claude Monteiro, Henry Turner, the brothers Blankenship-one died young, the other became a physician-Peter Weisiger, Tom and Danny Mathews, John Roberrt Charlton and his brother Walter, Charlie and Ned Peple and a hundred others.