Battle of Blandford

Pocahontas Island is a peninsula in Petersburg, Virginia, once on the opposite side of the Appomattox River from Petersburg. Since 1915 a new channel for the river separated it from Chesterfield County and the former channel no longer separates it from the city. Once a warehouse and wharf-filled urban landscape initially platted in 1749, the island was devastated by a 1993 tornado before citizen involvement caused creation of the Pocahontas Island Historic District, which in 2006 achieved listing on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) as a historic district because of its significance in African-American history and for its prehistoric indigenous archeological assets. Archeologists found evidence of prehistoric Native American settlement dating from 6500 B.C. The indigenous Appomattoc people inhabited this region and encountered European colonists by the early 18th century, when the first enslaved Africans were brought to work here. In the 19th century, Pocohontas Island became a notable freedom colony. the first predominately free black settlement in the state and, by mid-19th century, one of the largest in the nation (although enslaved people also lived on the island, and some free blacks owned slaves). In 1860 slightly more than half of Petersburg's population was black, and 3,224 or one-third of those people were free; they constituted the largest free black population of the time. During the 20th century, the island's population declined as people moved north in the Great Migration. In 1975 residents secured renewed residential zoning to protect their neighborhoods from industrial development proposed by the city.

Centre Hill Historic District is a national historic district located at Petersburg, Virginia. The district includes 81 contributing buildings located in a predominantly residential section of Petersburg. It includes a varied collection of early-19th-century to early-20th century houses and includes notable examples of Greek Revival, Italianate, Colonial Revival, and Bungalow style architecture. Notable buildings include the Centre Hill Apartment Building (1915), Eichberg House, Powell House, Unger House, and St. Joseph's Convent. Located in the district and separately listed is the Centre Hill Museum.It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.

Petersburg Union Station is a former train station in Petersburg, Virginia, United States. It was built in 1909–1910 for the Norfolk and Western Railway, and was later used by the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad and Amtrak.

Centre Hill Museum or Centre Hill Mansion as its proper name, completed initial construction in 1823 and was built by Revolutionary War veteran Robert Bolling IV. The Bollings were a very prominent family for many generations, being granted a plot of land in present-day Petersburg by the then King of England. Centre Hill served as Union headquarters during the reconstruction period; therefore, a meeting between a Union general and President Lincoln took place inside the home in 1865. President Taft also spent time on the property. Its doors were opened as a museum in the 1950s.

The Petersburg Trailways Bus Station is a historic transportation terminal building at 108 East Washington Street in Petersburg, Virginia. Built by the Trailways bus system in 1946, this example of Moderne architecture is one of the state's best surviving examples of a little-altered mid-20th century bus terminal. It is a roughly T-shaped masonry building with curved corners, and a recessed entry under a canopy labelled "Trailways Bus". The interior has relatively little alteration, limited to the removal of the fixtures related to a whites-only dining counter in one area of the building.During Freedom Rides organized by the Congress of Racial Equality, the building was a stop on the Trailways-operated portions of both the Journey of Reconciliation in 1947, and the Freedom Rides of 1961.The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2015.

Nathaniel Friend House is a historic home located at Petersburg, Virginia. It was built in 1815–1816, and is a 3+1⁄2-story, six-bay, Federal style brick commercial / residential building. It has a rear ell that may incorporate the original kitchen and smokehouse. The house was built by the wealthy import-export merchant, Nathaniel Friend, Jr., who also served as the mayor of Petersburg in 1812–13.It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. It is located in the Petersburg Old Town Historic District.

Petersburg Courthouse is a historic courthouse building located at Petersburg, Virginia. It was designed by New York architect Calvin Pollard and built between 1838 and 1840. It is a two-story, Classical Revival style brick building. It rests on a granite foundation and measures 57 feet wide and 93 feet deep. It features a pedimented hexastyle front portico and a double-tiered bell and clock tower modeled after the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates in Athens. Major work was performed on the structure until 1877 when extensive repairs and interior alterations were carried out. A 30-foot addition was constructed in 1965. During the Siege of Petersburg, Union troops used the tower for a sighting mark and spared the structure from the bombardment.It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. It is located in the Petersburg Courthouse Historic District.

The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Bridge carries U.S. Route 1 and U.S. Route 301 (Jefferson Davis Highway) across the Appomattox River at the Atlantic Seaboard fall line. It joins Colonial Heights and Petersburg, Virginia. Originally constructed for an interurban streetcar service in the early 20th century, it was rebuilt in the 1990s and is toll-free.

McIlwaine House, also known as the Jones-McIlwaine House, is a historic home located at Petersburg, Virginia. It was built in 1815, and is a 2+1⁄2-story, Federal style frame dwelling with a 1+1⁄2-story wing. It has a front porch with a modillioned cornice supported by Doric order columns. The house was moved eight blocks to its present location in 1972.It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.

Farmers' Bank is the first bank museum of its kind found in Virginia. Farmers' Bank was incorporated in 1812 and the Petersburg, Virginia branch opened in 1817.

The Blandford Church is the oldest building in Petersburg, Virginia whose history is well documented. It is at the highest point in the city, atop Well's Hill. It is today (2019) part of a memorial to Southern soldiers who died during the Civil War. It is adjacent to Blandford Cemetery, one of the oldest, largest and historically significant cemeteries in Virginia. The Blandford Cemetery did not exist until after the church building had been abandoned, in the early 1800s, and the land purchased by the city to use as a cemetery. The Blandford Church, also known as St. Paul's Church or simply "The Brick Church", was erected in 1736 on Well's Hill, the highest point in Petersburg. In 1781, during the American Revolution, the Battle of Blandford, also known as the Battle of Petersburg, was fought nearby. Following the battle Major General William Phillips was ordered back to Petersburg to meet Lord Cornwallis who was moving north From Wilmington, North Carolina. While in Petersburg awaiting the arrival of Cornwallis, Phillips fell ill and died on 13 May 1781. He was secretly buried somewhere in the churchyard. The church building was abandoned in 1806 after the construction of another Episcopal church in Petersburg when the Town of Blandford in Prince George County was absorbed by Petersburg. It became "an ivy-clad picturesque shell."During the Civil War the church served as a major telegraph station. It was used as a field hospital, most notably after the Battle of the Crater on July 30, 1864. Necessary repairs for its preservation were made by the City of Petersburg in 1882. A Ladies' Memorial Association of Petersburg was founded in 1866 and took on preserving the former church as a memorial to the large number of Confederate soldiers buried in the adjacent cemetery. (Some 30,000 were buried unidentified in mass graves.) It is one of the oldest non-religious women's organizations in the country. Between 1889 and 1905, the Ladies Memorial Association paid for a pulpit and 34 pews. The windows were restored temporarilily with clear glass. The Ladies Memorial Association requested from the eleven Confederate states, plus the slave states of Maryland and Missouri, funds to commission stained-glass windows. (Only Kentucky declined.) Between 1904 and 1912, windows were created and installed by Louis Comfort Tiffany. Each of the large windows contains the image of a Saint, and symbols associated with that Saint. In addition to the thirteen state windows, Tiffany donated one, as did the Ladies Memorial Association. The stained glass half-round window over the church door contains the name Ladies Memorial Association of Petersburgh, VA, the dates 1866–1909, and in the center, the only Confederate flag Tiffany is known to have made, together with the dates 1861—1865. As the city's Web site puts it, it is a shrine to its 'Lost Cause.'"

People's Memorial Cemetery, formerly known as Providence Cemetery, is a historic African-American cemetery located at Petersburg, Virginia. The cemetery was deeded in three sections: the first tract in 1840, the second tract was added in 1865, and the final acres were deeded about 1880. The cemetery reflects the organization of "free persons of color" and is evidence of the evolution of the entrepreneurial efforts of African-American undertakers and stonecutters; the activities of mutual aid societies; and the community's social, religious, and artistic values from 1840 to 1942.It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.The cemetery is located adjacent to the Blandford Cemetery and portions of the grounds were part of the Negro Burying Ground, a cemetery for slaves that died during the War of 1812.