Deep in the tangled brush of North Bank Park, the forest is slowly swallowing the remains of Richmond’s political origins. These granite walls belonged to Dr. William Foushee — Richmond’s first mayor and a man so legendary that the city bumped George Washington off the street grid just to make room for a “Foushee Street.”
Richmond’s First Mayor
Built in 1819 as a grist mill, the structure was a marvel of stone masonry commissioned by Dr. William Foushee himself. Foushee was no minor figure — he served as Richmond’s first mayor and was so prominent that the city renamed a street in his honor, displacing George Washington from the grid in the process. The fall line of the James, where the hard rock of the Piedmont drops into the soft sediments of the coastal plain, made this stretch of river ideal for milling. The same churning water that stopped ships was a gift to millers.
The mill survived the transition of power to Foushee’s son-in-law, the fiery newspaper editor Thomas Ritchie — founder of the Richmond Enquirer and one of the most influential political voices of the Jacksonian era. Under Ritchie’s ownership, it became known as Ritchie’s Mill, grinding wheat and corn for a city growing hungrier by the decade.
To stand inside the granite shell today is to see the exact point where Richmond’s industrial ambition met its natural match.
The River Always Wins
The mill couldn’t survive the James. The Great Flood of 1832 turned the structure into a shell, its machinery scattered downstream, its walls breached by a river that has never respected human engineering for long. While the rest of Richmond rebuilt and pushed forward into the industrial age, this corner of the riverbank was left behind — becoming a permanent monument to the power of the water.
The Civil War further damaged what remained. Richmond’s industrial corridor along the James was a target of Union strategy, and many mills were destroyed outright. But by then, Foushee’s mill was already a ruin. The river had done what four years of war could not.
What You’ll Find Today
The ruins are modest but striking. Granite walls rise from the forest floor, their nineteenth-century “V-cut” masonry still visible despite two hundred years of erosion. Examine the cornerstones — the precision of the stonework is remarkable, each block fitted with a craft that modern construction rarely matches. Scattered foundation stones trace the outline of what was once the mill floor. In low water, you can see the remnants of the mill race, the channel that once directed the river’s flow through the building.
The setting is what elevates the site from curiosity to something closer to art. The ruins stand at the edge of a small rapid, so the sound of moving water is constant. In autumn, when the sycamores and maples along the bank turn gold and the river runs clear, the contrast between the warm stone and the cold water is almost theatrical. It’s the kind of place that makes you stand still for a while.
The Path
Park at the Texas Beach lot. Follow the North Bank trail east. Look for the break in the treeline where the stone seems too “square” to be natural. The ruins are accessible from the north bank trail system in the James River Park System — roughly half a mile of easy walking along the river. Watch for copperheads in the summer months; the ground is uneven and the walls, while sturdy, deserve respect.