From the Richmond Dispatch, 8/7/1868, p. 1, c. 6

BELLEVUE HOSPITAL. – This fine old building, one of the best-built houses and formerly one of the most delightful residences on Church Hill, has lately experienced another change. Before the war it was an admirable hospital, under the care of a humane and skillful physician of the city; during the war it was a hospital; at intervals it was occupied by a number of white families, who had rooms in it; at one time an effort was on foot to establish a first-class female school in it, under a joint stock company of one of our leading denominations; it was last year a place of registration and then of voting; its enclosures have gradually passed away, and its appearance become more desolate; and now it charitably receives into its many and comfortable rooms an indefinite number of happy or unhappy freedmen and their numerous and growing families. A census of its inhabitants would afford surprising results, and it would be found to resemble a bee-hive in the number of its occupants.

 

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