Renowned frontier soldier and Revolutionary War hero General Andrew Lewis lived on his estate Richfield. The house, destroyed by fire in the 1820s, was between the Civic Center and the Roanoke River. His original grave site was a few blocks to the south. Lewis was the commander at the crucial battles of Point Pleasant (1774, against the Shawnee chief Cornstalk) and Gwynn’s Island (1776, evicting Virginia’s last royal governor at the start of the Revolution). A statue of Lewis at Gwynn’s Island is outsite the Civic Center, and a portrait is inside.