Author: Web Admin
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By Canal and By Stagecoach: A Journey from Nelson County to Staunton
Shown above is Elizabeth ‘Bettie’ Nicholas Cabell with her daughter, Annie Barraud Cabell in 1858. Bettie attended Virginia Female Institute in Staunton for the 1849-1850 school year. In August 1849, fifteen-year-old Bettie Cabell left her home at Liberty Hall in Nelson County to attend boarding school, the Virginia Female Institute in Staunton. On the first…
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Ned Hocker, Hatton Ferry Poleman
In the painting above, Ned Hocker sat in front of his cinderblock ferry master’s hut at Hatton Ferry. He seized an opportunity to rest and enjoy the river before poling his next ferry load across the James. When Ned was a boy, there was only one way to get from the Hatton side of the…
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The Hatton Ferry
Photo above, Hatton Ferry, ca. 1910 Hatton Ferry is a poled ferry that crosses the James River at a site named Hatton about three and one-fourth miles south west of Scottsville, Virginia. James A. Brown, a storekeeper, began operating a ferry at this location in the late 1870’s. In 1906, James Benson Tindall of Buckingham…
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Last Crossing of the Scottsville Ferry – 1907
The image above is a stereoscopic card, a popular way to view travel, historic, and novelty photos at the turn of the century. When placed in a special handheld viewer, the images appear three dimensional. In the detail of the image below, Samuel R. Gault stands in the lower right corner of the Scottsville Ferry…
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Rural Mail Carriers in Scottsville – 1915
On a crisp autumn day, four rural mail carriers pose in front of the Scottsville Post Office, the town’s social gathering point. More than any other invention, ‘motorized carriages’ altered Scottsville life the most. With mass production of the Model T Ford, cars were readily available and rapidly acquired by admiring Scottsville customers. Gone were…
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Dr. Stinson Attends to His Practice
Born across the James River in Buckingham County, Virginia, Dr. Luther R. Stinson graduated from the University College of Medicine in Richmond (later called Medical College of Virginia) in 1900. He set up his practice in Scottsville, and wishing to succeed, Dr. Stinson asked Sam Gault, Scottsville’s postmaster, “Sam, how can I show’em I’m a…
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Train Derailment at Lock 22 – 1880
In the waning days of the James River and Kanawha Canal, the canal was conveyed to the Richmond & Allegheny Railroad (later C&O) by a deed dated March 4, 1880. Railroad construction workers promptly started laying tracks on the towpath. Canal freighters delivered railway ties along the Canal, stacking them on the towpath for workmen…
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Biking Through Albemarle with John Jones in the 1800s
Linda Listmann of Santa Cruz, CA, is transcribing her great grandfather’s journals, which began in 1875. His name was John Jones. In the summer of 1882, John was one of two astronomers, who came with Ormond Stone from the Cincinnati Observatory to oversee the building of McCormick Observatory at the University of Virginia. Stone became…
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Barclay House
Name: Barclay House Date: ca. 1900 Image Number: B02cdB19 The Barclay House is a small townhouse on Scottsville’s Lot 31 and is next door to the Disciples of Christ Church (now Scottsville Museum) on Main Street. John B. Hart purchased this property without a structure in 1830 and resold the lot six months later for…
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Valley Street
Since the colonial era, Vally Street has been the main commercial corridor in Scottsville. A natural ravine led down the high bluffs to the ferry at Scotts Landing, providing access for wagons loaded with goods and passengers to the James River and trade with the outside world. Burgess took the photo above, the oldest in…
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