Author: Web Admin
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Paving Route 20 to Charlottesville
The road (Route 20) between Scottsville and Charlottesville was known as the ‘Road of the Presidents’ in the 1800’s because Presidents Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe often traveled over it. In those years, the trip between the two towns was arduous and bone-jarring as the macadam used on the road was a thin, poor tar mixture…
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Boyd, Edmond, and Davenport Packet Boats
Scottsvillian Jack Hamner, an experienced ‘dirt fisherman’ (relic hunter), unearthed this packet boat baggage tag near an old stone chimney between Keene and Esmont. The tag’s front reads “BE&D Packet, 8.” Engraved on the tag’s back is “John Robbins, Boston.” In the mid-1800’s, such small metal tags were attached to a traveler’s personal luggage and…
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1865 Report to Stockholders of James River and Kanawha Canal
In the above photo, mules pulled a canal boat along the James River and Kanawha Canal near Richmond, Virginia, in the early 1860’s. The canal served as a very successful means of transporting produce from the Lynchburg area all the way to Richmond during the 1840-1880 time period. However, bad weather impacted the canal’s operation…
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Getting Off the Cars from Richmond ~ ca. 1914
Riding the ‘cars’ in 1914 was still a popular mode of travel, as shown in this photo at Scottsville Depot. Burgess captured the William Day Smith family arriving on the Richmond passenger train. Note the throng of townspeople gathered at the depot to watch the train arrive, a Scottsville custom that may date back to…
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The Nicholas Section Crew
The crew members in this photo are (L to R): C.C. Hill; J.W. Wood; C.E. Ballowe; Alfred Davis; C.W. Schumaker, section foreman; and E.D. Thompson. The Nicholas Section crew maintained the six-mile section of Chesapeake & Ohio track just east of Scottsville. This six-man crew worked 40-hour weeks and were lead for many years by…
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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
1800’s, 1900’s, 2000’s, Automobiles, Commerce, Featured, Ferries, Floods, Hatton, Horse, People, TransportationPhoto 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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