Category: 1900s
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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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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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The Postcard Collection
Before 1907, the U.S. Post Office did not permit writing a message on the address side of postcards. For that reason, many U.S. picture postcards mailed before then had messages written across their fronts. Postcards with a divided back finally were permitted in the U.S. in March 1907; addresses were to be written on the…
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