Category: Transportation
Horses, bicycles, boats, trains, and automobiles.
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Life of a James River Batteauman
Text and photos by Barry Long The James River has been a watery highway of boat transportation since before John Smith sailed into its mouth in 1607, whereupon he was greeted by people traveling in dugout canoes. It remained the single most important avenue of transportation in the Colonies for hundreds of years, not only…
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Buckingham Lining Bar Gang
In a rich baritone voice, John Laury chanted these words during his June 4th visit to Scottsville Museum with the Buckingham Lining Bar Gang: “I got a gal who’s long and tall Sleeps in the kitchen with her feet in the hall.” Mr. Laury served as the “caller” for this African-American work song during an…
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Let’s Roll a Hogshead!
by William E. Trout, III,Virginia Canal Museum, Madison Heights, VA A picturesque phase of tobacco marketing in the Colonial and Early National period in Virginia was the practice of rolling the hogshead of tobacco from the plantation to the place of inspection and sale. Transportation of tobacco in this manner was considered by William Tatham…
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Auto Endurance Test on Valley Street, 1914
Dr. L.R. Stinson owned the first car in Scottsville, a two-cylinder, bright-red, 1910 Maxwell. Soon these ‘motorized carriages’ were rattling the plank floor on the new town bridge. Cars altered Scottsville’s way of life greatly, wiping out the ferry, carriages and carts, and the blacksmith shop and stable on the corner of Valley and Main…
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Passenger Train from Richmond
The passenger train from Richmond made four trips daily to Scottsville in 1915; each trip took three hours. This photo, taken by Burgess at the C&O Depot in Scottsville, shows the State Farmers Institute Train, which Virginia Polytechnical Institute outfitted with agricultural displays in the coaches. At each stop, local farmers boarded this train to…
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The Scottsville Bridge
This landscape with Scottsville in the background shows the wooden bridge, built in 1907, which replaced Scott’s Ferry as the medium for transporting traffic to Scottsville from Buckingham Co. This bridge remained until 1968 when a new concrete one replaced it. See the image below as a guide to points of interest: (1) Mt. Walla,…
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Train Spotting at Scottsville Depot
The James River Division of the Chesapeake and Ohio (previously property of the Richmond and Allegheny Railroad Company), was of great importance to Scottsville as it hauled freight, passengers, and the daily mail to town. As did the James River and Kanawha Canal before it, the C & O train connected Scottsville to the commercial…
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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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The Covered Bridge at Temperance Wayside
“We rattle through the Hardware River’s old-timey “rabbit burrow” bridge,” wrote Virginia Moore, talking about life in Scottsville between the wars. This was the covered bridge built about 1850 at Temperance Wayside where Highway 6 crosses the Hardware River. Sheridan’s departing troops had clattered over it in 1865. A painting by Cornelia Burgess Dorrier shows…
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