Buildings and structures.
Includes homes, churches, businesses, bridges, etc.
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Arson Suspected in Two Destructive Fires on Main Street in 1976

Two Large Fires Raged On Scottsville’s Main Street in February 1976, destroying a church and four businesses at the center of town. They appeared to be the work of an arsonist who was never found. The photo above of the intersection of Valley Street (left) and Main Street (right) shows the Esso Station, run by…
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Laying Cornerstone of Scottsville Plant

Date: May 24, 1944 Image Number: RT01cdRT02 Scottsville Plant was built in 1944 by the Defense Plant Corporation to help the nation’s war effort. It was designed and constructed to provide tire fabric and was operated by the Textile Division of the U.S. Rubber Company. The cornerstone-laying ceremony for this plant was sponsored by the…
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The Harris Building

The Harris Building, located at 474-476 Valley Street, was built circa 1840 as a commercial building with living quarters on the second floor. When her husband, Lafayette Harris, died in 1856, Martha J. (Minor) Harris began a millinery and dry goods store here to support herself and her three daughters, Florence, Nannie, and Etta. The…
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William ‘Billy’ Samuel Beal

William ‘Billy’ Samuel Beal was born in 1846 in Scottsville and was the son of Joseph R. and Mary E. (Flannagan) Beal. Growing up in Scottsville, Billy worked as a clerk in his father’s general store, located in the Beal Building at the south corner of Bird and Valley Streets. When his father died in…
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Colonel Henry Gantt of Valmont

by Richard Ludlam Nicholas “On the afternoon of July 3, 1863, Henry Gantt bravely led the regiment assigned to Garnett’s Brigade of Pickett’s Division up Cemetery Ridge in the battle of Gettysburg – arguably the most famous charge in American history.” Perhaps the most overlooked and forgotten man in Scottsville’s history is Colonel Henry Gantt,…
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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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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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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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Tutwiler’s Boat Yard

The painting above by J.W. Tutwiler depicts the Tutwiler Boat Yard in Scottsville which was owned and operated by Wesley Clark Tutwiler until his death in 1871. After his passing, Wesley’s wife, Amanda Marie (Moon) Tutwiler, operated this boatyard that built and repaired canal boats for use on the James River and Kanawha Canal between…
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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…
