Commerce

As Virginia Moore eloquently stated in her book, Scottsville on the James, “Any town’s present is a constant adjustment between past and future.” Through the 1850’s, Scottsville served as an important transshipping point for the Shenandoah Valley and Piedmont of Virginia. Local businesses thrived. Great numbers of large wagons unloaded freight here for shipment via boat to Richmond. Then they loaded up in Scottsville with groceries, gypsum, coarse cotton, and woolen cloth for the return trip.

In 1835, Scottsville had nine general stores, five grocery stores, one apothecary shop, a boatyard, several warehouses, livery stables, taverns and hotels. By 1841, the town’s streets bustled with out-of-town trade and a local citizenry totaling 1000 people.

In the 1850’s, the Virginia Central Railroad line was built through Charlottesville and drew business away from Scottsville, the river, and the canal. But the worst had not come for the town’s economy. In March 1865, General Philip Sheridan’s Union troops destroyed the canal and local provisions that could support the Confederacy. By the time Sheridan left town, Scottsville’s hotel, flour mill, candle factory, tobacco warehouse, and some stables were burned or destroyed.

Reconstruction took a long time in Scottsville. With the canal damage and deteriorated roads, very little came to Scottsville markets, and bartering took the place of money when produce did come.

Several Scottsville canal boat owners switched to lumbering and provided crews to lay track. A telegraph line was constructed along the entire length of the railroad, connecting Scottsville with the outside world by modern means of transportation and communication. Yet Scottsville remained a small market town and in 1890 was described as a town of population 362 with good schools, six churches, grain and grist mills, a bank, and “all the facilities of a country town.”

Scottsville businesses received a boost in 1907 when the Scottsville bridge over the James River was constructed. Two major highways intersected in town, and the modern era of automobile transportation arrived. Livery stables on Scottsville streets were replaced by three garages.

By 1920, Scottsville’s population numbered about 1500, including the immediate surrounding area just outside the town limits. The town had twenty stores, two large flour mills, an ice plant, a theater, three garages, a braid factory, two large oil companies, two restaurants, one boarding house, two drugstores, three doctors, one dentist, two schools, two dairies, one shoe shop, and and two blacksmith shops.

To learn more about early Scottsville businesses, click on each image below to open the corresponding articles.

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