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Doing it the old way for fun.

R

RMinVa

Member
I know one young man making this trip. This event gets a little larger each year. Not tractor related but was based on farming long before tractors existed. Thought some of you may like the read about this. The crop that started America(tobacco) as it was the main money crop that started trade from America down in Jamestown Va. and worked it's way inland to what is know as the tobacco belt. Down town Lynchburg back then consisted of many tobacco warehouses along the James river. During the war between the states those warehouses were used as hospitals for north and south. Little farming was done in that period as most had joined the southern army.

Anyway it's a pretty cool event for us. I admire these folks roughing it down the river making their way to Richmond.
http://www.wset.com/story/25778496/batteau festival takes river route back in time
 
Thanks RM. Anybody around the James would give themselves a treat to visit an encampment. Howardsville was a normal stopping spot. Good place to party. Short walk from the Jefferson era plantation where we lived at the time.

A nice change from the usual re-enactment of people shooting at each other.

Now, we live on a turnpike created for that same river freight traffic in 1825 with a grant from the General Assembly of $50,000. Big money then, to create a 43.5 mile road. It connected Scottsville on the James with Staunton in the Shenandoah Valley. Been awhile since anybody turned a pike, now a sleepy commuter road. The old stage stops are easy to recognize, every few miles along the route. Some now B&Bs.
 
So, given the posts about "tractors" from down south, and a comment such as this one, (and please elaborate more in detail) does YT now have its own electronic Mason/Dixon line ?????
 
Sir, would you please back off. You have your opinion and she has her's just like everybody else has one. This is how wars start. I didn't post this to fight another one.
 
"It connected Scottsville on the James with Staunton in the Shenandoah Valley." I didn't know that. Thanks for posting. I've been to Scottsville several times. Very beautiful area along the river and going east where the land levels off. Like a hidden valley.

We have an old stage depot near me on Rt. 40 a few miles west of Brookneal. It's the oldest building in our county. Privately owned also. So it's not marked as such. Can only imagine what things looked like then.

I live just a few miles from the banks of the staunton river on the south side. The old ferry is a land mark there. That's where crops were taken across to be hauled to Lynchburg. Up stream a few miles or so is what's left of the bridge that our southern boys burned on their march from Appomattox heading to Franklin co. to hunker down in the mountains to continue to fight. They didn't get word of the surrender until they had burned the bridge. Folks canoeing see those rock pillows and have no idea how old they are and the history. I saw a picture of that bridge in a family bible taken before it was burned. After it burned the ferry was back running soon.
 
States rights was never more than a euphemism for keeping alive that "curious institution" which was an economic necessity for the south, and the source of virtually all its wealth. The Gettysburg address was more about keeping the French out of the war than it was about the morality of the issue. It also bankrupted the southern elites.
 
That was the "Staunton and James River Turnpike" which one of my distant neighbors thought too long for an address to put on an envelope. We ended up with "Plank Road", the first paving material used on the turnpike. Rain generally made it impassable for a wagon before that.

I was fortunate that the guy we bought our land from had books on the history of the road to give me.

Did you use the cable ferry (Hatton Ferry) just upstream from Scottsville? Pretty sure it's still operating.

The James is still the best route from Howardsville to Scottsville, usually canoe or innertube now. Howardsville is where the Rockfish River flows into the James. Rockfish Gap is where the turnpike went over the Blue Ridge, as do US 250 and I 64 today. We live at Israel's Gap, through the Ragged Mountains. The road at the Gap was re-routed a bit in the 1930's by a chain gang. Asphalt came along several decades later.
 
Several years ago we crossed the James at Williamsburg many times on the ferry and checking out the old plantations along it doing more genealogy.
 
I really appreciate original the post - thank you!

I used to watch the news like a hawk. But it got unbearable to see every day how people were celebrating the destruction of our precious country from within.

So I started listening to sports radio and paying more attention to sports. But that is about unbearable now that sports has gotten polluted by political correctness to the point that urban tatted-up thugs are celebrated as role models.

So I turned back to old iron and although this name is new here I have lurked here for a long time and have learned a lot and enjoyed it. It was a benefit that many of the people here respect our country and celebrate the freedoms those of us older than about 45 remember.

I pray this forum doesn't go down the politically correct road and that all opinions, including southern opinions, will continue to be welcomed. At the end of the day there is no one I would rather have watching my back than a good old southern redneck.
 
Well, now, that's a new one on me, and I've lived all my life right next door in NC! Thanks for the post. The really interesting parts of history is not found in the history books that they use in school.
 
(quoted from post at 11:38:34 06/15/14) [b:7bb3cd303a]States rights was never more than a euphemism for keeping alive that "curious institution" [/b:7bb3cd303a]which was an economic necessity for the south, and the source of virtually all its wealth. The Gettysburg address was more about keeping the French out of the war than it was about the morality of the issue. It also bankrupted the southern elites.
Click to expand...

Horse puckey. Better read your history.
 
Regrettably, my history teachers taught me to hate history. Living it is better.

Before turnpikes, before railroads, there were rivers. There was freight to move, both directions. Those batteaus worked well on the James upriver from Richmond where there was often little draft available. Downriver from the Richmond falls larger boats worked.

My big surprise was to learn how many roads, like the Staunton and James River Turnpike, were created because those rivermen were out poling their batteaus, moving freight. When you ran out of river in the direction you needed to go, you needed a wagon, which needed a passable road.

A little later railroads had different needs. The Blue Ridge Mountains were a formidable obstacle. People thought Claudius Crozet was insane to start a tunnel on both sides, hoping to meet in the middle. It worked, and they named a town after him. The tunnel will eventually be a hiking trail, 4281' long. Probably the only Blue Ridge hiking trail with no view.
The Crozet Tunnel
 
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