Editing Ettrick, Virginia (section)

==History==
[[File:On Ettricks Island, Petersburg, Dinwiddie County, Virginia. Street.jpg|thumb|left|'On Ettricks' Appomatox River, by Frances Benjamin Johnston, 1933]]

Ettrick was named around 1765 by the foreign merchant Neil Buchanan, who dubbed the eventual village Ettrick Banks for its similarities to his native [[Ettrick, Scotland|Ettrick]] area of [[Selkirk, Scottish Borders|Selkirk]], Scotland.<ref name="ReferenceA">Jeffrey M. O'Dell, ''History of Chesterfield County''</ref>

Capt. [[Christopher Newport]] led expeditions in this area. Near Petersburg, which developed as an industrial city, Ettrick also developed industry. It had [[cotton mill]]s, as it was on the [[Atlantic Seaboard fall line|Fall Line]] and could use water power.

During the [[American Civil War]], the Confederate Army established a large hospital here. In the late nineteenth century, the biracial state legislature established the first state-supported [[historically black colleges and universities|black college]], founded here in 1882 as Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute (now [[Virginia State University]]). [[John Mercer Langston]], who founded the Law School at [[Howard University]], was its first president. He was elected as a US Congressman from Virginia from here.<ref name="ReferenceA"/> [[Vawter Hall and Old President's House]] was listed on the [[National Register of Historic Places]] in 1980.<ref name="nris">{{NRISref|version=2010a}}</ref>

One of the longstanding landmarks is Campbell's Bridge, first built around 1810. It has been reconstructed several times and is the only direct thoroughfare from the village across the river into Petersburg.