Editing Lynchburg, Virginia (section)

=== Founding and early growth ===
First settled by Anglo-Americans in 1757, Lynchburg was named for its founder, [[John Lynch (1740–1820)|John Lynch]].<ref name="lynch burg museum">{{cite web |last1=lynch burg museum |first1=lynch burg museum |title=lynch burg museum |url=https://www.lynchburgmuseum.org/hill-city-roots |website=lynchburgmuseum.org |publisher=lynch burg museum}}</ref> When about 17 years old, Lynch started a ferry service at a [[Ford (crossing)|ford]] across the [[James River (Virginia)|James River]] to carry traffic to and from [[New London, Virginia|New London]], where his parents had settled. The "City of Seven Hills" quickly developed along the hills surrounding Lynch's Ferry.<ref>{{Cite web |last= |last2= |first2= |date=2020-05-22 |title=Lynchburg History: John Lynch |url=https://www.lynchburgvirginia.org/lynchburg-history-john-lynch/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240405201156/https://www.lynchburgvirginia.org/lynchburg-history-john-lynch/ |archive-date=5 April 2024 |access-date=15 May 2025 |website=Lynchburg Tourism |language=en-US}}</ref>

In 1786, Virginia's General Assembly recognized Lynchburg, the settlement by Lynch's Ferry on the James River. The [[James River Company]] had been incorporated the previous year (and President [[George Washington]] was given stock, which he donated to charity) in order to "improve" the river down to [[Richmond, Virginia|Richmond]], which was growing and was named as the new Commonwealth's capital. Shallow-draft [[James River bateau]] provided a relatively easy means of transportation through Lynchburg down to Richmond and eventually to the Atlantic Ocean. Rocks, downed trees, and flood debris were constant hazards, so their removal became expensive ongoing maintenance. Lynchburg became a tobacco trading, then commercial, and much later an industrial center.

Eventually the state built a canal and towpath along the river to make transportation by the waterway easier, and especially to provide a water route around the falls at Richmond, which prevented through navigation by boat. By 1812, U.S. Chief Justice [[John Marshall]], who lived in Richmond, reported on the navigation difficulties and construction problems on the canal and towpath.
[[File:South River Friends (Quakers) Meeting House 2.jpg|thumb|274x274px|The restored [[South River Friends Meetinghouse]], April 2024]]
The General Assembly recognized the settlement's growth by incorporating Lynchburg as a town in 1805; it was not incorporated as a city until 1852. In between, Lynch built Lynchburg's first bridge across the James River, a toll structure that replaced his ferry in 1812. A toll turnpike to [[Salem, Virginia]] was begun in 1817. Lynch died in 1820 and was buried in the burial ground of the [[South River Friends Meetinghouse]]. Quakers later abandoned the town because of their moral opposition to [[Slavery in the United States|slavery]], which the cities economy had begun to rely upon.<ref name=":4" /><ref>{{Cite web |title=Slavery in Lynchburg |url=https://lynchburgmuseum.org/slavery-in-lynchburg |access-date=2025-05-16 |website=Lynchburg Museum System |language=en-US}}</ref> [[Presbyterian Church (USA)|Presbyterians]] took over the grounds of the meetinghouse in 1899, and adapted it as a church, later building a new church adjacent to the site, and restoring the Quaker meetinghouse to the buildings historical appearance.<ref name=":4">{{Cite web |title=South River Meeting House |url=https://www.qmpc.org/south-river-meeting-house.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200615234327/https://www.qmpc.org/south-river-meeting-house.html |archive-date=15 June 2020 |access-date=7 July 2024 |website=www.qmpc.org}}</ref> The meeting house and burial ground are now preserved as a [[National Register of Historic Places listings in Lynchburg, Virginia|historic site]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=14 April 2024 |title=South River Friends Meetinghouse |url=https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/historic-registers/118-0015/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240707233821/https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/historic-registers/118-0015/ |archive-date=7 July 2024 |access-date=7 July 2024 |website=The Virginia Department of Historic Resources}}</ref>

To avoid the many visitors at [[Monticello]], [[Thomas Jefferson]] in 1806 developed a plantation and house near Lynchburg, called [[Poplar Forest]]. He often visited the town, noting, "Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to be useful to the town of Lynchburg. I consider it as the most interesting spot in the state." In 1810, Jefferson wrote, "Lynchburg is perhaps the most rising place in the U.S.... It ranks now next to Richmond in importance...."<ref>{{Citation|title=Jefferson Chronology|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv301fsm.8|work=The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, Volume 3|pages=2|publisher=Princeton University Press|doi=10.2307/j.ctv301fsm.8|access-date=2021-12-02}}</ref>

Early Lynchburg residents were not known for their religious enthusiasm. The established Church of England supposedly built a log church in 1765. In 1804, evangelist [[Lorenzo Dow]] wrote: "...where I spoke in the open air in what I conceived to be the seat of Satan's Kingdom. Lynchburg was a deadly place for the worship of God'." That referred to the lack of churches, which was corrected the following year. Itinerant [[Methodist]] [[Francis Asbury]] visited the town; Methodists built its first church in 1805. Lynchburg hosted the last Virginia Methodist Conference that bishop Asbury attended (February 20, 1815).<ref>William Warren Sweet, ''Virginia Methodism: A History'' (Richmond: Whitten & Shepparson, 1950) p. 151</ref> As Lynchburg grew, prostitution and other "rowdy" activities became part of the urban mix of the river town. They were often ignored, if not accepted, particularly in a downtown area referred to as the "Buzzard's Roost."<ref>{{Cite web |last= |first= |date=2014-05-13 |title=Agnes and Lizzie Langley: The Madams of Buzzard’s Roost |url=https://thedeadbelldotcom1.wordpress.com/2014/05/13/agnes-and-lizzie-langley-the-madams-of-buzzards-roost/ |access-date=2025-05-16 |website=Wordpress |language=en}}</ref>{{Better source needed|reason=The current source is insufficiently reliable ([[WP:Wordpress is normally not a reliable source, but there's no other online-published information regarding this claim]]).|date=May 2025}} Methodist preacher and later bishop [[John Early (bishop)|John Early]] became one of Lynchburg's civic leaders; unlike early Methodist preachers who had urged abolition of slavery during the [[Great Awakening]]; Early was of a later generation that had accommodated to this institution in the slave societies of the South.

On December 3, 1840, the [[James River and Kanawha Canal]] from Richmond reached Lynchburg. It was extended as far as [[Buchanan, Virginia]] in 1851, but never reached a tributary of the Ohio River as originally planned.<ref>{{cite book | last=Dorin | first=Patrick C. | title=The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway | date=1981 | publisher=Superior Publishing | location=Burbank, California | isbn=978-0-87564-704-3 | page=10}}</ref> Lynchburg's population exceeded 6,000 by 1840, and a water works system was built. Floods in 1842 and 1847 wreaked havoc with the canal and towpath. Both were repaired. Town businessmen began to lobby for a railroad, but Virginia's General Assembly refused to fund such construction. In 1848 civic boosters began selling subscriptions for the [[Lynchburg and Tennessee Railroad]].

By the 1850s, Lynchburg (along with [[New Bedford, Massachusetts]]) was among the richest towns per capita in the US.<ref>{{Cite book |first1=Clifton |last1=Potter |name-list-style=amp |first2=Dorothy |last2=Potter |title=Lynchburg: A City Set on Seven Hills |location=Charleston, SC |publisher=Arcadia Publishing |year=2004 |page=39 |isbn=0-7385-2461-1}}</ref> Tobacco (including the manufacture of plug tobacco in factories using rented slave labor), slave-trading, general commerce, and iron and steel manufacturing powered the economy.<ref>Steven Eliott Tripp, ''Yankee Town, Southern City: Race and Class Relations in Lynchburg, Virginia'' (NYU Press 1997 {{ISBN|9780814782057}}) pp. 10-12</ref><ref>[https://networks.h-net.org/node/4113/reviews/4485/shifflett-tripp-yankee-town-southern-city-race-and-class-relations-civil Shifflet, Review: Steven Elliott Tripp, ''Yankee Town, Southern City: Race and Class Relations in Lynchburg, Virginia''], H-net</ref>

Railroads had become the wave of the future. Construction on the new Lynchburg and Tennessee railroad had begun in 1850 and a locomotive tested the track in 1852. A locomotive called the "Lynchburg" blew up in [[Forest, Virginia]] (near Poplar Forest) later that year, showing the new technology's dangers.{{Failed verification|date=May 2025}} By the Civil War, two more railroads had been built, including the [[Southside Railroad (Virginia)|South Side Railroad]] from [[Petersburg, Virginia|Petersburg]]. It became known as the [[Atlantic, Mississippi and Ohio Railroad]] in 1870, then a line in the [[Norfolk and Western Railway]], and last as part of the [[Norfolk Southern Railway]].<ref name=Bright2015>{{cite web |url=http://www.csa-railroads.com/South_Side.htm |title=Confederate Railroads – South Side |last=Bright |first=David L. |year=2015 |website=Confederate Railroads |access-date=January 25, 2018}}</ref> The [[Orange and Alexandria Railroad]] stopped in Lynchburg.