Editing Chesterfield County, Virginia (section)

===Early ports, coal, roads, turnpikes and railroads===
Prior to the [[American Revolutionary War]], a thriving port town named [[Warwick, Virginia (Chesterfield County)|Warwick]] was located at the northwestern confluence of Falling Creek and the James River. It was destroyed during that war, and not rebuilt. (Near the present-day [[DuPont]] facility at [[Ampthill]], the site is not open to the public.) Another early port town was [[Port Walthall]] on the north shore of the [[Appomattox River]], near the current Point-of-Rocks Park.

[[Coal]] mining in the [[Midlothian, Virginia|Midlothian]] area of Chesterfield County began in the 18th century. Around 1701, French [[Huguenot]] settlers to the area discovered coal. In a 1709 diary entry [[William Byrd II]], the wealthy planter who had purchased {{convert|344|acre|km2|1}} of land in the area, noted that "the coaler found the coal mine very good and sufficient to furnish several generations". Commercially mined beginning in the 1730s, the coal fueled the production of cannon at [[Westham, Virginia|Westham]] (near the present [[Huguenot Memorial Bridge]]) during the [[American Revolutionary War]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.greatcpa.com/coalmine.htm|title=David B. Robinson, CPA Coal Mining in Chesterfield, VA|publisher=Greatcpa.com|access-date=July 22, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130917101847/http://greatcpa.com/coalmine.htm|archive-date=September 17, 2013|url-status=dead}}</ref>  In 1831, the [[Chesterfield Railroad]] was constructed to transport coal by gravity and mule power to [[Manchester, Virginia]] on the south side of the [[James River]] across from [[Richmond, Virginia]].

From the 1740s through the 1800s rivers above the [[Atlantic Seaboard fall line|Fall Line]] were used for transportation to the West with [[James River bateau]], which could carry about a ton, and boats several times larger from [[Eppington]].<ref name="Wilkes1988">{{Cite report |author=Gerald P. Wilkes|date=1988|title=MINING HISTORY OF THE RICHMOND COALFIELD OF VIRGINIA|url=https://www.dmme.virginia.gov/commercedocs/PUB_85.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/https://www.dmme.virginia.gov/commercedocs/PUB_85.pdf |archive-date=October 9, 2022 |url-status=live|publisher=VIRGINIA DIVISION OF MINERAL RESOURCES PUBLICATION 85 |page=10,29–30|access-date=January 25, 2017}}</ref>  The [[Appomattox River]] on the Southern border was the lower end of the [[Upper Appomattox Canal Navigation System]] connecting to [[Farmville, Virginia]].<ref name="Trout1973">{{cite web|url=http://www.americancanals.org/Data_Sheets/Virginia/Upper%20Appomattox.pdf|title=The Upper Appomattox Navigation, Virginia|last=Trout III|first=W|date=June 13, 1973|website=American Canals|publisher=American Canal Society|access-date=January 18, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150918172116/http://www.americancanals.org/Data_Sheets/Virginia/Upper%20Appomattox.pdf|archive-date=September 18, 2015|url-status=dead}}</ref>  The [[James River and Kanawha Canal]] on the northern border of Chesterfield connected past the [[Blue Ridge Mountains]]. [[Port Walthall]] connected ships that carried more than 200 tonnes to the East with Ports on the [[Atlantic Ocean]].<ref>{{cite book|title=The New American Encyclopaedia: A Popular Dictionary of General Knowledge|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=huxDAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA196|year=1872|publisher=D. Appleton|page=196}}</ref>  A canal was built in the Manchester section of Chesterfield to enable transporting coal around the James River falls. Portions are extant and may be seen near the south end of Richmond's [[Mayo Bridge]].

The [[Manchester Turnpike]] in Chesterfield County, completed in 1807, was the first graveled roadway of any length in Virginia. The [[toll road]] ran between the [[coal]] mining area of Midlothian near the headwaters of [[Falling Creek (James River tributary)|Falling Creek]] and the James River port of [[Manchester, Virginia|Manchester]]. The current [[Midlothian Turnpike]] ([[U.S. Route 60 (Virginia)|U.S. Route 60]]) generally follows the earlier route.

Created in 1816, the [[Virginia Board of Public Works]] was a governmental agency which oversaw and helped finance the development of Virginia's internal transportation improvements, including canals, during the 19th century. In that era, it was customary to invest public funds in private companies, which were the forerunners of the [[public service company|public service and utility companies]] of modern times. [[Claudius Crozet]] (1789–1864), a [[civil engineer]] and [[educator]] who helped found the [[Virginia Military Institute]] (VMI), was Principal Engineer and later Chief Engineer for the Board of Public Works. He supervised the planning and construction of many of the [[canal]]s, [[Toll road|turnpikes]], [[bridge]]s and [[railroad]]s in Virginia, including the area which is now [[West Virginia]].

The Board partially engineered and funded new turnpikes, which were operated by private companies to collect [[toll road|tolls]]. The Manchester and Petersburg Turnpike, which preceded much of the current [[Jefferson Davis Highway]] (U.S. Routes 1–301), was one of these.

To improve access to markets, in 1825, a group of mine owners, including [[Nicholas Mills]], Beverley Randolph and Abraham S. Wooldridge, resolved to build a [[rail transport|tramway]]. (The Wooldridge brothers hailed from [[East Lothian]] and [[West Lothian (historic)|West Lothian]] in [[Scotland]], and named their mining company Mid-Lothian, the source of the modern community name). In 1831, the [[Chesterfield Railroad]] opened as the first [[railroad]] in Virginia; it carried coal from mines near Falling Creek to the docks at the fall line on the James River. By the early 1850s, railroad lines connecting these areas included the [[Richmond and Danville Railroad]] (R&D) (which put the Chesterfield Railroad out of business) and the [[Richmond and Petersburg Railroad]]. They were both completed before the [[American Civil War]], in which they provided important transportation for Southern supplies and men.

The [[Clover Hill Railroad]] was built to haul coal, mined in Chesterfield at the [[Clover Hill Pits]] to ports at Osborne's Landing. This railroad was replaced by the [[Brighthope Railway]], which was, in 1881, narrowed into a [[narrow gauge railroad]] and rerouted to the tiny village of [[Bermuda Hundred, Virginia|Bermuda Hundred]], a port on the James River near the mouth of the [[Appomattox River]]. The Brighthope Railway was sold in foreclosure and restructured as the [[Farmville and Powhatan Railroad]], later renamed the [[Tidewater and Western Railroad]], extended to [[Farmville, Virginia|Farmville]] in [[Prince Edward County, Virginia|Prince Edward County]].<ref name="Hilton1990">{{cite book|author=George Woodman Hilton|title=American Narrow Gauge Railroads|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7POj8GvF4sIC&pg=PA543|year=1990|publisher=Stanford University Press|isbn=978-0-8047-1731-1|pages=543–}}</ref> Although long gone, portions of the old rail bed may be seen along Beach Road near the entrance to [[Pocahontas State Park]]. A [[water stop]] station in the Park remains and [[Beach Station (Chesterfield, Virginia)|Beach Station]] remains as a national historic landmark.<ref name="The Messenger">{{cite web|url=http://www.chesterfieldhistory.com/PDF/Messenger/messenger%20July%202014%20small.pdf|title=Historic Beach Station National Register of Historic Places Virginia Historic Landmark Chesterfield County Historic Landmark|date=July 2014|publisher=The Chesterfield Historical Society of Virginia|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161006013955/http://www.chesterfieldhistory.com/PDF/Messenger/messenger%20July%202014%20small.pdf|archive-date=October 6, 2016}}</ref>