Editing Farmville, Virginia (section)

===Piedmont Mine===
{{Infobox company
| website  = 
| name     = Piedmont Coal Company
| type     = 
| industry = Coal
| founded  = {{start date |1860|}} in [[Raines Tavern, Virginia]], [[Virginia]], United States
| founder  = John Dalby<ref name="Virginia Division of Mineral Resources">{{cite report| last = Wilkes | first = Gerald P.| date = August 1882| title = Geology and Mineral Resources of the Farmville Triassic Basin, Virginia| url = https://dmme.virginia.gov/DGMR/pdf/vamin/VAMIN_VOL28_NO03.PDF| publisher = Virginia Division of Mineral Resources| edition = Vol. 28 Num. 3| location = Charlottesville, Virginia| access-date = 2016-08-08| url-status = dead| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20130312033004/https://www.dmme.virginia.gov/DGMR/pdf/vamin/VAMIN_VOL28_NO03.PDF| archive-date = 2013-03-12}}</ref>
}}

The [[Virginia General Assembly]] chartered the Piedmont Coal Company for John Dalby in 1860. The mine was near [[Buckingham, Virginia|Buckingham]] [[Plank Road]], [[Virginia State Route 600 (Buckingham and Cumberland Counties)|Virginia State Route 600 in Cumberland]], a mile and a half west of [[Raines Tavern, Virginia]].

Without rail transportation close to Raines Tavern, the transportation cost of getting the coal to Farmville and then by rail to Richmond was too high to sell it at a competitive price. The coal was sold locally to people in the area for heating their homes.

During the [[American Civil War]], the mines continued to operate but then production fell off.  Coal was still there, though, Daddow and Bannon documented seven or eight coal seams and [[anthracite]] in 1866.<ref name="Virginia Division of Mineral Resources"/>