History of Howardsville

    (with Pictures by the author)

by Orlando Ridout, Architectural Historian, Annapolis, MD

Editor=s note. This was a paper written by Orlando Ridout V, while a student in the architectural history program at UVA. He entered the program in June of 1975 as a transfer student from the University of Wisconsin and lived in Scottsville, VA, from June of 1975 until January of 1976. He was graduated in 1977 and returned to Annapolis, his home. He writes, "Howardsville was an especially appealing community to explore, the more so because the surviving buildings near the river had been abandoned after repeated flood damage and were doomed to be lost..."  His photographs follow his paper.

The first settlement of record occurred in 1744 when Allen Howard determined to settle there. After more than a decade of exploration in this part of the Piedmont, Howard took patents on six tracts of land and in 1744 transported livestock, supplies and servants up the James River by boat and settled at what is now Howardsville. Here he built a great house, called Westcote, on a high hill overlooking the confluence of the James and the Rockfish rivers. In 1745, Howard became a magistrate of the newly formed county of Albemarle, and leaves no further impression on the public record until his death in 1761. Editor=s note: It does not appear that Howard actually called his great house Westcote. West Cote was built around 1830 by a descendant of Howard=s. In addition Howard appears in the record as a burgess from Albemarle county for the years of 1751-52-54.

Little is known of the Howard family or of West Cote for the ensuing years, and except for a fleeting reference to the Irving family, there is no further record of Howardsville in Colonial history. Editor=s note: In the years since the author researched this paper West Cote was named to the Register of Historic Homes and thus a great deal is now known about the house and its first owner.  In 1781 English forces under Tarleton threatened supplies held at Scottsville and at Irving=s Store. Irving had married a daughter of the Jordan family and had settled at the Jordan place near Howardsville. (Editor=s Note: Locust Hill), He is believed to have operated a store in that vicinity but lost his land by confiscation due to his British sympathies. Tarleton never reach Howardsville, and once again the community slips into obscurity.

By the late eighteenth century the James river was becoming more and more important as a form of transportation for goods between Richmond and the west. Although river traffic existed  to a limited degree, the need to clear and maintain a good channel was recognized, and numerous attempts were made to Improve@ the river. By the early 19^th century, efforts were underway to build locks around the falls at Richmond and plans for a canal to the west were under consideration. By late 1840, the canal had been completed, and freight and passenger service begun, with Howardsville one of numerous small James river communities that benefited from their location on the river. The town itself had not been formally laid out until 1832, but in the years immediately following, the town began to grow, no doubt further spurred by the completion of the canal. This boom period, stretching from about 1830 to the late 1850's, can be traced to the 1830's and the 1840's, reflecting the increasing prosperity of the town and its populace.

Business on the canal continued to boom through the 1840's, reaching a peak in profits in the years 1860 and 1851. But in the long run, the canal was to prove a short sighted solution to the problems of transportation, and as elsewhere, the growing competition from expanding railroads began to eat into the canal=s business. By the late 1850's business was declining, and only the outbreak of the Civil War prevented a French company from purchasing the canal in a strange scheme to gain access to holdings in western Virginia.

The Civil War was hard on the canal and the town both. The Union coastal blockade severely reduced traffic, so by 1862, profits were no longer for needed maintenance and repairs. The canal began to fall into disrepair, kept open largely by local labor in an effort to aid the war cause. But decay and neglect proved to be minor problems, as the arrival of northern forces under General Phillip Sheridan was to prove. Driving east from the Valley, Sheridan=s troops burned and pillaged, wrecking rail lines and bridges, in a successful effort to put increasing pressure on General Lee, near Petersburg. Halting at first in Charlottesville, Sheridan sent forces south with orders to destroy the James River and Kanawha Canal.

After burning buildings and boats in Scottsville, the Union troops moved up river, through Hatton and Warren, to Howardsville. Here they raided Monticola, pillaged houses and stores, and according to Virginia Moore (Scottsville author) also burned a mill and tannery. There is no other specific reference to this action, but tradition maintains that the brick tobacco house was burned during the raid. A second tradition holds that a Mr. Hunter, the cashier of the Howardsville bank, also still standing, rowed across the swollen James with the bank=s money and died of a heart attack after burying the money on a hill near the river. Mrs. Katherine Krouse has noted a sizeable portion of that section of Buckingham county has been dug up with no apparent success.

Sheridan and his army eventually moved on to the east, and the end of the war followed soon thereafter. Despite the destruction suffered by the canal, and increasing competition from railroads, the canal reopened after the war and even prospered modestly in the 1870's.  But the record floods in 1876 and 1877 badly damaged the canal, and by the late 1870's its eventual demise was recognized.  In 1879 the Richmond and Allegheny Railroad offered to buy the canal, with the intention of closing it and building a rail line on the old towpath. This sale was completed in 1880, and the canal closed for good. With the introduction of the new railroad line which made stops in Howardsville as well as the other small river towns, a second boom lifted the town, and a new rash of building occurred. Although only one building still standing can be fairly certainly attributed to this Period, late nineteenth century additions and alterations can be seen on many buildings associated with the railroad which have since been lost. Two large hotels across from the railroad station were believed to date to this period. Both of these buildings and the station itself, a simple frame affair, were swept away the 1969 flood.

By the turn of the century, Howardsville had readjusted itself to a new role, and little change is evident since that time. The population has remained at a nearly constant level, and a small pulp operation and agriculture are the major local sources of income.

In August of 1969, heavy rains in the mountainous areas upriver combined with heavy rain along the Rockfish River put Howardsville back in the news, as a devastating flood swept through the town, carrying numerous buildings with it and inundating the lower half of the town with water that reached the second floor of many houses. In addition to the previously mentioned hotels and the railway station, a store, a gas station, several houses and the bridge across the James River were swept away, while other buildings sustained considerable damage. In the aftermath of the flood, repairs were made, roads cleared and bridges replaced. Much of this work was still not complete when a second flood swept the town in June of 1972, reaching even greater levels, but causing less damage, due in large part to the absence of remaining buildings. The result of this second flood has been the total abandonment of the remaining buildings on the river side of the tracks, once the center of town. But the town continues, and although lacking some of the old continuity and charm, still remains a fascinating collection of rural vernacular architecture, much of it dating to its heyday in the 1830s and 40s. 

 Greek Revival House (Morris house), photo by Orlando Ridout V, September 1975 

Cobb-Baber house, Rear (with logs) and Street elevations,  Winter 1976 and September 1975

William Washington's house, on road to Lewis ford on Rockfish , Spring 1976

Dr. Nolting's office & Irving store knocked off stilts, September 1975