The Muse: August 2004Ladies and gentlemen, take a bow!We had the best Yard Sale we have ever had! Special thanks to John Swift and Holcomb Nixon for moving the tables. John always helps us with signs. All of you ladies who help every year, what would we do without you? Thanks also to Holly for the extra work this made for her. If you didn’t get here for the Antiques Assessments you missed a wonderful opportunity. It was very successful and we also had a good time! Cakes! Cakes! Cakes! We need some cakes for the booth at the Sorghum festival. We have some great cooks in our membership, so please help us out! Mary Frances Olinger, President Annual Meeting - Members Only!Reserve September 11 for our annual membership meeting. We will gather at Bethany United Methodist Church on High Peak Road at 11:30 a.m. for a brief presentation about past Museum activities and upcoming events. Afterwards, we will move to the fellowship hall for a delicious luncheon and great fellowship. Treat yourself to an enjoyable day! Bring a friend to become a new member! Prospective members may join by calling the museum for a membership form or by using the form included in this issue. They may also join on the day of the meeting. Call the Museum office at 946-9068 for you luncheon reservation ($5 per person). We can accommodate the first 75 members who respond. Kathryn Pixley Welcome back, Dolly!We are pleased to welcome Dolly Payne back to the Museum Board. Dolly has previously served on the Board, and has been President. Many of you already know her from her prior Board service, and it’s wonderful to have her familiar face back! Home Tour Thanks!Special thanks to the gracious homeowners in Elon for making their home available to the Society for the 2004 Home Tour! As part of our thank you and appreciation, these individuals will receive a complimentary one year membership.
Summer is for Family Reunions!This has been a busy summer for the Museum as several families have made a point to visit the Museum as part of their family reunion activities. Be sure to remember the Museum when you plan your family’s next reunion. In Jone, the Rucker Family Society visited the Museum and brought fifty visitors into the Museum to view the exhibits and see the Museum’s research library. In July the Rudacille family brought twenty five visitors to the Museum, including one of our youngest visitors this year--still in arms! Of course they had to see the research room, too, especially since it is located in the Caroline Crouch Rudacille gallery now! Exhibits: In the Massie Gallery Pathways. in the Whitehead Gallery: Recent Acquisitions, in the Singleton-Zinsser Gallery, Court Days and in the Rudacille Gallery is the museum’s research library. See You at the FestivalThe Amherst County Museum and Historical Society will have an interesting display and sale of some of our most requested books in our booth at the Clifford Sorghum Festival on October 2nd and 3rd. Copies of "The Amherst County Story" and the "Gravestone Inscriptions in Amherst County" will be available for purchase. Ask about some of our enlightening exhibits, exciting County tours, and our other happenings during the year. There will be information available on our genealogical meetings, which have proven helpful to those researching family histories. An added attraction this year will be a number of homemade cakes available for sale. Alice Powell Election Day Cake EventTuesday, November 2, is more than just Election Day in Amherst County. It’s when everyone looks forward to the Historical Society’s Cake Event! This year Dolly Payne will be organizing the event, so give us a call if you can donate a cake or help out at the ticket tables selling chances on a cake. To help with the Sorghum Festival or the Election Day Cake Event, please call the Museum at 946-9068 What’s new......in the Gift Shop. We now have copies of several of L.B. Taylor, Jr’s Virginia Ghosts series, in particular Civil War Ghosts of Virginia, The Ghosts of Williamsburg and The Ghosts of Charlottesville and Lynchburg and nearby environs. ...in the Library. Recently donated is a copy of A Gift from Heaven: James A. Bowman, ancestors and descendants, by Raymond and Anna Bowman. Also we have just added a new three-volume set, Chronicles of the Scotch-Irish Settlement in Virginia, by Lyman Chalkley. Another recent donation is Virginia War Agencies, Selective Draft and Volunteers, edited by Arthur Kyle Davis. Published in 1926, this volume provides narrative histories of military units in Virginia as well as rosters. Also received is New Dictionary of American Family Names, by Elsdon C. Smith, and from Warwick Publishing in Lynchburg we have received a copy of the recently published The Battle of Lynchburg: Seize Lynchburg--If Only for a Single Day by L. VanLoan Naisawald, including a Foreword by James L. Robertson, Jr. Professor Robertson is a popular Civil War speaker as well as having been a consultant for the recent movie Gods and Generals. The research library has also added a copy of the newly compiled Isaac Rucker Property, researched by Sandra Esposito, with maps and photographs of the property upon which Isaac’s widow Mary resided, near Mt. Horeb Church. More donations to the Museum’s research collections include A History of Buckingham County, by Eugene A Maloney, and The Virginia Landmarks Register, 1999 edition by Calder Loth. Also recently donated are a copy of Burton Families from Virginia to Smith County, Rome, Tennessee compiled by Patsy Day-Ware, 2004, and Martial Music in the Age of Lewis and Clark: Band Music of America Between 1790 and 1812, by Randolph W. Cabell. And of course, we welcome new members:
Also check out... ...our new look. We are excited about the work being done on our exterior brick. Now that the interior has gotten spruced up, we are looking forward to cleaning up the outside to match. Half of the project has been done this summer, with the remainder to be done next summer. Some tree surgery has been done to remove dead wood and the Village Garden Club has done a wonderful job of planning, planting and taking care of the gardens here at the Kearfott-Wood House. It is truly a pleasure to show off our new look! ...our new exhibit. We enjoyed the lovely artwork done by the local artists’ group which the Museum borrowed for several months, and now we are displaying some of Amherst’s courthouse memorabilia. Mrs. Harold Singleton has graciously loaned Judge Singleton’s robe to the Museum for the exhibit, and several legal manuals and references are also on display. Come watch the video of Billy Sandidge talking about the courthouse construction. Children’s fashions, tableware, and tools are recent acquisitions currently on display in the Whitehead gallery. The Massie gallery continues to be popular as the permanent exhibit that provides an excellent overview of Amherst history, while the Rudacille room is now becoming more settled as the new research library.  Volunteer Betsy Langhans cleans some 1850s newspapers recently found in the Kables home, The Glebe. For volunteer opportunities check our back page! An Outline History of the Town of Salt Creek (Bethel) Part Five (continued) and ConclusionAmherst residents at Salt Creek (from the Lynchburg City Directory 1885)
The 1880s’ saw a short lived iron boom affecting the foundry community below the Judith Dam. Central Virginia’a first rolling mill, the Lynchburg Iron Works, was built there just after the Civil War, providing railroad iron. The James River Steel manufacturing & Mining Co. took it’s place in 1880 but was quickly followed by the Va. Nail & Iron Works. One of the directors of this company had his surname, Reusens, attached to the small industrial village that remains to this day. During that time the Amherst Furnace likely furnished iron, transported by rail, to the Campbell Co. foundry until 1884 when the furnace went out of business. Men who lived at Salt Creek and all along this region of river found employment at these iron establishments, also with the railroad, and also when the Big Island Paper Mill began operations in 1890. Robert G. Scott had built up quite a personal empire on the river as the Twentieth century approached. As postmaster of Salt Creek, and his other business ventures, Scott kept active and in touch with most everyone who lived in the area. He had even brought in a steamer on which his lodgers could ride from the train station in Reusens to ‘Riverside’ with a famous old boat captain to while his passengers with river stories of old during their trip. This would likely whet an audience’s appetite to hear even more stories at the resort that only "Capt. Bob" could tell in the evening. WIth the passage of many memorable experiences at Riverside, the time also approached when Capt. Scott was forced to sell his riverside mansion and properties in 1904 and retired into Lynchburg. He died 12/13/1909 after a year long illness. Three sons are said to have followed his example as contractors on other canals and railroads in America. Capt. Robert Garland Scott is buried in the family burial ground opposite the Virginia Episcopal School on Reusens road. With his passing, so passed the last colorful character who could be considered by all, "the Mayor" of the Bethel- Salt Creek level of the James River. And with him passed another era. ConclusionLittle trace of bateau era towns and settlements along the upper James River could be found at the onset of the Twentieth century. Yet the small Amherst village of Bethel, as it was still referred to by old timers, continued to survive despite hard times, floods and change. Bethel’s location, in the outer bend of the river, the people who had lived there and the ferry crossing at the Liberty-Bethel turnpike all contributed to it’s survival. Larger towns, such as Lynchburg, changed with the times, but the Bethel/Salt Creek village remained much the same but for the people who lived there. Great changes had come with the railroad in 1881. Old canal men quietly retired to relate stories of their days on the river. Others still had a few years left and were gladly hired by the railroad for their knowledge of the canal and the river. The old Bethel lock house on the Bedford side of the river, opposite Salt Creek, had been converted into a train depot at Abert, possibly named after a canal agent from the early 1840s. A new ferry was built by the Richmond Allegheny railroad in 1887 which could handle two wagons. At the depot, extra platform flooring was added to the existing one to accommodate growing passengers and freight. [Richmond & Allegheny RR Annual Reports] Passenger trains along the James River line stopped daily at numerous depots built at most all the old river towns and crossings. Tremendous and monumental technological changes that began to occur at the end of the nineteenth century. For example, Edison’s electric light bulb determined future uses of the James River. To meet the region’s needs for electricity, dams on the river were modified to generate electric power. Paper mills and large tanneries using chestnut bark operated in Lynchburg, Big Island, Snowden and Buena Vista. Iron foundries and other industries also utilized the water power created by dams built in the canal days. Employment with the rail road or for the foundry at Reusens were considered excellent jobs to have. Just up from the Salt Creek settlement another industry was built at One of the Watt’s grandchildren tells of his grandfather operating the old heavy timber grist mill that stood out over Salt Creek. A mill appears to have existed at this site for one hundred and fifty years but probably sustained some damage during the 1870s floods or another in 1913. As yet, there is no evidence how old the corn and flour mill was at the time Watts worked it, or anything to tell if it had been rebuilt and refitted. Any modifications or improvements to the mill could have been made by Robert G. Scott. Andrew Watts was the last known miller to operate the two story grist mill in addition to being postmaster and having the general store, which his wife likely ran. When Mr. Watts took over the mill, a tub turbine was utilized to power the mill stones instead of a water wheel. When he changed from grinding corn to grinding wheat, different mill stones would be used by means of a swing arm. A saw mill was also connected to the mill to saw lumber for those needing it in the locality. During low water a gasoline powered motor operated both grist or saw mill which remained in operation prior to 1934. On the Bedford side of the river, the property through which the Bethel ferry road passed came to a descendant of the Steen family named Emily Leckie. Leckie’s siding was located on the railroad in the early 1900s. The ferry road still received use by farmers bringing crops and produce to be shipped by rail and train passengers on their way to and from the Abert depot. The Abert post office in Bedford was discontinued in 1919 and moved to Salt Creek, at which time it is believed the Bethel Ferry service ended. Over in Amherst, Andrew Watts had to retire for health reasons and his wife Lena took over the post office in 1922. According to the 1930 census, nearly three dozen families lived in Salt Creek and on the road leading to it. Hurley Branham, Wesley Johns, and ‘Nic’ Terry were among some of the Monacan Indians residing there. Charles W. Dameron’s family lived atop the farm road to Bethel, neighbors to Jesse S. Burks and James M. Horton’s families. Some Black families were those of Walter Fuqua, Thomas Parks, John H. Woodroof and Warner Slaughter. After Mr. Watts died in 1932, his wife remained with the Salt Creek post office until it was finally discontinued moved to Madison Heights in 1934. Robert Scott’s Riverside mansion tract had been sold to John Ellis and J.A. Meriwether, who continued the resort on week ends. A friend to the Dameron family wrote in 1906 that he was sorry to hear that Scott had been obliged to sell [the mansion] on account of the scarcity of labor and that "all the old families are leaving the farms so long associated with their old names." [Charles Dameron papers MSS- Jones Memorial Library] This same expression holds true in present times, old family farms continue to give way to speculation and development that often eradicates remaining traces of a region’s history. John Ellis sold the mansion property to Thomas W. and Emily V. Oglesby in 1917. During this time Alphonso [Phonsie ] Hicks, a red haired, blue eyed Irishman, worked as a section hand foreman on the railroad. His wife, Maude Branham, a Monacan Indian, worked at Riverside for the Oglesby’s. The couple are said to have also lived in the old tavern at Bethel for a time. Scott’s mansion continued on as a hotel into the 1930 and 40s owned by Coke Stuart and remained a popular and well known site on the river, three miles above Reusens dam. One could still get a sense of earlier times from the surroundings of the place after the building was abandoned in the 1950s and 60s when the property came to be owned by the power company at Reusens. The Riverside mansion was torn down in 1968 and the ten acre site donated to Amherst Co. for a recreational park, known as ‘Monacan Park’ including a public boat landing. Since the park opened it attracts a great number of boaters and fishermen to that level of the James River one hundred years after Robert Scott did the same. Little do those who now use the river, know that the two remaining large evergreen trees, an old stone retaining wall and a corn crib outbuilding that has been converted into a house, are the sole remaining vestiges of Scott’s grand mansion and plantation. Presently there are updated permanent and summer homes all around the old mansion site. When the Salt Creek post office was discontinued, Mrs. Watts moved away to live with her children in Lynchburg. Remaining families living in Salt Creek/ Bethel area were mostly Monacan Indians. It is not without some irony that ancestors of these same Indian families very likely lived upon this same site many years before the coming of Europeans to America. Two hundred years later, the village began to return to it’s natural state in the 1930s and Monacan Indians were still to be found there. Theirs is a different point of historical view that may never be fully known but in bits and pieces handed down from oral tradition to grandsons and granddaughters of the present day Monacan people. High up on the bluff known as Vault Hill is a Monacan Indian cemetery next to the old Davies cemetery. Buried in both, are generations of Branham and Johns families among others who lived in Salt Creek and Bethel area. Among some of the stories about the region is one about a fellow named ‘old man Batteau’. This batteau man who survived the canal and railroad eras continued to pole an old batteau and live the life of a hermit in a cave. Another legend tells of a canal boat captain who, when he died, was buried upright somewhere atop a bluff so he could always overlook boats winding their way on the James river. No one appears to know who this man was or where he is buried. However, there is a good likelihood that it is none other than old Nick Davies himself, the founder of Bethel town. Proof that Nicholas Davies was buried in the Amherst Co. Vault Hill cemetery appears in chancery papers [file #38] between Edward Tinsley and the Davies family in 1837. Tinsley had purchased a 50 a tract on which was located the Davies family cemetery "including the vault and graveyard of Nicholas Davies Sr. and his descendants." Tinsley had cleared the land without regard to the cemetery which was the cause for the chancery suit. Perhaps the stone wall was built after Tinsley granted 153 square perches for the present cemetery to be set aside. The fact Nicholas Davies’ name is not memorialized in this cemetery may be the result of vandalism. The cemetery may have been kept up for a time, but now is bereft of many original Davies stones. Large oak trees grow within cemetery walls that have been raided for some of it’s stone. There is a rumor that a Confederate battery emplacement may have used the site to guard against an advance of Federal soldiers down river to Lynchburg, but such a battery would have seen no action because the Federal army took another route. There are only three Davies gravestones currently standing at Vault Hill, one is that of William B. Davies [1806-1846] and the others, his infant son and daughter. Bethel was one of the few early bateau era towns to survive into the twentieth century. Its history is relevant because it was the creation of one of the first large land owners in Central Virginia. It thrived from batteau commerce and was an important early river crossing up until the age of railroads and the first automobile bridge was built at Snowden in the early 1920s. Nowadays, the Reusen’s level of the river appears to be the most active of any on the James River above Lynchburg. Those who have lived on the river for the last fifty years can tell stories of more recent historical times and now have this outline as a reference for the older history of the Salt Creek community’s past and Revolutionary War era village known as Bethel.  This mansion no longer stands, but is the site of today’s Monocan Park Volunteers Wanted! The Museum is seeking volunteers! We are looking for:
New projects are being added to the list as completed projects drop off the list. And of course, some needs remain constant! Let us know how you can help! |