Chesterfield Railroad - History

History

Coal mining in the Midlothian area of Chesterfield County began in the 18th century. Around 1701, French Huguenot settlers to the area discovered the existence of the coalfield. In a 1709 diary entry William Byrd II, who is credited as the founder of Richmond, and had purchased 344 acres (1.39 km2) of land in the area where coal was found, noted that "the coaler found the coal mine very good and sufficient to furnish several generations." It was first commercially mined in the 1730s, and was used to make cannon at Westham (near the present Huguenot Memorial Bridge) during the American Revolutionary War.

In 1804, the Manchester and Falling Creek Turnpike was built to ease traffic on what is now Old Buckingham Road. In 1807, became the first graveled roadway of any length in Virginia. However, by 1824, Midlothian area coal mine owners were frustrated by the difficulty of transporting on the toll road now known as Midlothian Turnpike more than 1,000,000 bushels of coal by wagons and horse teams to waiting ships below the falls at Manchester on the banks of the James River.

Seeking a better method of transportation so that their markets could be expanded, in 1825, a group of mine owners, including Nicholas Mills, Beverley Randolph and Abraham S. Wooldridge, resolved to build a tramway. The Wooldridge family hailed from East Lothian and West Lothian in Scotland, and named their mining company Mid-Lothian, the source of the modern name.