Skiffe's Creek is located in
James City County
James City County is a county located in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 78,254. Although politically separate from the county, the county seat is the adjacent independent city of Williamsburg.
Located ...
and the
independent city of
Newport News in the
Virginia Peninsula area of the
Hampton Roads
Hampton Roads is the name of both a body of water in the United States that serves as a wide channel for the James River, James, Nansemond River, Nansemond and Elizabeth River (Virginia), Elizabeth rivers between Old Point Comfort and Sewell's ...
region of southeastern
Virginia in the
United States. It is a tributary of the
James River
The James River is a river in the U.S. state of Virginia that begins in the Appalachian Mountains and flows U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed April 1, 2011 to Chesapea ...
.
Early history 17th-19th centuries
In the early 17th century, Skiffe's Creek bordered
Martin's Hundred, a proprietary settlement dating to 1618 in the British
Colony of Virginia
The Colony of Virginia, chartered in 1606 and settled in 1607, was the first enduring English colonial empire, English colony in North America, following failed attempts at settlement on Newfoundland (island), Newfoundland by Sir Humphrey GilbertG ...
. The creek formed one of the borders between
James City Shire and
Warwick Shire when they were formed in 1634 by the
House of Burgesses as directed by
King Charles I as two of the eight original
shires of Virginia.
For over 300 years it was part of the boundary between James City County and Warwick County. The latter consolidated into the city of Newport News in 1958. The creek continues to be the dividing line between the two
political subdivisions of Virginia.
In 1881, Skiffe's Creek was bridged by a trestle of the new Peninsula Subdivision as the
Collis P. Huntington
Collis Potter Huntington (October 22, 1821 – August 13, 1900) was an American industrialist and railway magnate. He was one of the Big Four of western railroading (along with Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker) who invested ...
led the development of the
Chesapeake and Ohio Railway
The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway was a Class I railroad formed in 1869 in Virginia from several smaller Virginia railroads begun in the 19th century. Led by industrialist Collis P. Huntington, it reached from Virginia's capital city of Richmond t ...
through the new
Church Hill Tunnel and down the
Virginia Peninsula through
Williamsburg
Williamsburg may refer to:
Places
*Colonial Williamsburg, a living-history museum and private foundation in Virginia
*Williamsburg, Brooklyn, neighborhood in New York City
*Williamsburg, former name of Kernville (former town), California
*Williams ...
to reach
coal pier A coal pier is a transloading facility designed for the transfer of coal between rail and ship.
The typical facility for loading ships consists of a holding area and a system of conveyors for transferring the coal to dockside and loading it into t ...
s located on the harbor
Hampton Roads
Hampton Roads is the name of both a body of water in the United States that serves as a wide channel for the James River, James, Nansemond River, Nansemond and Elizabeth River (Virginia), Elizabeth rivers between Old Point Comfort and Sewell's ...
, the East Coast of the United States' largest
ice-free port. During the ten years from 1878 to 1888, C&O's coal resources began to be developed and shipped eastward. Coal became a staple of the C&O's business at that time, and still did over 125 years later under successor
CSX Transportation
CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The railroad operates approximately 21,000 route miles () of track. ...
.
About 2 miles east of the Skiffe's Creek crossing, the
Lee Hall depot was built in 1881-82, and later expanded. The station served tens of thousands of soldiers based at what became nearby
Fort Eustis during
World War I and
World War II.
Skiffe's Creek Reservoir
Skiffe's Creek Reservoir is a portion of the Newport News Waterworks, a regional water provider, owned and operated by the City of Newport News, that serves over 400,000 people in the cities of Hampton, Newport News, Poquoson, and portions of York County and James City County. The regional water system, which included initially an impingement of the
Warwick River in western
Warwick County, was begun as a project of
Collis P. Huntington
Collis Potter Huntington (October 22, 1821 – August 13, 1900) was an American industrialist and railway magnate. He was one of the Big Four of western railroading (along with Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker) who invested ...
as part of the development of the lower peninsula with the
Chesapeake and Ohio Railway
The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway was a Class I railroad formed in 1869 in Virginia from several smaller Virginia railroads begun in the 19th century. Led by industrialist Collis P. Huntington, it reached from Virginia's capital city of Richmond t ...
, the
coal pier A coal pier is a transloading facility designed for the transfer of coal between rail and ship.
The typical facility for loading ships consists of a holding area and a system of conveyors for transferring the coal to dockside and loading it into t ...
s on the harbor of
Hampton Roads
Hampton Roads is the name of both a body of water in the United States that serves as a wide channel for the James River, James, Nansemond River, Nansemond and Elizabeth River (Virginia), Elizabeth rivers between Old Point Comfort and Sewell's ...
, and massive shipyard which were the major sources of industrial growth which helped found Newport News as a new independent city in 1896.
19th-21st centuries
In the early 20th century, Skiffe's Creek was bridged by the new
U.S. Route 60
U.S. Route 60 is a major east–west United States highway, traveling from southwestern Arizona to the Atlantic Ocean coast in Virginia.
The highway's eastern terminus is in Virginia Beach, Virginia, where it is known as Pacific Avenue, in the ...
. In modern times, most through traffic uses the nearby four-laned
Interstate 64 or
State Route 143. Two-laned Route 60 now primarily links local traffic between the
Grove community of southeastern James City County and the Lee Hall community of Newport News, with each attempting to retain some of their rural aspects as their respective localities are more fully developed.
A small portion of the expansive
Naval Weapons Station Yorktown is in the Skiffe's Creek watershed.
In the late 20th century, the larger-than-normal rural two story frame depot at Lee Hall was saved from demolition and is highly valued by rail fans and rail preservationists.
In June 2007, a CSX hopper train derailed at the Skiffe's Creek Trestle, with no injuries.
See also
*
List of rivers of Virginia
This is a list of rivers in the U.S. state of Virginia.
By drainage basin
This list is arranged by drainage basin, with respective tributaries, arranged in the order of their confluence from mouth to source, indented under each larger stream's nam ...
References
External links
James City County WatershedsNewport News Waterworks
{{authority control
Rivers of James City County, Virginia
Rivers of Virginia
Tributaries of the James River
Bodies of water of Newport News, Virginia