Winterham (also called "Ham", according to the USGS) is a mostly rural

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

in central Amelia County in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

, lying along at the northern terminus of SR 628 (Butlers Road). Its elevation is 338 feet (103 m) above sea level. Winterham is served by the

volunteer fire department A volunteer fire department (VFD) is a fire department of volunteers who perform fire suppression and other related emergency services for a local jurisdiction. Volunteer and retained (on-call) firefighters are expected to be on call to respond ...

and

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional ser ...

at the

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or civil parish. The term is in use in Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, Taiwan, and the United States. The equivalent term shire town is used in the US st ...

, Amelia Court House ( ZIP code 23002), approximately 3 miles southwest.''The Road Atlas '08.''

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Rand McNally Rand McNally is an American technology and publishing company that provides mapping, software and hardware for consumer electronics, commercial transportation and education markets. The company is headquartered in Chicago, with a distribution ...

, 2008, p. 107.

History

Name and origin

"Winterham" is one of the oldest surviving placenames in Amelia County, dating back at least to the mid-1700s. Its precise origin is unclear, but the suffix "-ham" derives from Scots ''hame'' or Old English ''hām'', meaning "home", "estate", or "village". The earliest uses of "Winterham" probably referred not to the town but to the Winterham Plantation, approximately 4 miles northwest, whose manor house and dependencies were added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in 2002. A

was established at the town of Winterham by 1853, and by the early 1900s the town was a freight stop, at Milepost 34, on what was then the Southern Railway, originally the

Richmond and Danville Railroad The Richmond and Danville Railroad (R&D) Company was a railroad that operated independently from 1847 until 1894, first in the U.S. state of Virginia, and later on of track in nine states. Chartered on March 9, 1847, the railroad completed its ...

. The railroad station and post office have since closed, although the railroad track, which parallels US 360 before the highway curves southeastward at Winterham, is still used by freight trains, and is now owned by the Norfolk Southern Railway.

African American churches

Mt. Olive Baptist, a historic

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

church, is located 1/2 mile northeast of Winterham on SR 705 (Mt. Olive Lane, a short loop segment of old US 360). Just to the east, also on Route 705, Mt. Herman Presbyterian was once the meeting place of a separate African American congregation. Built in the late 1800s, the structure had fallen into disrepair (see photo) before being privately renovated in 2020. Church of the Holy Cross, a Reformed Episcopal congregation, was meeting regularly in the restored building as of 2023.

Morefield Mine

Morefield Mine, one of several rock and gem mines that have been worked profitably in Amelia County, is located on Route 628 approximately 1 mile southeast of Winterham, atop an unusually long and thick vein of pegmatite that contains a number of rare minerals. Since its opening in 1929, Morefield Mine has provided mica,

feldspar Feldspars are a group of rock-forming aluminium tectosilicate minerals, also containing other cations such as sodium, calcium, potassium, or barium. The most common members of the feldspar group are the ''plagioclase'' (sodium-calcium) felds ...

, and gems, many of museum quality, operating intermittently as a working mine, tourist attraction, and sometimes both simultaneously. Amelia County contains some of the most extensive mica and feldspar deposits in Virginia.

References

External links

Amelia County, VA
official government website
The Plantation Home of Winterham
(now a historical bed-and-breakfast and event center)
Morefield Mine, Amelia, VA
official website {{authority control Unincorporated communities in Amelia County, Virginia Unincorporated communities in Virginia