Westham was an unincorporated town in

Henrico County, Virginia Henrico County , officially the County of Henrico, is located in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 334,389 making it the fifth-most populous county in Virginia. Henrico County is incl ...

. It is located in the present day area of

Tuckahoe, Virginia Tuckahoe is a census-designated place (CDP) in Henrico County, Virginia, United States. It is a western suburb of Richmond. The population of Tuckahoe was 44,990 at the 2010 census. It is named after the area's history as the site of Thomas Rand ...

. Westham was built at a transportation point on the James River. The James River flows free for several hundred miles from the west and Westham is located at the point where the

Fall Line A fall line (or fall zone) is the area where an upland region and a coastal plain meet and is typically prominent where rivers cross it, with resulting rapids or waterfalls. The uplands are relatively hard crystalline basement rock, and the coa ...

rocks prevented further river passage.

Richmond, Virginia (Thus do we reach the stars) , image_map = , mapsize = 250 px , map_caption = Location within Virginia , pushpin_map = Virginia#USA , pushpin_label = Richmond , pushpin_m ...

was built on the other side of the fall line where the river is navigable to the ocean. This made Westham the first destination for iron used in Revolutionary War. In later years,

Canals Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or river engineering, engineered channel (geography), channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport watercraft, vehicles (e.g. ...

and then

Rail transport Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a p ...

connected Westham to Richmond along 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 ...

trade route. Westham was eventually absorbed into Richmond.

History

Westham was established on land that had been owned by

William Randolph II William Randolph II (November 1681October 19, 1741), also known as William Randolph Jr. or Councillor Randolph, was an American planter and politician. He was the Treasurer of Virginia and the oldest child of William Randolph and Mary Isham. Ea ...

. When Randolph died, his son Beverley inherited Westham Plantation and planned to create the town of Westham on part of it to facilitate trade in the

Piedmont region of Virginia The Piedmont region of Virginia is a part of the greater Piedmont physiographic region which stretches from the falls of the Potomac, Rappahannock, and James Rivers to the Blue Ridge Mountains. The region runs across the middle of the state fro ...

. After Beverley's sudden death, Peter Randolph inherited his brother's land and completed work on the project - renaming the town "Beverley" in honor of his older brother- with help from William Cabell and

Peter Jefferson Peter Jefferson (February 29, 1708 – August 17, 1757) was a planter, cartographer and politician in colonial Virginia best known for being the father of the third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson. The "Fry-Jefferson Map", creat ...

. Jefferson was one of a number of important Virginians, including Carter Braxton,

Joshua Fry Colonel Joshua Fry (1699–1754) was an English-born American adventurer who became a professor, then real estate investor and local official in the colony of Virginia. Although he served several terms in the House of Burgesses, he may be best kn ...

, John Hunter, Robert Rose, and

William Stith William Stith (1707 – September 19, 1755) was an early American historian and an Anglican minister. He was the third president of the College of William & Mary (1752–1755), where Stith Hall was named for him. Early life Stith was th ...

. who purchased lots in the new town. Peter Randolph eventually sold Westham Plantation to his younger brother, William, who in turn sold the property to

William Byrd III Colonel William Byrd III (September 6, 1728January 1 or January 2, 1777) was an American planter, politician and military officer who was a member of the House of Burgesses. Early life He was son of William Byrd II and Maria Taylor Byrd, and t ...

Revolutionary War

David Ross, a Virginia Merchant, who bought Oxford

Iron Works An ironworks or iron works is an industrial plant where iron is smelted and where heavy iron and steel products are made. The term is both singular and plural, i.e. the singular of ''ironworks'' is ''ironworks''. Ironworks succeeded bloomeri ...

in Campbell County in 1779, supplied iron by flatbottom boats down the

to a public

foundry A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal into a mold, and removing the mold material after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals pr ...

in Westham. The

Virginia General Assembly The Virginia General Assembly is the legislative body of the Commonwealth of Virginia, the oldest continuous law-making body in the Western Hemisphere, the first elected legislative assembly in the New World, and was established on July 30, 161 ...

resolved to have

enslaved Africans The Atlantic slave trade, transatlantic slave trade, or Euro-American slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and i ...

as the workers in the foundry and only hire

blacksmith A blacksmith is a metalsmith who creates objects primarily from wrought iron or steel, but sometimes from #Other metals, other metals, by forging the metal, using tools to hammer, bend, and cut (cf. tinsmith). Blacksmiths produce objects such ...

s if slaves were not available. As a Commercial Agent supplying iron to the Revolutionary troops Virginia, Ross had to move out supplies from Westham just before a British raid on

Richmond Richmond most often refers to: * Richmond, Virginia, the capital of Virginia, United States * Richmond, London, a part of London * Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town in England * Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada * Richmond, California, ...

and Westham. Governor

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 18 ...

asked for the foundry to be rebuilt but eventually the supplies were moved to rebuild the

Point of Fork Arsenal Point of Fork Arsenal was an arsenal established in the 18th century located near what is now Columbia, Virginia, United States. It was raided and destroyed on June 5, 1781, by Col. John Graves Simcoe of the Queen's Rangers. It was rebuilt and ...

Kanawha Canal

The entry point of the

Kanawha Canal The James River and Kanawha Canal was a partially built canal in Virginia intended to facilitate shipments of passengers and freight by water between the western counties of Virginia and the coast. Ultimately its towpath became the roadbed for a ...

in 1790 was built at Westham. Westham stood at the eastern end of over 200 miles of

Flatwater carrying trade on

James River bateau The James River Bateau was a shallow draft river craft used during the period from 1775 to 1840 to transport tobacco and other cargo on the James River and its tributaries in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It was flat bottomed and pointed at both ...

x. The canal took boats around the Great Falls of the James River in Richmond. Boats arriving from the West entered a 200-foot canal with three locks that dropped 34 feet, bypassing the first of the falls. One and a half miles of river eastward connected the boats to the second part of the canal to

Shockoe Bottom Shockoe Bottom (also known historically as Shockoe Valley) is an area in Richmond, Virginia, just east of downtown, along the James River. Located between Shockoe Hill and Church Hill, Shockoe Bottom contains much of the land included in Colone ...

in Richmond.

Westham Plank Road

In 1851 the

chartered the Westham Plank Road Company to build a plank road from Westham to Richmond. This connected not only the Bateaux floating down the James River to Westham with seagoing vessels in Richmond, but also connected to the Three Chopt Road which went over the

Blue Ridge Mountains The Blue Ridge Mountains are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains range. The mountain range is located in the Eastern United States, and extends 550 miles southwest from southern Pennsylvania through Maryland, West Virgin ...

Afton, Virginia Afton is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Albemarle and Nelson counties in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is newly listed as a CDP in the 2020 census with a population of 313. Geography It is located in the foothill ...

. The road became present day Cary Street location of

Carytown, Richmond, Virginia Carytown is an urban retail district in Richmond, Virginia; it is along Cary Street at the southern end of the Museum District. Located west of the historic Fan District, Carytown has an eclectic flavor and includes more than 230 shops, restaur ...

Westham Station

Westham Station was established in the 1880s on the

Richmond and Allegheny Railroad The Richmond and Alleghany Railroad was built along the James River along the route of the James River and Kanawha Canal from Richmond on the Fall Line at the head of navigation to a point west of Lynchburg near Buchanan, Virginia, and combined ...

(R&A), which was laid along the

towpath A towpath is a road or trail on the bank of a river, canal, or other inland waterway. The purpose of a towpath is to allow a land vehicle, beasts of burden, or a team of human pullers to tow a boat, often a barge. This mode of transport ...

of the

James River and Kanawha Canal The James River and Kanawha Canal was a partially built canal in Virginia intended to facilitate shipments of passengers and freight by water between the western counties of Virginia and the coast. Ultimately its towpath became the roadbed for a ...

. The R&A railroad was acquired by 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 ...

(C&O) in the 1890s. Nearby, the

Westham Bridge Westham Bridge crossed the James River between Henrico County and Chesterfield County. The bridge was located between Bosher Dam and Williams Island Dam just west of the 7 miles of rapids and falls which constitute the fall line of the James ...

was built across the

in 1911.

The historic Westham Station building was relocated to a Richmond city park in 1961.

Present day

A neighborhood built on the site of the old town in the 1930s is still called Westham. The only town building older than the 1930s is just outside the original town borders and built around 1827.

References

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Westham Westham is a large village and civil parish in the Wealden District of East Sussex, England. The village is adjacent to Pevensey five miles (8 km) north-east of Eastbourne. The parish consists of three settlements: Westham; Stone Cross; a ...