James River and Kanawha Canal:
Timeline and Visual Documentation
Pertaining to the Proposed Tredegar Green Amphitheater
Introduction.
The following document is a timeline on the history and development of the canal, with particular reference to the Tredegar Green area.
This is a preliminary version of this document prepared as supplement to a staff report on the Urban Design Committee on the proposed
Tredegar Green Amphitheater project. While revisions to this document will undoubtedly need to be made, I am satisfied that this
document conveys the critical elements of the canal’s history impacted by the Tredegar Green project
Secondary resources on the history of the canal have not generally been cited. Citations have been provided for all the primary sources. A
complete bibliography and footnotes were not possible due to time constraints and will be provided in future additions.
In looking at the canal there are three documents that provide a good overview and varying levels of detail on the canal’s history. They
provided much of the basis. The resources include:
Dutton and Associates. “ Historical Assessment of a Portion of the James River and Kanawha Canal” July 13, 2013 Draft.
R. D. Trimble and Company. Consulting Engineers of Richmond “Report on the Water Rights of the Tredegar Co.” 1936. Box 32
Tredegar Iron Works Collection, Library of Virginia, Accession Numbers 23881 and 24808
Raber Associates. “Historical and Archeological Assessment Tredegar Ironworks Site Richmond, Virginia.
In addition to these secondary sources, staff reviewed as many primary sources, both documentary and visual, as possible. Several of the
sources were identified by Mr. Charles Pool and those are noted in the text.
T. Tyler Potterfield
Planning and Preservation Division
August 31, 2013
I. Early Development of the Canal 1785 to 1835
From Establishment to 1800.
The early establishment of the canal is detailed in Dutton, Raber, and Trimble and others. As is widely known, the canal was the brainchild
of George Washington, and through his influence the canal was chartered in 1785. The initial survey of the canal established the idea of the
Richmond Level extending from the foot of 9th Street to a point 3 miles upriver where the river could be navigated by bateau. The Lower
Arch (above the present Pump House at Byrd Park) provided access to the canal proper from the river. The Lower Level was completed
around the Falls in 1795 with depth of 3 feet and surface width of twenty five feet. The eastern limit of the Lower Level, the Great
Turning Basin between 7th and 12th Street, opened in 1800. Construction of the canal also created Harvie’s Pond east of the present
location of the Brown’s Island Way.
The 1809 Map of Richmond by Richard Young shows the eastern end of the Lower Level in the vicinity of Harvie’s pond. Rutherfoord’s
Mill is a predecessor to the Tredegar Works.
The 1823-1837 Canal
The Commonwealth of Virginia took over the canal from the James River Company in 1820 and undertook a major reconstruction of the
lower level in the 1823-1825 period. This more or less established the existing width of the canal. Claudius Crozet, the Engineer for the
Virginia Board of Public Works, recommended a 10 foot wide towpath and two feet of clearance between the water sheet elevation (the
normal canal water surface) and the top of the bank. This information is recorded on page 20 of the Trimble Report. The best document
of the completed 1823 to 1825 Canal alignment is the 1835 Map of the City of Richmond Drawn from Actual Surveys and Original Plans that is
shown in detail below. Tredegar Green is in vicinity of the corportate line.
II. The Apogee of Navigation 1835 – 1880
1835 - New Standards for a New Era
James River and Kanawha Canal Company. First Annual Report of the President and Stockholders of the James River and Kanawha Company
Together with the Proceedings of the Stockholders at their first Annual Meeting in December 1835. Richmond: Shepherd and Colin Printers 1836.
The James River and Kanawha Canal company took over the management of the canal from the Commonwealth of Virginia in 1835. In
the first meeting of the company, recorded on page vii, is the resolution adopted by the company stating guidelines for the construction of
the canal:
The canal was to be not less than five feet in depth with a bottom width of not less than 35 feet and a surface width of not less
than 50 feet.
Each section of the canal was to be provided with “suitable tow path and guard-bank” and would not be less than 50 feet.
The company recognized that these measurements could be varied as “local circumstances require it”, specifically for cutting and
embankments.
1837 - The Reconstruction of the Lower Level is Planned
Virginia Board of Public Works. The Twenty Second Annual Report of t6he Virginia Board of Public Works to the Virginia General Assembly
with Accompanying Documents, January 31, 1838. Richmond: Sheppard and Colin, 1838.
The report of the James River and Kanawha Canal Company for contained in this document notes on page is a section entitled
“Enlargement of the Lower Canal” on pages 153 through 159 of this report provides the following important details on the canal”
William Lake, an English immigrant engineer, laid out a new location of the canal that more or less followed the 1823-1825 canal.
The canal at the beginning of the project was 3.5 feet deep and 40 feet wide.
The canal proper contained a depth of 3.5 feet and a “breadth” of 40 feet.
The standard for the improved canal from the Great Basin to Maiden’s Adventure was 50 feet on the surface and 30 feet in width
on the bottom with a depth of 5 feet.
To provide enough hydropower for up to 100 factories on the Lower Level, the canal funneled from eight feet in depth and 80 feet
in width near present Byrd Park to around 6 1/2 feet in depth in and 60 feet in width at Harvie’s Pond.
The new design called for the removal and replacement of the entire exsiting canal embankment.
1838 - The Reconstruction of the Lower Level is Executed
The Virginia Board of Public Works. The Twenty Third Annual Report of the Virginia Board of Public Works to the Virginia General Assembly
with Accompanying Documents, January 31, 1839. Richmond: Sheppard and Colin, 1839.
The 1838 report of the James River and Kanawha Canal Company contained in this document notes on page describes the reconstruction
of the Lower Level on pages 231 and 235-237 the reconstruction that took place in 1838:
The rebuilding of the canal proved a large and difficult effort with 400 to 500 African American and Irish immigrant laborers
toiling on the Lower Level.
Water was let into the new lower level in December of 1838.
1840 Documentation of the Lower Level
Virginia Board of Public Works. The Twenty Third Annual Report of the Virginia Board of Public Works to the Virginia General Assembly with
Accompanying Documents, November 9, 1840. Richmond: Samuel Sheppard, 1840 .
The 1840 report of the James River and Kanawha Canal Company contained in this document notes on page 249:
Dimensions of the lower level conformed for the most part to the 1837 plan.
Where earthen walls were used to form the banks of the canal along steep slopes.
About 8000 feet of the canal on the Lower Level had stone walls lining the canal.
The Lower Level had 5100 linear feet of walls twenty feet in height.
1848 Plat of Tredegar Green Site
This plat of the canal, identified by Mr. Charles Pool from Henrico County records, is an important early document. The dotted fence line
and the boundary of the Tredegar works delineate a twelve-foot-wide towpath. West of the fence line is a wide canal right-of-way made
necessary by the wide and steep embankments that supported the canal.
1848 Notations on the Morgan Map.
The Dutton report on pages 6 and 7 notes the significance of Charles S. Morgan’s Plan of Richmond (Henrico County), Manchester &Springhill
Virginia published in 1848. The notations on the map state the canal is “about 81 feet above low tide.” This is the only documentation of
the canal water sheet elevation (the normal water surface level of the canal) available prior to 1936.
The Canal in 1858.
M. Ellyson Map of the City of Richmond Henrico County Virginia. Richmond: 1858. This detail of the Ellyson map shows the water intake canal
for the Tredegar Works and the steep embankments west of Harvie’s Pond.
1860 Standard Canal Dimension.
The James River and Kanawha Canal Company. Twenty Sixth Report of the President and Stockholders of the James River and Kanawha Company
Together with the Proceedings of the Stockholders at their Twenty Sixth Annual Meeting in October 1860, At the Adjouned Meeting in January, Therein Called
Meetings in April and August 1860. Richmond: Ritchie and Dunavant, 1860.
The earliest record of a towpath dimension in the records of the James River and Kanawha Canal Company on page 671 states:
The trunk of the canal is 30 feet wide at the bottom, and 50 feet at the water line and was originally cut to a depth of five feet. The tow path is twelve feet wide
and the berm bank 8 feet.
This is the general standard for the canal towpath and is consistent with other documentation of the towpath in the 1838 to 1880 era.
1865-1870 Harvie’s Pond Area
This circa 1865-1870 photograph from the Valentine Richmond History Center shows the conditions at Tredegar from the lower slope of
Gamble’s Hill at the eastern edge of Harvie’s Pond. The important details to note are the twelve-foot wide towpath and the location of
wood fencing to enclose the Tredegar complex. The brick wall that later separated the complex from the towpath is conspicuously absent.
1865-1870 Detail of Lower Level Towpath below Hollywood Cemetery
The circa 1865 to 1870 photograph details, provided by Mr. Charles Pool to City staff (shown below), are important documents of the
Lower Level towpath prior to substantial modification by the Richmond and Alleghany railroad between 1880 and 1884. Assuming the
fence is about five feet high; twelve-foot-wide towpath width is strongly suggested. The fence would have been necessary to keep mules
and pedestrians from dropping down an embankment of up to twenty feet in height.
The Pleasants Survey 1868.
John Pleasants. “Map of the Lower level of the Lower Section of the James River and Kanawha Canal Including the Dock, March
1, 1868,” The Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad Records Collection , Library of Virginia Acession Number 4364.
This is the most map documentation on the canal during the period of navigation prior to 1880.
These details from the Pleasants survey clearly document a 12 foot towpath width behind the Tredegar Ironworks on the left and show the
width of canal property and support embankment west of Harvie’s pond on the right. The checkered line on both maps show the eightfoot granite retaining wall, constructed in 1838 and removed after 1880 on the south bank of the canal and around Harvie's Pond.
1870-1873 Beginnings of the North Canal Wall.
This Valentine Richmond History Center photograph shows the construction of the first segment of the brick wall around the
Tredegar complete. The image can be dated to the 1870 to 1873 period because the corner of the building on the far right hand side of
the photograph, the Crenshaw Grain Elevator, burned and was demolished in 1873. This does not appear in the 1865-1870 view of
Tredegar and would date the wall construction project to the 1870 to 1880 era.
The Beers Atlas 1877.
F. W. Beers. Illustrated Atlas of the City of Richmond, Va. Section Q. Philadelphia: Beers Company, 1877, Section Q.
The Beers Atlas shows the late nineteenth-century expansion of the Tredegar Works well under way. Notable is the absence of the
Crenshaw Elevator shown in the previous picture and the addition of Richmond and Danville and Richmond and Petersburg rail lines
into the Works. The Beers Atlas is the first document of a clearly delineated wider towpath through the Tredegar Green area. Such a
towpath widening could have easily taken place by building on top of the existing embankment. City Staff agrees with Dutton and
Associates that the widening took place at this time. The Dutton suggestion that this would have been done for rail expansion is
plausible.
III. The Railroad Era 1867 – 1940
Baist Atlas 1889
G. Wm. Baist. Atlas of Richmond and Vicinity. Philadelphia: Baist Company, 1889.
The Baist Atlas shows the dramatic transformation of the James River and Kanawha Canal during this period. Harvie’s Pond has been
filled in to form a rail yard. A line extends down the north bank of the canal to feed the new rail yard and beyond to the Great Basin
rail yard. The Richmond and Alleghany Station is situated in the Tredegar Green Area. On the south bank the wider towpath is the
route for Richmond and Alleghany trains to enter the Tredegar Works.
Completed Tredegar Wall C. 1890
This Valentine Richmond History Center Photograph shows several important aspects of the canal’s history. It shows the eastern section
of the 1870 to 1880 Tredegar Wall east of where the Brown’s Island Way is today. The houses shown are in the vicinity of the Virginia
War Memorial.
Canal in 1897.
This detail, of an 1895 view of the canal provided by Virginia Commonwealth University, taken of the canal in the vicinity of Hollywood
Cemetery, suggests that the canal water level was raised and that the towpath raised considerably with railroad ballast.
Canal Elevations in 1936
Chesapeake and Ohio Railway Company, Chief Engineers Office. “Cross Section an Profiles of the James River and Kanawha
Canal between Tredegar and Bosher’s Dam,” Drawing 12759. October 4, 1936. call Number 755.43 C2 1936, the Chesapeake and Ohio
Railroad Records Collection, Library of Virginia Accession Number 4364.
The drawing shows bottom of level 76 Feet and a water level of 81.96 just west of the Tredegar Works. In the Trimble assessment of the
canal, they estimated that the filling and modification redacted the waterpower of the canal by 2/3rds (Trimble page 3).
IV. Since the Lee Bridge
In 1936 the construction of the first Lee Bridge and the Second Street viaduct resulted in the demolition of a large portion of the Oregon
Hill neighborhood on the north bank of the canal. The construction of the Virginia War Memorial further removed the residential
neighborhood on the north bank of the canal. The Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad removed its operations from the area and the City of
Richmond and Newmarket Corporation acquired sections of the canal in the Tredegar Green Area. Following acquisition, nearly all of the
railroad infrastructure was removed from the area. The demolition of the Second Street Viaduct in 1992 resulted in the present structure of
Second Street and considerable filling and regrading on the north bank of the canal.