Shallop on James
to 'Chariot,' Stage, Steam and Trolley
Is Romance of Travel

By John Q. James

America has become increasingly Richmond-minded with the passing years. Transportation effectiveness has helped turn Richmond-mindedness into visitor interestedness.

The prologue to this started 328 years ago when Captain Newport and more than 20 other colonist left Jamestown in the emerald month of May on a trip of discovery.

Destiny stood in the bow of their shallop and prophetically led them up the Powhatan River past future Westover to the falls.

There Sunday, May 24, on an islet in the river they put up a cross bearing the inscription "Jacobus Rex 1607."

The next day the explorers were guests at a venison dinner tendered them by the Indian Chief Little Powhatan, who lived in a village on the northside of the river below the falls--a short distance from the present site of Richmond.

After attending this Anglo-American feast, at which the embryonic spirit of Richmond's celebrated hospitality presided, the first visitors to the site of Richmond returned to Jamestown.

The following year, 1608, Captain Newport and a party of colonists--using 1607 transportation methods--went up James River to the site of 1935 Richmond. they did not tarry there but marched toward the headwaters of the James above the falls in search of a passage to the South Sea.

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Sixteen hundred and eight bronze Indians instead of 1935 bronze statues of Virginia's illustrious soldiers and statesmen watched their departure.

Sometime during the next year, 1609 Captain West and 120 men ascended the former Powhatan River in boats to The Falls. There they established a settlement named West's Fort. Subsequently they moved to an elevation crowned by Fort Powhatan, which had been purchased from the Indians and re-named Nonsuch. The settlers stayed at this location a short while and then went back to Fort West. Afterwards they returned to Jamestown.

Over a century later, 125 years after the shallop nosed its way up the Powhatan River, Colonel William Byrd II, the founder of Richmond throws an interesting sidelight on two methods of travel to the settlement at The Falls, when in the westover Mss., under date of September 18, 1732, he writes: "For the pleasure of the good company of Mrs. Byrd and her little governor, my son, I went about half-way to the falls in my chariot. There we halted not far from a purling stream, and upon a stump of a propagate oak picked the bones of a piece of roast beef. By the spirit which it gave me, I was the better able to part with the dear companions of my travels, and to perform the rest of my journey on horseback by myself. I reached Shacco's before 2 o'clock, and crossed the river to the mills . ."

Colonel Byrd undoubtedly would have been surprised and gratified if he could have viewed 1935 transportation, and classicist that he was probably would have said that it moved--like Homer's Phaeacian bark--"Swifter than the thought of man."

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Five years after this trip, Colonel Byrd founded Richmond and for sometime visitors to the town, who came by land, presumably used the founders method of travel. Later stage, canal boat and steamboat were installed for the convenience of the traveling public.

Richmond's attention was intently focussed on this later method of travel in 1815, when a steamboat made a round trip to Warwick preliminary to the opening of a steamboat line between Richmond and Norfolk.

Nine years after the maneuvers of the steam-propelled vessel had created so much interest a steamboat brought a distinguished visitor, General Lafayette, up James River to Richmond. This gallant Frenchman, who had endeared himself to all Americans and especially to Richmonders, and whose memory is revered by this generation, was royally entertained as the guest of the city.

A big parade, banquet and ball were given in his honor and Mayor Adams and Chief Justice Marshall made addresses of welcome.

A dozen years after the event in the social life of the community, an epochal development in the history of travel methods is described in the Richmond Enquirer, February 16, 1836, as follows: "At length, we may say triumphantly, 'We too are paniters.' We, too, have seen the light of the age burst upon us. We, too, have seen a Rail-Road which has pierced our own city, opened for the public service. The first branch of this Rail-road was opened on Saturday last . . . Six very handsome and comfortable passenger cars, with a baggage car, set out from the Depot in this city. . . ."

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This latest method of travel was used by Charles Dickens, the famous author, to bring him to Richmond in 1842 and also by the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII to bring him there in 1860.

Transportation was called upon during the next four years to bring wounded soldiers to the hospitals and refugees to the homes of Richmond. Visitors were mostly people having business with the Confederate States Government. In more recent years transportation has added to its other forces the mule car, electric car, automobile-bus andairplane for public use and the automobile for private use.

Transportation's various units have brought a host of people to the site discovered by a shallop's crew in 1607.

These visitors by tens, hundreds and thousands have trod the soil of one of Virginia's most hallowed shrines. They have breathed the Colonial, antebellum and progressive atmosphere of Richmond.

Many of them, while attending religious, scientific, educational, fraternal and business conventions, have enjoyed the hospitality of Richmond.

Thousands of them have passed reverently to admire the bronze and granite monuments and the charitable and educational memorials to the distinguished sons and daughters of Richmond.

This 328 years visitor-interest is a worthwhile legacy--one that 1935 Richmond is adding to every day.