Local Supervisors Told to Cut Spending, Leave Tax ... - Crozet Gazette

Crozet gazette APRIL 2009 s page 5
Seedtime is a time of faith and hope—faith in
the vitality of the seed and hope that Providence
will again supply the nurture through harvest
time.
Pleasant Green, the old Wayland homestead
west of Crozet, Virginia, has witnessed an abundance
of seedtimes over the past 175 (!) years. It
has seen the local economy progress from tobacco
to fruit to industrial manufacturing. In 1838, as
one of the newer homes in western Albemarle
County, it stood by while Claudius Crozet
(1789–1864), Principal Engineer for the State of
Virginia, passed by its front porch, marking a furrow
for future railroaders to follow. A dozen years
later it served as a place of respite for Colonel
Crozet while teams of laborers worked to fulfill
his vision of a great road “over and through the
Blue Ridge.”
With the 1836 chartering of the Louisa
Railroad, predecessor to the Virginia Central
Railroad, the pace of life that had characterized
old Virginia was altered for all time. Along that
rail line, 20 miles north of Richmond and 90
miles east of Jeremiah Wayland’s Albemarle
County abode, stood another plantation with ties
to the Old Dominion’s aristocracy.
Hickory Hill plantation was established on
land long associated with the Carter family of
Shirley Plantation. Political and social opportunities
were the norm in this family also allied with
the Nelsons of early Virginia. General Robert E.
Lee was yet another esteemed member of this
extended family. Anne Butler Carter moved to
Hickory Hill following her marriage to W. F.
Wickham. Their first child, Williams Carter
Wickham, had been born in Richmond in 1820,
prior to his family’s move into rural Hanover
County.
Williams Carter Wickham grew up on the
Hickory Hill estate and, along with his father,
watched as the Louisa Railroad was constructed
through their working plantation. A stop was
established there, appropriately named Wickham,
and their crops were loaded at its adjacent rail
siding.
Following his graduation from the University
of Virginia, W. C. Wickham entered law practice
in 1842. Much of his time was spent, however,
managing the business affairs of Hickory Hill. By
1849 he had married, was serving as a justice on
the Court of Hanover County and had been
elected to the Virginia House of Delegates. His
military responsibilities began with his appointment
as Captain of a cavalry unit in the Virginia
militia.
With the outbreak of the Civil War, his company
aligned itself with the Confederate Army.
Wickham participated in many of the major battles.
He was severely wounded more than once,
captured by the enemy and paroled. He was promoted
to Brigadier General in September 1863
and served in that commission for 13 months.
By the end of the war’s hostilities in the spring
of 1865, the Virginia Central Railroad had suffered
severe damage. The states of Virginia and
(newly formed) West Virginia partnered to
rebuild and expand this rail link so vital to their
economic recoveries. Williams Carter Wickham
was hired as president of the Virginia Central
by Phil James
Williams Carter Wickham and Crozet, Virginia
Williams Carter Wickham was a graduate of U.Va., a
Brigadier General in the Civil War, a State Senator,
President of the Virginia Central Railroad and Vice-
President of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad.
This early woodcut shows a train approaching “Wickham’s Corn-Sheds” on the Virginia Central Railroad in Hanover County.
Railroad Company that November, and when the
company merged with the Covington and Ohio
Railroad in 1868 to form the Chesapeake and
Ohio RR, Wickham was retained as president of
the new corporation.
Monies required to fund expansions to the
refurbished railroad were severely lacking during
the nation’s reconstruction period. Wickham
secured solid backing when he was able to trumpet
the merits of the C&O to a group of investors
headed by railroad magnate Collis P. Huntington.
Huntington assumed the presidency of his newest
investment and Wickham became his vicepresident.
Meanwhile, back in dear old Albemarle
County, the details of the last will and testament
of Samuel Miller had been hammered out in the
courts, and preliminary work had begun on
Miller’s monumental gift to the orphaned children
of his native county. The closest point on
the railroad to receive delivery of materials for
Miller’s school and shops was the Mechums River
Depot. Because of the enormous scope of the
project, Miller School officials petitioned the
Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad to establish a
whistle stop three miles west of Mechums River
at a point closer to the road to Batesville.
After watching the steady procession of goods
and traffic along the eastern edge of his farm during
the summer of 1876, Abraham Wayland (son
of patriarch Jeremiah) settled in his mind what
needed to be the next logical step. He sent his son
Charles, then 15 years old, on horseback to the
surrounding farms to collect signatures on a petition
requesting the C&O establish an official stacontinued
on page 6