Falling Creek (James River tributary)

Falling Creek was an unincorporated location in Virginia, United States, along Interstate 95 near the point where a local tributary, Falling Creek, has its confluence with the James River. It was perhaps best known as the site of one of the toll barriers on the Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike, completed in 1958. In modern times, I-95 and the more recently built Pocahontas Parkway toll road now occupy much of the site. Nearby, at the northwestern edge, the old lost town of Port Warwick was located on the river before it was destroyed during the American Revolutionary War. Nearby, portions of the original Warwick Road extended through what is now South Richmond and Chesterfield County to the Bon Air, Virginia area. Along U.S. 1, also nearby, a historic stone bridge across Falling Creek was destroyed by flood waters resulting from Tropical Storm Gaston in August, 2004.

Falling Creek Ironworks was the first iron production facility in North America. It was established by the Virginia Company of London in Henrico Cittie (sic) on Falling Creek near its confluence with the James River. It was short-lived due to an attack by Native Americans in 1622. The long-lost site was rediscovered in the early 21st century. It is now located in Chesterfield County, about 5 miles (8.0 km) south of the fall line of the James River at present-day Richmond, Virginia. Archaeological and related research work at the site was ongoing as of March 2007.

Falling Creek UDC Jefferson Davis Highway Marker is a historic stone highway marker located near Richmond, in Chesterfield County, Virginia. It was erected in 1933, and is one of sixteen erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in Virginia along the Jefferson Davis Highway between 1927 and 1946. The marker is a gray granite boulder with rough-cut edges. The stone is engraved with the text “ERECTED BY THE FIRST DISTRICT VIRGINIA DIVISION UNITED DAUGHTERS OF THE CONFEDERACY 1933.” It is located in a wayside established in 1934, that provides access to the Bridge at Falling Creek. It was the first highway wayside park in Virginia.It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2013.

The Bridge at Falling Creek is a historic stone arch bridge located near Richmond, in Chesterfield County, Virginia. It was built about 1823 of rough-cut, uncoursed granite. It is carried by two semicircular barrel arches with voussoirs of rough-finished granite. Its width including parapets is 24 feet (7.3 m), and its llength is 148 feet (45 m). It carried the southbound lanes of U.S. Route 301 until 1977, when it was put out of service. It is accessible from a wayside that includes the Falling Creek UDC Jefferson Davis Highway Marker. The bridge was partially damaged in 2004 but still remains significant. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995.

Fort Darling (Drewry's Fort, Drewry's Bluff) was a Confederate military installation during the American Civil War located at Drewry's Bluff, a high point of 80–100 feet overlooking a bend in the James River south of Richmond in Chesterfield County, Virginia. It protected the Confederate capital of Richmond from Union naval attacks throughout most of the war.

The Battle of Drewry's Bluff, also known as the Battle of Fort Darling, or Fort Drewry, took place on May 15, 1862, in Chesterfield County, Virginia, as part of the Peninsula Campaign of the American Civil War. Four Union Navy warships, including the ironclads USS Monitor and Galena, and the United States Revenue Cutter Service's ironclad USRC Naugatuck steamed up the James River to test the defenses of Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate capital. They encountered submerged obstacles, and deadly accurate fire from the batteries of Fort Darling at Drewry's Bluff, which inflicted severe damage on Galena, forcing them to turn back.

Ampthill Plantation was located in the Virginia Colony in Chesterfield County on the south bank of the James River about four miles south of the head of navigation at modern-day Richmond, Virginia. Built by Henry Cary, Jr. about 1730, it was just upstream of Falling Creek. It was later owned by Colonel Archibald Cary, who maintained a flour mill complex and iron forge at the nearby town of Warwick. Mary Randolph was born there in 1762.

The Port of Richmond, also known as the Richmond Deepwater Terminal, is located on the James River in Richmond, Virginia, United States, 100 miles (160 km) inland from Cape Henry and approximately 78 miles (126 km) northwest of Newport News, Virginia. It is located at 77° 25' west latitude and 37° 27' north longitude and lies adjacent to Interstate 95. The port is the western terminus for commercial navigation on the James River and is 4 miles (6 km) south of downtown Richmond. The port was built in 1940.

Bensley is a census-designated place (CDP) in Chesterfield County, Virginia, United States. It is an inner suburb of Richmond, Virginia. The population was 5,819 at the 2010 census. Bensley Community building is inside of Bensley park. The community building is outside of Bensley, setting in walking distance of the CDP. The community is an old village with no active government. The community is over 100 years old. A new police substation in the village is next to the old Bensley Bermuda Rescue Squad, near DuPont Spruance.

Bellwood, also known at various times over the past two centuries as Sheffields, New Oxford, Auburn Chase, and currently as Defense Supply Center Richmond Officers' Club-Building 42, is a historic plantation house located south of Richmond in Chesterfield County, Virginia. Bellwood was built on a plantation that had been owned by the Ward family since the mid 17th century. In 1656 Judge Richard Ward, son of the original Seth Ward immigrant, married Elizabeth Blackman, daughter of Captain Jeremiah Blackman, a merchant, mariner and ship owner of London who patented land in the Colony of Virginia. In 1665 Ward acquired 1,337 acres on the south bank of the James River just downstream from the mouth of Falling Creek known as "Sheffields Plantation" that had been patented by his father-in-law, Blackman, in 1646. First settled in 1619, the plantation got its name from Thomas Sheffield, the first proprietor, who was slain there along with his wife Rachel and 11 others during the Indian massacre of 1622. Their eldest son, Seth Ward (1661-1707), inherited the plantation in 1682 and over the next century four subsequent generations of first born sons named Seth were born and raised at Sheffields and each in turn inherited the land. Seth Ward V sold the property to his aunt and uncle, Mary Ann Ward and Richard Claiborne Gregory in 1797. The manor house now known as Bellwood was built on the plantation between 1790 and 1804. It is a two-story, five bay, timberframe I-house dwelling with a low hipped roof in the Georgian style. The house is set on brick foundations and sheathed in weatherboard. Unlike many of the James River Plantations where the manor houses were built directly on the river, this house was built back from the river facing the Petersburg Turnpike, the road between Richmond and Petersburg, that preceded U.S. Route 1. Richard Claiborne Gregory's son, Richard Augustus Gregory (1795-1835) inherited the property and in 1847, the plantation passed again through inheritance to Gregory's daughter Lavinia and her husband, Chesterfield Justice of the Peace Augustus Harrison Drewry. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Drewry was commissioned as commander of Company C, 2nd Regiment Virginia Artillery, CSA and helped construct a fort on the edge of the property known as Drewry's Bluff, or Fort Darling. The fort overlooked the James River and had 3 large guns (1 ten-inch and 2 eight-inch columbiads), the installation of which were overseen by General Robert E. Lee's eldest son Brigadier General G.W.C. Lee. The fort along with ships sunk in the river channel below Drewry's bluff to create obstructions were intended to prevent Union gunboats from reaching the Confederate Capitol, Richmond. On May 15, 1862, in the Battle of Drewry's Bluff the guns of Fort Darling successfully held off an attempt by the Union warships Monitor and Galena to steam upriver to Richmond and later, repelled an attack by land. Drewry's regiment was broken up soon after the battle, but he was promoted to Major shortly afterward for his actions during the battle that seriously damaged the Galena forcing the Union ironclads to retreat. In May 1864, Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard made the site his headquarters and met with General Braxton Bragg and Confederate President Jefferson Davis in the manor house to discuss plans for halting the Union Army's advance on Richmond. After the war, Drewry traded the farm, then known as "Auburn Chase", to Captain James P. Jones and moved to Westover in Charles City county where he lived until his death in 1899. Jones wasn't successful at farming, since the land had been worn out from over two centuries of mono-culture tobacco and cotton crops.In 1887, the house and farmlands were acquired by James Bellwood, a Canadian farmer. Bellwood paid $18.50 per acre for approximately 2,000 acres of land and made the manor house his home and the property became known as "Bellwood Farms". To restore the productivity of the depleted soil, Bellwood introduced crop rotation, used mulching and natural fertilizers and installed miles of drainage tiles and levees transforming the worn out farm into one of Virginia's chief agricultural showplaces of the early 20th century. James Bellwood won many awards for his crops and livestock at the Panama–Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco in 1915. He grew many different varieties of grains, grasses and forage crops and also operated a large dairy farm which supplied milk to Richmond markets. He had a herd of over 1,000 Holstein cattle and a prize herd of beef cattle. Bellwood, a native of Ontario, missed the elk from his homeland and imported a breeding pair of elk and created an elk herd on the property. James Bellwood died in 1924 and his descendants continued the agricultural operation through the 1930s. In 1941, 631 acres of the Bellwood property including the manor house, a large dairy barn and several outbuildings were acquired from his heirs by the U.S. Government to construct the Richmond Quartermaster Depot. The Army wanted the property due to its location along the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, and US Route 1 (then the main north–south East Coast highway) and its close proximity to the newly constructed Port of Richmond. The Bellwoods agreed to sell the land to the government but one of the stipulations of the sale was that the Army agree to look after the elk herd and they have done so ever since. The dairy barn was demolished in 1947 but the antebellum manor house is maintained as the center's officers' club.Although the house is now used as an officers’ club, much of the early fabric is still intact. This includes original heart pine flooring, paneled doors, stairs, and most of the door and window frames. A handsome Adam style mantel and paneled dado survive in one of the first-floor rooms. A long, one-story wing spanning the width of the house was added to the rear of the structure in modern times to accommodate the club's service areas. The property also contains the Gregory Family cemetery, the historic elk pasture created by James Bellwood, and two feeding stations for the elk. Bellwood is a listed Virginia and Chesterfield County landmark and was added the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. A boundary increase was accepted in 2013. In 2020 and 2021 the Bellwood Manor house underwent a year-long $3.28 million renovation. The renovation work overseen by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was done in accordance with plans and drawings approved by the Virginia State Historic Preservation Office, and included some structural repairs, as well as interior and exterior restoration.

Warwick was an unincorporated town and port in Chesterfield County, Virginia, located on the navigable portion of the James River about 5 miles south of downtown Richmond, Virginia (and east of the Fall Line). Due to a sandbar in the river, although the falls did not begin until the river reached Richmond and Manchester, Warwick was as far upriver as many ships of the day could safely navigate. Regarding navigation on the James River, in his Notes on the State of Virginia, written in 1781–82, then-Governor Thomas Jefferson stated "Vessels of 250 tons may go to Warwick" [1] In 1619, Falling Creek Ironworks was established in the Virginia Colony near the future site of Warwick. The first in what became the United States, the facilities were destroyed and most of the colonists there killed during the Indian Massacre of 1622 on Good Friday, March 22, 1622. Warwick, just west of where a local tributary, Falling Creek, has its confluence with the river, was in existence from 1730 to 1781. It was an important port and manufacturing center. During the American Revolutionary War, Warwick's craftsmen turned out clothing and shoes, and its mills ground flour and meal for the Continental troops stationed at Chesterfield Courthouse. It was also an important center for manufacturing of naval equipment for Virginia's Continental Navy fleet. On April 30, 1781, General Benedict Arnold's British troops burned the town, destroying ships, warehouses, mills, tannery storehouses, and ropewalks. The town of Warwick no longer exists, but its place in history is noted on a Virginia Historical Marker nearby. In modern times, the Port of Richmond's facility known locally as Richmond Deepwater Terminal includes part of the former site of Warwick.

CSS Richmond was the name ship of her class of six casemate ironclads built for the Confederate States Navy during the American Civil War. Completed during 1862 the ship was assigned to the James River Squadron where she mostly supported Confederate forces near Richmond, Virginia. She was burned in April 1865 to prevent her capture by Union forces.