Page 6 - Demo

Robert G. Scott AND THE
Riverside
Mansion
BY DOUGLAS MACLEOD
Robert Garland Scott was a well-known, multitalented individual who lived along the James River above Reusens, Virginia, in the mid- to late nineteenth century. He was a boatman; soldier in the War Between the States; miller; lockkeeper; farmer; canal and railroad contractor; land agent; postmaster; and the owner of a riverside resort, brick works, sawmill, ferry, and small steamboat. He was, without a doubt, an enterprising man. The mansion house he built on the James River, above Reusens, is still remembered by local people who live and venture out on this section of the river, though they may not know its history.
Robert was born on November 29, 1830, the fourth of seven children,
to William Waller and Eliza Jane Pendleton Scott. He received his middle name from his mother’s maternal line. His father, a native of Bedford County and a veteran of the War of 1812, was considered a true Virginia Gentleman. Robert’s grandfather, William Scott Sr., was a captain in the Revolutionary War; he married Ann Jones of Spotsylvania County in 1781.
The Scott children appear to have spent their early days in Amherst County, near the James River, opposite present day Reusens, upriver from
the tobacco town of Lynchburg. As a young lad, Robert would have observed commerce on the river, where cargoes of seven tons were transported by boat to
18 LYNCH’S FERRY
Richmond, then out to eastern seaports. He would have seen tobacco being “prized” into hogsheads, inspected, stored in warehouses, and, when the water level was ideal for travel, loaded by boatmen onto batteaux for shipment. By the time Robert was twenty years old, he had become a boatman, most likely working on the James River
& Kanawha Canal. The canal was completed to Lynchburg in 1840 and was extended fifty miles farther upriver to Buchanan ten years later.
Little else is known about Robert Scott’s life prior to his marriage to Sallie W. Shelton on November 30, 1859. Over the next decade, nine children were born to the couple. In 1860, Robert and his brother James became partners in a grist mill business.
Scott family in front of mansion
Together, they obtained fifty-five acres from their brother-in-law, William Steen, who lived in Bedford County. The Liberty-Bethel turnpike passed in front of Steen’s home “Hope Dawn,” which was built by descendants of the Davies family.
The valuable riverfront property where the Scott brothers built their
grist mill included a ferry crossing from the town of Salt Creek, once known as Bethel. The Bethel ferry was a major river crossing during the batteau era and was usually included to the grantees who purchased a 433-acre tract along the river in Amherst County, known
as the Bethel Tract. On the Bedford County shore, the ferry landing
was close to boat lock #3. This lock furnished the mill’s water power, which