Black Heath (Chesterfield County)

Coordinates: 37°30′18.2″N 76°36′54″W / 37.505056°N 76.61500°W / 37.505056; -76.61500 Black Heath was a house and coal mine located along the Old Buckingham Road in the present Midlothian area of Chesterfield County, Virginia. The Black Heath coal mining enterprises were operated by the Heth family between 1785 and 1844, when the mine closed following a fatal explosion.


House, Heth family

Black Heath was presumably built in the late 1790's or early 1800's by Henry "Harry" Heth, a captain in the Continental Army. It is said that Harry Heth acquired the land in the 1790's, so he most likely built his house soon after he bought the land or a couple years thereafter.[1] A history of Midlothian written in 1983 states that Harry's "estate, known as Black Heath, had an elegant mansion and beautiful grounds."[2] It was also the home of Captain John Heth (1798–1842), an officer in the U.S. Navy during the War of 1812. His son, Confederate Major General Henry Heth, who fought in the American Civil War, was born there in 1825.[3] After April 1842, when John Heth died, leaving a wife and 10 young children, it is uncertain what happened to the house. Major General Henry Heth, John Heth's third child and eldest son, wrote later in his life that the period after his father's death was "the most severe calamity I had ever felt." When 17-year-old Henry reported to the military academy at West Point, he described his family as "badly off" and in "reduced circumstances."[4] At some point between 1842 and 1900, Black Heath fell into ruin. The house and land were owned by the Chesterfield Coal and Iron Mining Company (successor of the Black Heath Company of Colliers), which had ceased mining operations in the area after an explosion in 1854.[5] The company "was having difficulty selling the land" perhaps because of the large tracts of coal mines sitting around.[6] This would have been an issue to any potential buyers, as nobody was mining coal anymore and open pits were obstacles to farming the land. By 1900, there were no more Heths in Midlothian. A WPA Federal Writers' Project guidebook published in 1940 indicates that the Black Heath house was still standing, or at least some portions of it, and that it was in "dense undergrowth".[7] This same guidebook also tells that to get to the site of Black Heath, a traveler going west on US Route 60 (called Midlothian Turnpike) must turn right (north) onto State Route 147 (now called Huguenot Road). After going 0.5 miles, Black Heath was on the left. In the present day, 0.5 miles north of Midlothian Turnpike on Huguenot Road on the left leads a traveler to another road called Olde Coach Drive, which is 0.3 miles north of Old Buckingham Road. There is a neighborhood surrounding these two roads, with streets having names that probably derive from the Black Heath estate like Heathmere Crescent, Heathmere Court, Black Heath Road, and Olde Coalmine Road.

Coal

This 1888 map shows the location of the Black Heath mines south of present day Robious Road east of the Salisbury House between the Coalfield Station and Robious Station on the Richmond and Danville rail line.
This 1888 map shows the location of the Black Heath mines south of present day Robious Road east of the Salisbury House between the Coalfield Station and Robious Station on the Richmond and Danville rail line.

The geology of the area about 10 miles (16 km) west of the fall line of the James River near present-day Richmond, Virginia includes a basin of coal which was one of the earliest mined in the Virginia Colony. This natural resource was mined by the French Huguenot refugees who settled there and others beginning around 1700.[8]

By the second quarter of the 18th century, a number of private coal pits were operating on a commercial scale in a coalfield located in the area now know as Midlothian. Miners immigrated to Chesterfield from Wales, England and Scotland. The Wooldridge family from East Lothian in Scotland was among the first to undertake coal mining in the area.[9] The mining community was originally called Coalfield after Coalfield Station, a railroad station on the Richmond and Danville Railroad (now Norfolk Southern Railway). Eventually the name changed from Coalfield Village to Midlothian Village, named after the Wooldridge brothers' Mid-Lothian Coal Mining Company and Abraham S. Wooldridge's house, Midlothian. The Heths, beginning with Colonel Henry "Harry" Heth, who emigrated about 1759, opened coal pits in the county as early as 1785.[10]

Black Heath was the name of a coal basin and also of some mines located in the basin. Mining operations started there in 1785 or 1788.[11][12] There is uncertainty about the date coal was found and when it was first mined. A Hessian doctor, after fighting in the American Revolutionary War, traveled around the new country in 1783 to 1784 and wrote about preliminary operations of the Black Heath mines. U.S. President Thomas Jefferson had the White House in Washington, D.C. heated with the high quality coal from the Black Heath mines. Commenting on the area's coal in his Notes on the State of Virginia, written in 1781–82, then-Governor Jefferson stated: "The country on James river, from 15 to 20 miles above Richmond, and for several miles northward and southward, is replete with mineral coal of a very excellent quality."[13] Jefferson was also referring not only to the Midlothian area, but also to the area of western Henrico County adjacent across the James River near Gayton and Deep Run.

According to records held by the Library of Virginia, on January 25, 1832, Beverley Randolph, John Heth, and his younger brother, Beverley Heth (1807–1842) petitioned the Virginia General Assembly for the first coal mining corporation to be chartered in Virginia. After substantial opposition to the concept, this was accomplished the following year with the incorporation of the Black Heath Company of Colliers. In 1827, Beverley Randolph had also been one of the organizers of the Chesterfield Railroad, a 12-mile gravity line built from Falling Creek to Manchester for the purpose of transporting coal to ships in the navigable portion of the James River for export. Opened in 1831, it was the first commercial railroad in Virginia, second in the United States.

Coal mining at Black Heath was both difficult and dangerous work, and there were fatal explosions. On March 18, 1839, 40 men, mostly African American slaves, were killed in a 700-foot shaft at the Black Heath mine.[14]

On June 15, 1844, a mining explosion at Black Heath killed 11 more men.[15] After the second incident, the mine was closed until 1938.[16]

Around 1850, the steam-powered Richmond and Danville Railroad was built through the property of Black Heath. In modern-times, Black Heath Road extends from Old Buckingham Road north through the property on the south of the railroad tracks where a subdivision has been built.

North of the railroad and south of State Route 711 (Robious Road), remnants of the Black Heath coal pits were extant in the 1960s.

References

  1. ↑ Routon, Charles Ray. "A history of the Midlothian coal mines". scholarship.richmond.edu. University of Richmond Scholarship Repository Master's Theses. p. 21. Retrieved October 6, 2018.
  2. ↑ Burtchett, Barbara I. "A history of the village of Midlothian, Virginia, emphasizing the period 1835-1935". scholarship.richmond.edu. University of Richmond Scholarship Repository Master's Theses. p. 7. Retrieved September 29, 2018.
  3. ↑ "Maj. Gen. Henry "Harry" Heth (CSA)". Geni.com. Geni. Retrieved September 29, 2018.
  4. ↑ Krick, Robert K. (June 6, 2018). "The Unfulfilled Promise of Robert E. Lee's Favorite Officer". History.Net.com. HistoryNet. Retrieved September 29, 2018.
  5. ↑ Burtchett, Barbara I. "A history of the village of Midlothian, Virginia, emphasizing the period 1835-1935". scholarship.richmond.edu. University of Richmond Scholarship Repository Master's Theses. pp. 49, 100. Retrieved September 30, 2018.
  6. ↑ Burtchett, Barbara I. "A history of the village of Midlothian, Virginia, emphasizing the period 1835-1935". scholarship.richmond.edu. University of Richmond Scholarship Repository Master's Theses. p. 100. Retrieved September 30, 2018.
  7. ↑ "The WPA Guide to the Old Dominion". xroads.virginia.edu. American Studies at the University of Virginia. Retrieved September 30, 2018.
  8. ↑ Garner, Thomas F., Jr. "Mid-Lothian Early Coal Pits Chronology - from - Historically Significant Sites on the Mid-Lothian Coal Mining Co. Tract In Chesterfield County, Virginia". Archived from the original on March 14, 2007. Retrieved September 29, 2018.
  9. ↑ "John 'Blacksmith' Wooldridge". Geni.com. Geni. Retrieved September 29, 2018.
  10. ↑ McCartney, Martha W. "Historical Overview of the Midlothian Coal Mining Company Tract - Chesterfield County, Virginia - Historical Context". Archived from the original on April 19, 2007. Retrieved May 1, 2007.
  11. ↑ "The WPA Guide to the Old Dominion". xroads.virginia.edu. American Studies at the University of Virginia. Retrieved September 15, 2018.
  12. ↑ Routon, Charles Ray. "A history of the Midlothian coal mines". scholarship.richmond.edu. University of Richmond Scholarship Repository Master's Theses. p. 10. Retrieved October 6, 2018.
  13. ↑ Jefferson, Thomas. "Notes on the State of Virginia - "Productions mineral, vegetable and animal" A notice of the mines and other subterraneous riches; its trees, plants, fruits, &c". p. 152. Archived from the original on July 12, 2014. Retrieved April 30, 2007.
  14. ↑ Garner, Thomas F., Jr. "The Mid-Lothian Coal Mining Company Chronology - from - Historically Significant Sites on the Mid-Lothian Coal Mining Co. Tract In Chesterfield County, Virginia". Archived from the original on March 14, 2007. Retrieved April 30, 2007.
  15. ↑ "Coal Mining Disasters (Incidents with 5 or more fatalities)". Archived from the original on October 28, 2011. Retrieved October 28, 2011.
  16. ↑ "The WPA Guide to the Old Dominion". xroads.virginia.edu. American Studies at the University of Virginia. Retrieved September 15, 2018.

Further reading

  • Lutz, Frank E. (1954) Chesterfield, An Old Virginia County, William Byrd Press, Inc., Richmond, Virginia.
  • O'Dell, Jeffrey M. (1983) Chesterfield County: Early Architecture and Historic Sites, Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors, Chesterfield, Virginia.
  • Virginia State Library (1965) A Hornbook of Virginia History, Virginia Library Board, Richmond, Virginia.
  • Weaver, Bettie W. (1961–62) The Mines of Midlothian, in Virginia Cavalcade Winter: pp. 40–47.
  • Routon, Charles R. (1949) A history of the Midlothian coal mines, University of Richmond Scholarship Repository - Master's Theses, Richmond, Virginia - https://scholarship.richmond.edu/masters-theses/1067/
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