| Virginia, Franklin — "Can't Is Not in the Camp's Vocabulary" |
| | Paul and James Camp started P.D. Camp and Company, a lumber business, in 1877. The brothers bought R.J. Neely's sawmill in 1886 and established Camp Manufacturing Company in 1887. The original Franklin mill was steam powered and lay on a ten-acre tract adjoining both the Blackwater River and the Seaboard & Roanoke Railroad. The company developed a reputation for quality and grew steadily throughout its history. Camp enlarged its plant and added smooth-dressed lumber to its product line in . . . — Map (db m51001) HM |
| Virginia, Franklin — Battle of Franklin — “Jumping out of bed” |
| | The war seemed far from Franklin when Union forces captured Roanoke Island and the North Carolina Sounds in February 1862. In May, however, when they occupied Norfolk and Suffolk to control both coastal Virginia and North Carolina, suddenly the war was only twenty miles away. Soon recognizing Franklin as “one of the great thoroughfares [of] the army of General Lee, as regards provision,” the Federals were determined to disrupt the supply line.
Union gunboats ranged up the . . . — Map (db m18135) HM |
| Virginia, Franklin — Confederate Commissary Center — Swimming in Bacon |
| | Before the Civil War erupted, Franklin became a regional transportation and commercial center for the Blackwater-Chowan River basin because the seaboard and Roanoke Railroad connected with steamship lines here. When the war began, the town immediately became a Confederate commissary depot for millions of pounds of food and fodder en route to soldiers in the field. Produce from eastern North Carolina and Virginia farms arrived on boat and wagon to be transported via the Seaboard and Roanoke . . . — Map (db m18133) HM |
| Virginia, Franklin — U 126 — Franklin |
| | Incorporated as a town in 1876, Franklin began as a Southampton County village in the 1830s. In October, 1862, during the Civil War, Union gunboats on the Blackwater River shelled the town and the railroad station. Several skirmishes occurred nearby in 1862 and 1863. A major fire destroyed 43 buildings in the town on February 26, 1881. The Camp Brothers' lumber mill and later their paper mill, as well as the peanut industry, helped Franklin prosper in this century. Franklin became an incorporated City in 1960. — Map (db m18144) HM |
| Virginia, Franklin — Recovery and Progress |
| | Franklin's location at the junction of a railroad and important water route offered opportunities that attracted new people, so the town rapidly recovered from the War. In 1866 the Albemarle steam Navigation Company was reorganized and the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad was rebuilt. Franklin's steamboat lines built new wharves and the town's trade in lumber and peanuts, the region's principal products, grew steadily. Franklin elected its first municipal government in 1869 and incorporated in . . . — Map (db m52133) HM |
| Virginia, Franklin — The Age of Gasoline — (Franklin, Virginia) |
| | Between 1907 and 1930 Franklin witnessed a
revolution in transportation as gasoline-powered
vehicles replaced the horse and buggy and steam-
powered transportation. Even as Franklin
benefited from a boom in buggy making during
the first decade of the twentieth century, the
automobile came to Franklin. In 1913 Franklin's
first car dealership opened, and by 1919 cars
outnumbered buggies on Franklin streets.
Franklin adopted the Town Manager form of
government in 1922. Soon after, . . . — Map (db m51062) HM |
| Virginia, Franklin — The Age of Steam — (Franklin, Virginia) |
| | The conjunction of the Portsmouth &
Roanoke Railroad and the Blackwater River
in 1835 made this site, then a swampy
wilderness, a natural link between the
towns of the Chowan and Albemarle Sound
and points to the northeast. The railroad,
later known as the Seaboard & Roanoke and
the Seaboard Line, transported people and
goods between Norfolk and Blackwater
Depot, then on the east bank of the River.
Beginning in 1836, steamboats, including
the Bravo, the Fox, the . . . — Map (db m51216) HM |
| Virginia, Franklin — The Barretts: A Franklin Pioneer Family |
| | In 1847 one of Franklin's most influential
couples, Richard and Mary Rebecca Murfee
Barrett, married and received a 260 acre farm
from Mary's father, Simon. The couple built a
house near the center of the new settlement
and began providing meals to the railroad's
track layers. The Barretts' new business soon
developed into a hotel, a popular stopover
on the Norfolk to Edenton run. In 1857
Richard persuaded the railroad to relocate its
depot to the west side of the river and . . . — Map (db m50456) HM |
| Virginia, Franklin — The Blackwater Line — “That little stream has ... saved us” |
| | To protect Richmond from a Union attack from Suffolk, Confederate authorities fortified the Blackwater River in 1862. You are standing on the Blackwater Line. The intermittent earthworks stretched fifty miles from north of Zuni to the North Carolina border. Up to 9,000 troops were stationed along the Blackwater Line during the next two years. Despite occasional shelling and skirmishing, the Federals failed to cross the river.
In 1863, Union Gen. John J. Peck, in Suffolk, sent Col. Samuel . . . — Map (db m18134) HM |
| Virginia, Franklin — War Comes to the Blackwater |
| | During the first three years of the War Between the States, the Franklin railhead was the terminus of the Blackwater - Chowan corridor. The Confederate commissary used this route to deliver the millions of pounds of goods from eastern North Carolina and Virginia that kept General Robert E. Lee’s army in the field. The headquarters of the Blackwater Line, which protected Lee’s supply line and guarded Richmond’s southeastern flank, was here. In the spring of 1863 Major General James Longstreet . . . — Map (db m18146) HM |
| Virginia (Southampton County), Franklin — UT 22 — Blackwater Line - Joyner's Ford |
| | Confederate forces guarded this Blackwater River crossing from 1862 to the end of the Civil War. On 12 Dec. 1862, Capt. J. H. Sikes and soldiers of Company D, 7th Confederate Cavalry, were captured during a dismounted skirmish with elements of the 13th Indiana Regiment. More than 50 soldiers were reported killed or wounded during this engagement. On 22 Dec. 1862, Union Lt. Col. George Stetzel, 11th Pennsylvania Cavalry Regiment, reconnoitered with four companies to Joyner's Ford. Encountering . . . — Map (db m18159) HM |
| Virginia (Southampton County), Franklin — U-119 — Marle Hill |
| | Birthplace of Colgate
Whitehead Darden, Jr. 1897-1981
Soldier-Educator-Statesman Veteran
World War I Member of the General
Assembly of Virginia Member of the
United States Congress Governor of
Virginia President of the University
of Virginia Delegate to the United Nations — Map (db m48529) HM |
| Virginia (Southampton County), Franklin — US 6 — South Quay |
| | Nearby along the eastern bank of the Blackwater River once existed the community of South Quay, also sometimes called South Key, Old Quay, or Old South Quay. Founded by 1657, South Quay by 1701 had become the site of a landing and trading post. A customs house for international trade had been built at South Quay by 1776. During the Revolutionary War, supplies from overseas arrived there for the colonial army and at least two ships were built there. South Quay was destroyed by fire by British . . . — Map (db m18181) HM |
| Virginia (Southampton County), Franklin — U 116 — The Hand Site |
| | East of here near the Nottoway River stood a Late Woodland Indian settlement occupied intermittently circa A.D. 700 to 1650, and long claimed by the Cheroenhaka (Nottoway). Excavated in the 1960s, occupation phases included features such as a fortified town and burials. In an area flanked by Iroquoian Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) and Meherrin to the north- and southwest, and by Algonquian Weyanoke, Nansemond, and Chowanoke tribes to the northeast and south, the site shows influences from both . . . — Map (db m60635) HM |
| Virginia (Southampton County), Franklin — US 3 — William Mahone's Birthplace |
| | Three and a half miles southwest, at Monroe, Major-General William Mahone was born, December 1, 1826. He served brilliantly in the Confederate army throughout the war, and won the title, "Hero of the Crater," at Petersburg, July 30, 1864. He was United States Senator, 1881-1887. Mahone died in Washington, October 8, 1895. — Map (db m18153) HM |
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