Virginia’s rivers, especially the James, York, and Rappahannock, served as primary commercial transportation routes until railroads arrived in the mid-1800s, and ferries often provided the only means of crossing them. Beginning in 1641, the General Assembly directed county courts to establish ferries and bridges, and the number of authorized ferries grew from 34 in 1702 to 140 in 1786 as eighteenth-century commerce expanded. In what is now Albemarle County, the first ferry was authorized in 1744 on the Rivanna River north of the present Free Bridge east of Charlottesville, followed in 1745 by a James River ferry near present-day Scottsville that remained in use until 1907, and a ferry at Warren authorized in 1789 that continued until Hurricane Agnes swept it away in 1972. At least 15 other ferries, including Hatton, were authorized in Albemarle County. About 1875, James A. Brown rented a store and ferry rights at this site, known as Brown’s Store; in 1881 it became a stop on the new Richmond and Allegheny Railroad built on the bank of the earlier James River and Kanawha Canal, and Brown bought the property that same year. In 1883, a public road reached the site, a post office was authorized, and the place took the name Hatton. After the deaths of Brown and his widow, James B. Tindall bought the store, ferry, and ferry rights in 1914 and operated the ferry until 1940, when the Virginia Department of Highways assumed control. Hurricane Agnes destroyed the ferry in June 1972, but public support led to continued service and a replacement built by Highway Department staff, dedicated in September 1973 with help from Richard Thomas of The Waltons. A record flood in November 1985 sank that ferry boat, and the Highway Department replaced it with a metal one launched in June 1986. The Hatton Ferry, the last established in Albemarle County, survived as the only remaining member of a class of Virginia ferries dating to 1641, one of only two pole-powered public ferries operating in the continental United States, and in 1989 one of only four ferries of any kind in Virginia. It stands for a transportation system that helped overland travel overcome river barriers and is associated at this site with four early transportation modes: the James River, the remains of the James River and Kanawha Canal opened in 1840 from Richmond to Lynchburg, the Richmond and Allegheny Railroad opened in 1881 on the canal bank and later part of the C&O, and the public road.
