The Rivanna

by Charles McGuigan 07.2024

It was the first time in more than two weeks that the heat dome finally fractured. Temperatures that had hovered in the upper nineties and at times rose into the triple digits gave way to a day that could have been scooped out of autumn. Not a cloud in the sky, no humidity, just a slight breath of wind out of the northeast, and temperatures topping out in the high seventies. So we drove at a leisurely pace out Patterson Avenue from its origins on Arthur Ashe Boulevard to well beyond the suburban sprawl of western Henrico where Route 6 goes from four lanes to two lanes. At different points Route 6 hugs the James River, and as we crossed the county line from Goochland into Fluvanna, an outcropping of granite and schist flanked our right side, and growing from every crevice were yuccas and prickly pear cacti. On the left hand side of the road we could see the railroad tracks, and, just beyond them, the James River—the three transportation systems that enabled westward travel, running in perfect parallel lines. And when we saw the ancient Columbia train depot, in dire need of repair,  sitting on a vacant lot near the tracks, we knew we had arrived at our destination—the Rivanna River.

The Rivanna’s headwaters are in the foothills of the Blue Ridge just to the west of Charlottesville. It flows for about forty-five miles southeast to its mouth on the James River. At this confluence there is a sharp point of land, shaped like an arrowhead, that is difficult to get to, though we were able to do so by following the railroad tracks just off Columbia Road and St. James Street (Route 6). Through the thicket of crossvine and honeysuckle, of brambles and trumpet vines, beneath a canopy of massive sycamores, you can see the depressions in the earth, evidence of the canal that once connected Richmond via the Kanawha Canal and then to Charlottesville along the Rivanna Connexion Canal.

But well before Americans of European origin constructed these waterways, this point of land was the site of Rassawek, which was the political center of the Monacans who had smaller settlements all along the Rivanna River valley. The Monacans, who had lived in the region for more than 4,000 years, used Rassawek as a burial ground, making it the spiritual center of the tribe as well. With the influx of English colonists to the region in the late seventeenth century, the Monacans abandoned Rassawek, many of them settling to the west in Amherst County. 

The English established a community there called Point of Fork and during the Revolutionary War a man named Friederich Wilhelm von Steuben set up an arsenal there to supply Patriot forces with munitions. Loyalists were sent by English General Charles Cornwallis to destroy the arsenal and confiscate stores. Von Steuben apparently got wind of this plan and ordered his troops to to transport the munitions across the James. The British stormed the arsenal but went away essentially empty-handed.

Shortly after the end of the war, that entire area along the Rivanna incorporated as a town called Columbia.

Charles and I explored this little village for the next couple hours. On St. James Street we met a man sitting on his front porch across the street from an abandoned grocery store that looked like it had been shuttered for years.

“So what’s there to do in Columbia?” I asked.

He just shook his head and smiled. “This is it,” he said.

Not long after its founding, Columbia fairly bustled. It became a key shipping point on the James for the tobacco trade, and even established its own batteau freight line. It also became an important stop on the stagecoach route from Richmond to Staunton. Later, Columbia even had its own train depot (the one we had seen earlier on a vacant lot).

Things really went south for the river town beginning in 1958 with the end of passenger railroad service. Then came the hurricanes, first Camille in 1969, followed three years later by Agnes. The two storms destroyed a lot of the homes and businesses in Columbia. Many of the remaining houses along the main street were simply abandoned. Some of them burned; others just rotted into the earth. Back in 2014 the mayor and town council proposed disincorporation. Two years later, the General Assembly honored that wish, and Columbia was suddenly no longer a town.

Along Route 6 some of the homes seem to be uninhabited, others in a state of disrepair. But on the high ground things change. Charles and I wandered along several streets on the bluff—Tamany, St. Patrick, Cameron and Washington.  There’s a US Post Office, several perfectly preserved eighteenth century homes, and on Cameron Street, facing one another, two churches—one Episcopal, the other Catholic.

Near the entrance to St. Joseph’s Catholic Church there’s a bronze statue of a woman dressed in a nun’s habit. The figure stands within a sort of grotto constructed of locally quarried river stone. The woman holds a small child in one arm; her other arm rests on the shoulder of an older girl with braided pigtails. It turns out it’s a memorial to Katharine Drexel, who holds the distinction of being one of the few Americans ever canonized as a saint.

So here’s the story, beginning with the small clapboard church. Turns out Saint Joseph’s was built by a pair of English Catholics—William and Catherine Wakeham—who happened to be ardent abolitionists. The knoll on which this Wakeham’s home rested was called Free Hill. In the 1890s the church became vacant, but an African-American man named Zach Kimbro looked after the small church, placing clean linens and fresh flowers on the altar every week. 

In 1901 Katharine Drexel passed through Columbia and stopped in at the church where she met Kimbro. They became fast friends, and Katharine arranged to have Mass celebrated again in the church. Right next to the church, Katharine had a small school built for Black children. At the time it was the only facility of its kind in Fluvanna County.

This Katharine Drexel was a curious woman. She came from one of the wealthiest families of the era out of Philadelphia, but she rejected wealth and eventually founded a religious order call Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament. It was dedicated to serving American Indian and African-American communities. To that end, she began building boarding schools in the South and the Southwest for Black and American Indian girls. 

The very first boarding school she established was right across the river from Columbia in Powhatan County. Locally referred to as Rock Castle because of its Gothic-style architecture, St. Francis de Sales School experienced extreme prejudice from the locals. Kluckers, cowards as ever, threatened the nuns with physical violence, and burned one of their barns to the ground. Katharine refused to budge. She and her sisters remained steadfast in their mission, serving not only the children in their schools but their families as well.  They also visited prisoners in nearby correctional facilities. The school remained open until 1970.

Charles and I made our way over to the Rivanna and moved along the shore. All up and down the river there are remnants of old mills and dams, along with the remains of locks and canals. For many years this waterway was navigable from the James River all the way up to Charlottesville. And as with so many things in our nation’s early years, the Sage of Monticello was behind it. 

Thomas Jefferson grew up exploring the Rivanna as a child. After all, Shadwell, his father’s home, was just a stone’s throw away from the river. In 1763, when Thomas was just 20 years old, he organized an effort to make the river navigable. In his 1795 pamphlet “Notes on Virginia” he wrote that the river was navigable from just below Charlottesville all the way down to Columbia. Eventually the Rivanna Navigation Company constructed locks and canals that enabled easy passage from Columbia all the way into Charlottesville. Then, of course, the railroads came, rendering canals obsolete.

After our river explorations we got in the car and head up to Palmyra about ten miles to the north. We visited the Old Stone Jail, the Fluvanna Courthouse, a Civil War monument, and then walked down Main Street, which is about three blocks long.  

Across from the Courthouse we entered the Palmyra Rail Trail which runs along the east side of the Rivanna. This trail was created from an old spur line of the Virginia Air Line Railroad, which offered both freight and passenger service. It’s a leisurely hike, in and out about a mile and a half. One side of the trail offers exceptional views of the Rivanna far below.  The other side of the trail is dominated by massive granite outcroppings and vast swaths of Christmas fern and other native plants.

On the opposite shore of the river, just off Thomas Jefferson Parkway, we hiked portions of the Fluvanna Heritage Trail which starts behind Pleasant Grove House. One trail leads down to a sandy beach where you can wade in the clear, cool, mountain-fed waters of the Rivanna and easily imagine what a Monacan might have felt more than four millennia ago.