A Brief History of Buchanan, Va
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rom its earliest development the Town of Buchanan was the principal crossing of the James River via the “Great Valley Road” and other regional transportation networks. As an early transportation oriented community the Town included taverns and ordinaries, stables, blacksmith shops, wagon and carriage makers, general merchandise stores to service travelers, teamsters, and producers of goods being sent
central Virginia that provides and eastwest route for transport of goods from Mountain and Valley Region, through the Piedmont, to the Tidewater and Chesapeake Bay. In the 1740’s the earliest trace of the Great Road from Philadelphia to western Virginia first crossed the James River at Looney’s Ferry. The approximate location of this site is marked with an historic highway marker along route 11 west of downtown. Frontier colonial leader and land speculator James Patton obtained lands at the Great Valley Road crossing of the James River in the mid-1740’s and Col. John Buchanan acquired land on the north bank. Their heirs the Buchanans, Boyds and Andersons acquired title to those lands and settled there over the next three decades. Travel on the James River became the mode of travel William Anderson laid out the town following construction of the Canal. of Pattonsburg on the north side of the to external markets from the region. James River in 1788 while James Boyd Transportation routes and changes laid out the Town of Buchanan on the in modes of transportation have had pri- south side of the James across from mary influences on Buchanan’s history. Pattonsburg in 1811. The Great Valley People settled in Buchanan because of Road coincided with the main streets of the Town’s location at a major intersec- Pattonsburg and Buchanan. Plats of Bution of transportation routes. Comchanan in 1811 and Pattonsburg in 1818 mercial and manufacturing enterprises established a grid of streets and enumerlocated there because of the Town’s ated lots that conform in large part with advantageous location for the transport the current tax maps. Water transport of raw materials goods and products. on the James River was improved from Changes in means of transportation Buchanan to Tidewater by 1807 and the shaped the Town’s periods of growth in two towns became centers for processing commerce and manufacturing. Since the agricultural products from southwestern 1740’s the area now encompassed by Virginia for transport to Richmond and the Town of Buchanan has always been the Chesapeake. The Virginia General distinguished as the point of intersection Assembly in 1819 acted to establish between two principal transportation warehouses for inspection of tobacco and corridors: the great northeast-southwest flour in both towns. overland route west of the Blue Ridge River traffic increased in the 1830’s Mountains between Pennsylvania and with internal improvements that brought the old Upland south; and the James a better road system to Buchanan from River, the principal river system of western Virginia. By the mid-1830’s 8
internal improvements resulted in completion of the Cumberland Gap Turnpike from the Kentucky border to central Botetourt County. At that time the towns of Pattonsburg and Buchanan had a combined population of about 350 free inhabitants, a covered bridge across the James, a brick Free Church and several substantial commercial buildings that fronted on the river. By the 1840’s Buchanan’s buildings included the John Wilson warehouse, store and residence, the Botetourt Hotel and the Presbyterian and Episcopal churches and the Anchorage Home. By 1851 the James River and Kanawha Canal was completed from Richmond to Buchanan creating a boom in commercial and artisan activity during the decade before the Civil War. By this time the two towns had 9 merchants and 25 self-employed artisans including shoemakers, wagon makers, blacksmiths, carpenters, tailors, rope makers, cabinetmakers, saddlers and tinners. In 1850 Buchanan and Pattonsburg had a combined population of 900 inhabitants, including 250 slaves, more inhabitants than Fincastle, Salem or any
The Boyd Home still overlooks the Town and is known as Oak Hill.
towns west of the Blue Ridge on drainage of the James and Roanoke Rivers. During the Civil War Buchanan served as an important Confederate supply depot for shipment of agricultural produce and pig iron to Richmond via Continued on Page 10