1818.128: Petition seeking a Toll-Bridge across James River at Cartersville.
Published: 1818
Full Title: To the Speaker and Members of ... the General Assembly ... inhabitants of the counties of Cumberland, Goochland and Powhatan ...
Author: Inhabitants of Cumberland, Goochland, and Powhatan Counties.
Place Issued: Virginia
Issuing Press: Uncertain
Description: 1 sheet [1 pg.]; 35 cm. x 21 cm. (broadside).
Notes
One of three petitions presented to the Assembly on December 16, 1819; the three counties mentioned here were joined by a fourth petition from Fluvanna (apparently in manuscript), so covering all four counties adjacent to Cartersville (in Cumberland near the Powhatan line); the proposal was opposed by Randolph Harrison, owner of a ferry at Cartersville (1818.129), yet Assembly deemed their proposal as reasonable, likely because of claims in this petition of the unreasonable tolls that Harrison charged for crossing the James; an law to incorporate a company to build and operate such a toll-bridge was enacted on March 3, 1819 (Chap. LXL of Acts of December 1818 Assembly). Sheet lacks colophon; text suggests that signers in Goochland and Fluvanna wanted better access to the port of Petersburg, while signers in Cumberland and Powhatan desired better access to that in Richmond; hence this title likely issued from one of those two locales, but a definitive attribution is impracticable without more evidence, so the indeterminacy here.