1818.129: Protest against a Toll-Bridge across James River at Cartersville.
Published: 1818
Full Title: To the honorable the General Assembly ... memorial of Randolph Harrison ...
Author: Harrison, Randolph, of Cumberland County.
Place Issued: Virginia
Issuing Press: Uncertain
Description: 1 sheet [1 pg.]; 35 cm. x 21 cm. (broadside).
Notes
Harrison was the owner of a ferry at Cartersville (in Cumberland near the Powhatan line); herein, he addressed the Assembly in opposition to petitions from numerous individuals in Cumberland, Goochland, Powhatan, and Fluvanna to supplant his ferry with a toll-bridge that would charge reasonable rates for passage; the Assembly consented to the proposal, over Harrison's objections, enacting a law on March 3, 1819 to incorporate a company to build and operate such a toll-bridge was enacted (Chap. LXL of Acts of December 1818 Assembly). Sheet lacks colophon; the petitions in support of the bridge suggests 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 that title likely issued from one of those two locales, but a definitive attribution is impracticable; so too here, though Harrison's access to water-borne trade with Richmond makes that town the more likely point of origin, but such an attribution requires more evidence, so the indeterminacy here.