Forest Hill Waterworks

Waterworks (Structure) 127-6069-0790

The potential for harnessing the power of the Falls shaped the development of Forest Hill in the nineteenth century. Frederick Clarke, from his plantation (Maple Crest, 127-6069-0550) in Forest Hill, and his cousin Chastain Clarke, who owned land on the James River east of Maple Crest, coordinated efforts to produce water power for commercial use. Deed evidence suggests that this early waterworks may have included head gates and two dams (above Maple Crest Plantation) that fed a stone-lined channel transversing the east end of present-day Forest Hill, Forest Hill Park, and Woodland Heights. The waterworks may also have included the elaborate configuration of brick and stone sluices, iron drain pipes, a dam, and what may be a kiln and a man-made race situated in the southeast corner of Forest Hill Park, just below the segment of Reedy Creek known as the “waterfall”. A local archeologist suggests that this site may be an antebellum industrial complex that merits further study by a specialist in nineteenth-century industrial archeology.

Both Frederick Clarke and Holden Rhodes invested in and served as charter officers for manufacturing companies that “utilized water powered sluices along the river bank” above their properties in Forest Hill. A stone dam, segments of the stone-lined sluices, and the canal are all visible in 2011. A recent archeological report provides corroborating support that the “‘Waterworks Canal’, was initially constructed by Frederick Clarke around 1820, for the purpose of powering a sawmill. However, Chastain Clarke purchased the one hundred and twenty eight acre tract of land from Frederick Clarke in 1825 and subsequent additions were made to the existing structure. Based on archival research, it was unable to be determined whether or not the existing canal was the millrace for Frederick’s sawmill or the remains of the waterworks built by Chastain Clarke.”

One likely outcome of the efforts to harness the Falls was the subsequent establishment of waterworks that provided municipal water for Manchester. Near the end of West 22nd Street, east of Forest Hill, settling basins and a pumping station were built adjacent to the tracks of the Richmond and Danville Railroad. A water tower, at the corner of West 19th Street and Stonewall Avenue, flowed water by gravity to the City of Manchester from up-river. At this time, the starting point is unknown. In 1845, Charles S. Morgan acquired 185 acres of “islands, rocks, shoals and unnavigable water” an extensive stretch of the James River, at the Falls.

Morgan planned to organize a company for the development of “that splendid water power”… through what are known as the Falls and Spring Hill properties”. In the 1880s, John C. Robertson renewed interest in the local water power. The City of Manchester commissioned a study by Colonel CPE Burgwyn, an engineer who completed a comparative study of the potential water power of the Falls with power already being generated by various waterworks in New England. The report, published in 1888, concluded that Southside was “as richly endowed by nature as almost any place in the world”, also noting that “various plans have been proposed for impounding this great supply of water and utilizing by storage means for this vast power.” By the turn of the twentieth century, promotional publications continued to celebrate the “rare conditions for the development of a great water-power plant” at the Falls. In 1903, a petition by John C. Robertson was referred to the clear water committee of the Board of Water Commissioners.