Manuscript finding aid to Waugh's Ferry Account Book

JONES MEMORIAL LIBRARY
2311 MEMORIAL AVENUE
LYNCHBURG, VIRGINIA 24501
(434) 846-0501
WAUGH'S FERRY ACCOUNT BOOKS
The collection includes two account books (1848-1849) listing items purchased,
probably from a store at WAUGH's Ferry, rather than accounts of the ferry itself, which
operated on the James River. The ferry operated between Amherst County and Bedford
County, Virginia.
[BOX 1] Account Book (1848-1849) - I
[BOX 2] Account Book (1848-1849) - II

WAUGH'S FERRY
WAUGH's Ferry was established by an Act of the General Assembly of Virginia,
passed on 6 January 1807. The act stated "that [a] public [ferry] shall be constantly kept
at the following [place], and the rates of passing the same as followeth...from the land of
James WAUGH, in the county of Amherst, across Fluvanna [James] River, to the land of
Tamerlane William Whiting DAVIES on the opposite shore in the county of Bedford, the
price for a man six and one quarter cents, and for an horse the same..." According to one
local historian, the "WAUGH's Ferry, east of Snowden, was the most generally used
crossing of the James in the southwestern migrations." There is record of a post office at
WAUGH's Ferry, Bedford County, from 1829 until 1845.

[Samuel Shepherd, The Statutes at Large of Virginia, New Series, Vol. III (Richmond: Shepherd, 1836),
pp. 333-334; Alfred Percy, The Amherst County Story (Madison Heights, VA: Percy Press, 1961), p. 86;
Virginius Cornick Hall, Jr., "Virginia Post Offices, 1798-1859," Virginia Magazine of History and
Biography, Vol. 81, No. 1 (January, 1973), p. 95.]

MS1045