Cedar Grove

L-26

Here at the head of small-boat navigation on the Maury (North) River, Cedar Grove had become a transportation hub and market center by the 1830s. The community grew along with the region’s iron industry, which played an important role in Virginia’s economic development. When water conditions permitted, enslaved and free boatmen used bateaux to transport iron from local furnaces and forges, as well as flour and other goods, to Lynchburg and Richmond. Served by two toll roads, Cedar Grove featured mercantile stores, a gristmill, warehouses, and a post office. The decline of the local iron industry later in the 1800s and disuse of the river for transportation led to the town’s abandonment.

Department of Historic Resources, 2023

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

Richmond Enquirer, 13 May 1856. Joseph Martin, A New and Comprehensive Gazetteer of Virginia and the District of Columbia (Charlottesville, 1835), 425. Rockbridge County Deed Book 5:98-99. Anderson Collection, James G. Leyburn Library, Washington and Lee University. Charles A. Bodie, Remarkable Rockbridge: The Story of Rockbridge County, Virginia (Lexington: Rockbridge Historical Society, 2011). “The Middlebrook-Brownsburg Corridor: A Survey of Cultural and Natural Resources,” (Valley Conservation Council, 1997). John Knapp, “Trade and Transportation in Rockbridge: The First Hundred Years,” Proceedings of the Rockbridge Historical Society, vol. 9 (1982). John W. Knapp, “Report on Navigation in the Maury River Basin: An Investigation to Determine the Head of Navigation” (Virginia Military Institute, 1974). W. E. Trout III and Philip de Vos, The Maury River Atlas (Virginia Canals and Navigations Society, 2014). W. Cole Davis, “History of Rockbridge Baths, Goshen Pass, and Cedar Grove” (address to Rockbridge Historical Society, 1944).