Jamestown Bridge, Cumberland County  side of Appomattox River	Jamestown Meetinghouse	Jamestown Bridge condemned, 1920's,  washed away in a flood, 1930's
Willard Vaughan & Sallie R. Vaughan  Jamestown Meetinghouse cemetery	What Happened  to the Second Oldest Town  in Prince Edward?  Jamestown  on the Appomattox River	Jamestown main street now

    Why did a community that started in 1796 die away and disappear into the briars and trees?  Economics, the railroad, and political influence changed the course of activity in Prince Edward making Farmville the hub instead of Jamestown on the Appomattox River.
    In November, 1796, a petition was presented to the General Assembly for a town to be established on the land of John Townes at Buffalow Falls on the Appomattox River in Prince Edward County.  A month later Jamestown was established with a layout of twenty-five acres consisting of half acre lots with convenient streets.  Warehouses, stores, taverns, a church and a girls' school made up the community, but no record shows that it ever expanded beyond its original twenty-five acres.
    Among the trustees of this new town were such Prince Edward names as Abner Watkins, Robert Goode, George Eggleston, Josiah Perkinson, Christopher Walthall, William Worsham, Richard Pincham, Thomas Gibson, and John L. Crute.
    In 1802 the General Post Office in Washington established mail route 50 to run from Richmond to Farmville.  It was a two-day run beginning at 8:00 am on Wednesday in Richmond and ending in Farmville at 8:00 pm on Thursday.  Friday morning the route was run back to Richmond, ending Saturday evening.  Stops were made at Genito Bridge, Amelia Court House, Painsville, Ligontown, and Jamestown.
    Licenses for an ordinary (tavern) were granted in 1801 to Benjamin Dennis; in 1817, to Alexander Patteson and Edmund Booker; and in 1830, to William White.
    Besides the taverns, William White, Edmund Booker, and William Woodall were merchants in the community.  They sold fabrics, rum, sugar, salt, pepper, tea, whiskey, molasses, nails, hats, saddle blankets, saddles, bridles, and other household needs.
    It was common to see livestock being driven to market on the county roads.  William Woodall wrote of the drivers stopping in Jamestown at his store and home.  This practice continued well after the railroad had become established.
    Doctors Philip T. Southall  and Thomas C. Overton practiced from this community.
    Tobacco was brought to Jamestown to be sold at Towne's Warehouse and to be shipped on the bateaux further east to Richmond.
    In 1817, Jamestown Female Seminary, the first girls' school in Prince Edward County, was established.  Lottery tickets for cash prizes were sold to raise money for a building.  Mary R. Cowardin was in charge of the school in 1817-1818 and William White was in the early 1830's.
   Early (1862-1870) Presbyterian congregations would meet at the Jamestown meetinghouse once a month to hear Dr. Richard McIlwaine.  In 1876 an organized Presbyterian church was set up in the free meetinghouse.
    About 1920 the bridge that crossed the Appomattox River to Jamestown was condemned and there was not enough traffic to justify the expense of repairs.  Church members abandoned the old building since those in Cumberland County no longer could reach it and it was inconvenient for the people in Prince Edward.  A. M. E. Zion Church started using the old meetinghouse in the late 1920's.  The  Jamestown Presbyterians built a new church nearer Rice.

- Edwina Covington

source: Bradshaw, Herbert Clarence, History of Prince Edward County, Virginia From its Earliest Settlements through its Establishment in 1754 To its bicentennial Year, 1955,  reprinted by Prince Edward County Board of Supervisors.

• In1796, George Eggleston paid $110.83 for the first three lots of 1/2 acre each.
• All that remains of Jamestown Bridge are stone ramps and stone pilings.  It fell into the Appomattox River in 1936 and was washed a few feet down the river by a flood.  Remains of the bridge that were above water were cut up and sold and shipped to Japan.  John Morton Osborn remembers working as a boy with his father and brothers on maintaining the bridge for private use in 1926.
• December 22, 1899, the village of Jamestown was wiped out.  The only remaining house, the home of James Young and his wife, was destroyed by fire.  The old house had been the home of Dr. Philip Southall.  Revoluntionary War veterans used to meet there to refight the battles of the war.  Among those men were Peter Francisco, William Walker, and J. E. Johnston.  An article in the Farmville Herald states that the next day James Young was found scratching in the ashes of his home looking for nails to build a new house of himself and his wife.
• Portions of the old Jamestown meetinghouse, such as the slate roof, are on homes in Farmville now.
• A barge that was used to rebuild High Bridge broke loose from the work crew and lodged itself against one of the pilings of the Jamestown Bridge.  Its remains are still there.
• Original copies of sermons preached by Rev. F. W. Osborn at old Jamestown Presbyterian Church in 1920 and 1922 exist.
• Legend has it that Robert Russa Morton, as a young man, was encouraged to attend the Presbyterian seminary but he declined.  He supposedly said, " I would rather be an uneducated black Baptist than an educated Presbyterian."
• Tombstone, grave markers, and a crumbling mausoleum are hidden under periwinkle at the Jamestown meetinghouse site.