Improving the Chickahominy- 1818

Notice-- That a petition will be presented to the next General Assembly of Virginia, praying that a law may pass for the clearing out the course of Chickahominy Swamp from the Mechanicsville turnpike road in the county of Henrico, to Windsor Shades in the county of New Kent. 

All person interested in and desirous of encouraging this very useful scheme of internal improvements, are invited to meet at Park’s tavern (formerly Mrs. Frazer's) in the county of New Kent, on the second Saturday June next, at 12 o'clock.  

The attendance of the members of the legislature of the counties of Hanover, Henrico, Charles City, New Kent, James City, and the city of Richmond, is particularly desired.

To the honorable the Speakers and Members of the General Assembly of Virginia. 

The petition of a number of the inhabitants of the counties of Hanover, Henrico, Charles City, New Kent James City, and of the city of Richmond, most respectfully represents, 

That the Chickahominy Swamp or Creek as a stream which furnishes a greater portion of bottom land in proportion to its size, than any other water course in the state of Virginia; that the lands are generally capable of being rendered very productive both in Indian coin, oats, and a variety of grasses, as well natural as artificial, and that great quantities of most valuable timber will be found to be the growth of those wide portions; but that all the advantages which this extensive and fertile tract of country presents, have heretofore been engaged in a very limited degree, in consequence of obstructions to the free passage of the water, causing a general overflowing of the low grounds to the immense injury of crops and to the impossibility of taking out the superfluous timber. 

Many Individual and spirited attempts have been made to remove such obstructions as were contiguous to the property of such individuals; but the experience of more than forty years has evinced that such attempts must ever prove abortive, unless a general and voluntary co-operation of all the property holders, in conducting the work can be established, an event which the most sanguine of your petitioners can never expect to see realized. Believing as we do that all the land on both sides of the Chickahominy river, from Windsor Shades in the county of New Kent, to the Mechanicsville turnpike road, where the same crosses the swamp, will be essentially benefited by a successful attempt to remove the obstructions in the run, that a convenient boat navigation maybe thereby formed for the greater part of the above mentioned distance, and that both effects will very much add to the growing importance of the capital of the state your petitioners indulge the hope that your honorable body will most cheerfully pass a law authorizing the county courts of Hanover, Henrico Charles City and New Kent, once in every year each to appoint a director holding land on the Chickahominy Swamp, which four, when so appointed, shall choose a fifth to act as their president; that the five directors shall have power to perform all maters relative to the widening, straightening and deepening the Chickahominy, which they may consider conducive to the general good; and that they shall have power, with the aid of the county surveyor of each county, to make an exact and connected survey of all the bottom land belonging to each person, bordering on or being a part of said swamp, or low grounds: which survey, together with the probable estimates of the expenses in the incurred in each year, shall be made in the several county courts before mentioned. And your petitioners further pray that the four county courts before mentioned shall have full power and authority to make assessment in each year upon all the lauds so reported to them by the directors, of a sum not exceeding twenty five cents per acre, to be collected and distrained for by the sheriffs of the respective counties, in like manner as county levies are directed by law to be collected and to be paid, when collected, by the order of the board of directors, and that the powers so to be granted to the courts shall continue to be exercised for ten years, if in the opinion of the directors it shall so long be required. And your petitioners will, as in duty bound, pray, &c. 

May 22.

-Richmond Enquirer, 26 May 1818