Let There Be Light
Volume 12, Number 40,
Issue 587
Richmonders George Wythe, Mayor John Foster and James McClurg and other noteworthies proclaimed success with Benjamin Henfrey’s Spring 1802 exhibition of coal gas being able to illuminate an adapted design of a costal lighthouse to be constructed at the intersection of Eleventh and Main Streets in downtown Richmond. Even though the President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, was skeptical of the “New Light,” influential Richmonders pushed their plans along and insisted that its construction would suit Richmond’s capital-project-of-the-moment desire. They were convinced that the gas produced from pit coal yielded a much more bright and consistent light than wood or whale oil did.
Apparently Benjamin Henfrey was quite the charming gentleman and showman. A model lighthouse was constructed at a Richmond “amusement park.” At his final August 1802 exhibition in Richmond’s Haymarket Garden, he cooked food over the gas flame to prove that the light was pure and clean. In the evening, dancing, music and refreshments were all enjoyed using the light. The owner of Haymarket Garden later acquired the model light and boasted that a light equal to 300 candles could be furnished for six hours from one bushel of Chesterfield pit coal.
Richmonders’ interest in constructing a full-scale, forty foot high, octagonal brick lighthouse at Eleventh and Main Streets reached a peak in the Fall of 1802—much like the construction of a Shockoe Bottom baseball park is now gripping the City 202 years later. Interest in lighting the entire downtown area (albeit of course much smaller than today) with one brilliant nighttime light was important enough that citizens bought stock in a corporation that was formed to build it. How much does an 1802 lighthouse cost? $400.
To encourage investors to buy stock, Benjamin Henfrey also granted shareholders who bought at least $8 in stock the right to build their own lighthouse using his patented technology.
Like the new baseball park idea is receiving much publicity in 2004 (specifically, where it will be), the placement of Henfrey’s lighthouse was the subject of much debate in 1802. The intersection of Eleventh and Main was decided upon because it was felt that from that one corner the rays would be cast up to Capitol Square and also downriver to the James River Canal and the business district. Apparently Henfrey tried an additional idea of erecting a series of lamp posts that connected with above-ground lead pipe to the central lighthouse and gas plant, but Richmond couldn’t afford this and the City government was not going to help. [Why is it always that what we really need we can’t afford.]
In December 1802, the forty foot, octagonal, brick tower—topped by a circular glass cupola—operated at Eleventh and Main; of the $400 received from stockholders, $1 remained after its construction. Four noteworthy stockholders had contributed about $200 more to build the coal furnace to burn the coal (to convert it to gas). Apparently, even businesses of 1802 were formed without well-defined business plans that allowed for and thought out proper capitalization.
Regretfully, the light wasn’t bright enough and during the Winter of 1803, Henfrey was being vilified in the local press. A capital project that had been sold to the citizens of Richmond didn’t work as it was represented or intended that it would—Surprise…Surprise…Surprise.
By April 1803, the Virginia Gazette and Public Advertiser carried paid advertisements from Henfrey thanking them for their support, stating that he did not make any money on the venture and stating that he would be making improvements to his design after further research. Henfrey left the City.
Henfrey went to Fredericksburg, Staunton and Lexington and demonstrated his invention there, just like he did in Richmond. The influential citizens of those cities spoke out against him and did not like his idea. His reputation had—apparently—preceeded him. When confronted about the facts back in Richmond, Henfrey stated that Richmond’s lighthouse was not a failure and that it was a work-in-progress. Henfrey left Virginia and went to Tennessee to experiment with different types of minerals to make glass to better diffuse light and to make better reflectors. He vowed to return to Richmond to get the light brighter by using a better lens and reflector system.
Apparently, Benjamin Henfrey never came back.
Soon, the coal furnace broke and then the lens system fell into disrepair. There was no one to fix them and the civic and political leaders who had strongly urged the project turned around 180 degrees and looked at the remaining tower as a red herring that would ultimately be torn down. Could this be Richmond’s original white elephant of a capital project? Sixth Street Marketplace’s Great-Great-Grandfather?
Historically, coal gas lights were first exhibited in Philadelphia in 1796. The first city street to have coal gas lights was Newport, Rhode Island in 1806. The first city to have a widespread system of coal gas lights was Henfrey’s hometown of Baltimore in 1816. Richmond wouldn’t have a city-wide system until 1851 after many, many other cities had them.
Richmond does have a place, though. It was Chesterfield (specifically Midlothian) coal that went down today’s Midlothian Turnpike in an incline railroad and shipped from the docks at Manchester that powered the gas plants of Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania long before Richmond had its own gas plant. Coal was King in Chesterfield long before Benjamin Henfrey came along when it came to recognizing it as a fuel for warmth.
Nearly 300 years ago, French Huguenots wishing to escape religious persecution made their homes on an eight million year old coalfield that would help shape not only the history of Chesterfield County, but also that of the New World. The first commercially mined coal in the United States came from Midlothian, where the fossil fuel is believed to have been discovered near the Huguenot settlement on the James River about 1701. It was dug for local and domestic use for several years before it was first commercially mined in the 1730s. William Byrd II, who purchased 344 acres of land over the coalfield noted in a 1709 diary entry that "the coaler found the coal mine very good and sufficient to furnish several generations."
By the end of the Revolutionary War, coal mined in Chesterfield was being shipped to Philadelphia, New York and Boston. Thomas Jefferson noted the mines in operation in his "Notes on Virginia" and said the coal produced there was of excellent quality. He also ordered coal from the Black Heath Mine in Midlothian for use in the White House.
The earliest commercial mines in the area were near Manakin and Huguenot Springs, though those in the Midlothian village area--near the eastern end of Falling Creek--were in operation by the mid-1700s, followed by the mines in the Winterpock area, which opened in the early 1800s.
David B. Robinson, CPA
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