Truckin' on the Western Branch

vital during both World War I and World War II. ACL train stops between Driver and Portsmouth located at Deans, Pughsville, Peake, and Bruce farms served as “truck” and passenger pickup in as well as local post offices in the late 1800s.

Wreck of the “Old 38” One of the worst train wrecks in Virginia’s history happened on the Atlantic Coastline near Bruce’s Station in 1905. An ACL special excursion train from Kinston, North Carolina, was en route to Portsmouth for a day of shopping. The train passed Driver, Deans, and Pughsville headed toward the bridge over the Western Branch of the Elizabeth River. Unknown to the engineer, the draw was open near Bruce’s Station for a tug towing a raft of logs through. An eyewitness who was later interviewed in 1986 said: When she made the turn and started for the river, I could hear her steam was up and she wasn’t breaking down, and I said to myself, “Cleve . . . she’s going into the river . . . and she did too.” At least 15 passengers including the locomotive engineer and fireman were killed, and scores were taken to the hospitals in Portsmouth.

One of the passengers from North Carolina appeared at the Atlantic Coastline office and asked to be sent back home to Kingston:

“ . . . if you’ll jest git me back boss I’ll swar befo Gawd I’ll never come to Norfik agin ‘cept on oxcart or afoot.”

Today Norfolk & Western coal cars cross the Bowers Hill section of the Western Branch, and Amtrak has started passenger service from Norfolk to Richmond along those same tracks. Commonwealth Railway owns a 17.2-mile spur of the AF&D railroad connecting the container cargo piers in West Norfolk with the Norfolk Southern Railway system.

The shorelines that were once the Wise, Deans, and Wright farms along the main stem of the Elizabeth River are now the site of International container cargo cranes and the Fifth District US Coast Guard Base Support Unit Portsmouth.

Juliet Ballard and Elsie Loney

Floral Point Farm Floral Point Farm was one of Norfolk County’s prosperous truck farms that survived and thrived after the Civil War. In 1850 Luther Wright Ballard and his wife, Bette, built a home along Hoffler Creek on land his family had purchased from the Wise family. In 1904 his grandson, John Wright Ballard, and his wife, Effie Toler Hathaway, built a Victorian manor house on the property. Juliet Ballard Hawks was one of their six children. Born in 1908, she lived most of her life at Floral Point. Ashley Orgain Morgan interviewed Juliet several years ago as part of a Hoffler Creek Wildlife Preserve project. She shared vivid memories of the truck-farming life in Churchland. Juliet’s mother was known to everyone in the family as “Mam” and reigned over aunts, uncles, cousins, and farm workers. She never drove but had a driver, Eddie Fox, who had come down from the Northern Neck with her in 1902. He was known to all of the Ballards as Fox. Mam was not a good cook but grew a beautiful flower garden specializing in camellias. Some of those camellias can still be found in the wildlife preserve. Juliet remembered Mam looking out the window for Mrs. Deans rowing across Hoffler Creek to bring good food and said it was a good thing that the Ballards had a cook.

Floral Point Farm built in 1904 by John Wright Ballard.

The house had rare modern amenities— acetylene lights, central heating, and a steam engine in the basement that pumped water up into a tank to give the house running water.

The Floral Point farm depended on many of the local black families for workers. They lived on the farm “Round the Corner” in an area called Sugar Hill. It consisted of about eight small houses along Hoffler Creek, and workers crossed a small two-planked bridge to get to the main part of the farm and the house. Some of the farmhands came from nearby Nansemond County by boat.

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