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The below drawings/photos are of two boat models made by Newton Ancarrow in the 1950's at his factory on the James River in Richmond, VA. Newton later became a leader in the efforts to clean up the James River. In addition, he held the speed record for the James at one time. The following words are an excerpt from "Rivertime."
Nearby, Newton Ancarrow had recently settled his business of building fast and luxurious runabout boats. He was already angry about what he was seeing in the river, and he was not one to keep quiet. As he tells it, "All my life I'd been told that the James River was dirty, just stay away from it. I accepted that. I could stand a little mud. I had no damn idea! I was so naive that I would not believe that anybody would do that to a river. I saw times after a rain when the surface of the river was 90 percent floating raw sewage-- and smelled it. But I knew it was illegal to discharge sewage into the water, so I assumed it would be cleaned up." As Ancarrow jokes wryly, "They named that river after the wrong king. They should have named it after King John, because it surely is the john river." Ancarrow might have seemed an unlikely candidate to be a pioneering environmental activist. An engineer, he had spent several years working at Experiment Incorporated downstream, scarcely noticing the careless disposal of powerful chemical wastes into the river. Like most Richmonders, he liked to spend his summers on the river, not the James but the cleaner Rappahannock. But he could not ignore the six inches of raw sewage and thick black oil that coated his boat ramp just before his grand opening, or the fact that boats could be launched only on the few days when the river was relatively clean so that the paint would be neither stained or stripped off. Cleaning the river became his passion, and he took his slide show of sewage and wildflowers (eventually he catalogued 471 species from the James) on the garden club-school circuit, talking to anyone who would listen. He even filed suit with Ralph Nader's Clean Water Campaign, forcing President Nixon to release billions of dollars already appropriated for sewage treatment plants; 17 billion dollars of that went to Virginia. Ironically, many years later the city would condemn his property, claiming that the sewage treatment plant would someday need expanding. The city assigned no value to the boat ramp (appraised at almost half a million dollars), stating that no one "would want to launch a boat in a sewer." But the concern that Ancarrow had aroused--which would be taken up by others who found ways to get to the river--would not be easily silenced."
The site of Newton's old
factory can be found at "Ancarrow's Landing" on the James River
almost directly across the river from the Annabelle Lee. To reach Ancarrow's
landing by road, take I-95 to the Maury Street exit. Head east on Maury and
follow the road around the municipal sewage plant. Ancarrow’s Landing
is a boat landing and fishing spot that is one of the area’s most valuable
historic sites. It is the place where William Byrd is believed to have established
Richmond when he set up his trading post. Later, slave ships docked there
in the 1700s and 1800s. It became known as Ancarrow’s Landing because
it also was the home of Newton Ancarrow’s speedboat-manufacturing company.
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The 1957 Aquilifer |
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The 19?? Consul |
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