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The replica bateau that has been on display in Jordans Point Park for many years will soon have a new home in Glasgow.
Glasgow Town Council, in a unanimous vote this month, agreed to take the replica of the bateau, a flat-bottomed boat which was primarily used to transport freight and cargo up and down rivers, including the Maury and the James, from Lexington during the 1800s.
The replica was built nearly 50 years ago and has long been on display under a pavilion at Jordans Point Park in Lexington. The city has plans to use the pavilion for public gatherings going forward, a goal that was included in the Jordans Point Park Master Plan. The bateau is currently at the old Virginia Department of Transportation property on Waddell Street.
“It was removed and we have made improvements to the pavilion so that it can be used for public gatherings as envisioned in the master plan,” Lexington City Manager Jim Halasz told The News-Gazette in an email last week. “Interest in the use of the area is very high and we have numerous requests for space in the pavilions.
“We would love to see the bateau go to Glasgow and we are very interested in seeing it in a good home,” he added.
Philip de Vos, a member of the board of the Miller’s House Museum which is dedicated to “interpreting the industrial and transportation history of the Lexington area,” reached out to Glasgow Town Manager Phillip Robi- nette about Glasgow taking the bateau, noting that the town has specific history with bateaux.
In January 1854, Frank Padget, a slave who worked on bateaux, led a rescue to save passengers from a canal boat that had become stranded in the James River due to flooding caused by heavy rains. Padget and his fellow rescuers saved dozens of passengers before Padget’s boat broke on the rocks while attempting to save the final stranded passengers. Padget drowned, but a memorial to him and his efforts that day sits in Glasgow’s Centennial Park today.
Robinette and de Vos brought the opportunity to take the bateau from Lexington to Town Council’s attention at its regular business meeting on Oct. 10, where Council voted unanimously in favor of bringing the boat to Glasgow.
“To me, it’s a great success, and it does kind of point to an important feature in state history,” de Vos told The News-Gazette last week. “He [Padget] was a resident of Rockbridge and the boat’s name … is ‘The Spirit of Rockbridge County.’ I think it’s important that the boat, because of its name and the fact that it has a history in Rockbridge County, it’s important that it not leave Rockbridge County. It looks like we’ve got a good resolution to this problem.”
Robinette told The News-Gazette that he is working on arranging transportation to bring the bateau to Glasgow, which he hopes will happen before the end of the year. He is also working on writing a grant to help cover the cost of building a shelter and platform to display the bateau in a park in town. The bateau is also in need of some repairs, so some of the grant money would be used to make those repairs.
“We’re looking at an opportunity to bring tourism [to Glasgow],” Robinette said.
