[5] Circa 1866, a witness at a U.S. Congressional hearing described Skipwith's Landing as being among the most sparsely populated sections of the state with no village or town in proximity.

[9] Skipwith's Landing was used as an anchorage and crewing site for gunboats during the American Civil War.

[10][11] The U.S. Navy also kept coal barges and eventually built a repair and carpentry shop there.

[13] Therefore, there were "hundreds of wood yards" along the Mississippi during the steamboat era, "one every several miles on the busiest sections of the river.

[15] After the war, Skipwith Landing's major municipal advantage was that it had a store that sold liquor.