[3] The Virginia General Assembly passed laws to protect navigation on the James River and Appomattox.

In 1807, the company is allowed to sell bonds for one fourth of the expense of building the canal.

[5] Slaves enhanced the Appomattox River from Farmville over 100 miles to Petersburg with numerous wing dams to keep the flow high.

[2] A short distance from the Basin, connected a by carriage route, were deep water ports that allowed for transport of to goods to and from the Chesapeake Bay and beyond.

[4] Slaves on one plantation, including Sam White, inherited land from a repentant southerner, Richard Randolph, in 1810.

[6] In 1829 the Virginia General Assembly hired a public engineer to determine the possibility and cost of connecting the upper Appomattox River to the Roanoke River at the Mouth of the Staunton from the Appomattox past Farmville by canal or rail.

Epps Falls, at the Eppington Plantation, were deemed dangerous for passing boats by the Virginia General Assembly.

The General Assembly gave Archibald Thweatt, owner of Eppington, compensation from any damages but allowed the Upper Appomattox Canal company to build a dam and locks around the falls in 1819.

[8] In the 1830s Eppington plantation at Epps Falls on the Appomattox River had 100 slaves, a warehouse and a dock.

When coal was first mined at the Clover Hill Pits, in 1837, it was taken by mule, later by rail, to the docks at Epps Falls.

A boat that could carry seven tons of coal, made a four-day round trip to Petersburg for two dollars and thirty eight cents.

[5] During the Siege of Petersburg, in the American Civil War, there were not enough soldiers to block Union advancement in all places.

Hinton suggested that $600 was a reasonable rent to charge the mill owner, because there should have been a competitive bid allowed.

[14] After the Emancipation Proclamation and after the end of Reconstruction Era on April 2, 1877,the Virginia General Assembly approved the Virginia governor providing twenty to twenty five prisoners under convict lease to the Upper Appomattox canal company.

[15] Convict Lease was described by the writer Douglas A. Blackmon as "a system in which armies of free men, guilty of no crimes and entitled by law to freedom, were compelled to labor without compensation, were repeatedly bought and sold, and were forced to do the bidding of white masters through ... physical coercion.

The Farmville and Powhatan was connected all the way to Bermuda Hundred on the James River and Chester, Virginia, just north of Petersburg, in 1891.

The railroad was narrow gauge but could provide transportation for goods and people over a similar route as the canal in just four hours.

The railroads were pricing lower due to competition and made the trip in hours rather than days.