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Rodophil, Virginia

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Coordinates: 37°22′06″N 78°09′24.4″W / 37.36833°N 78.156778°W / 37.36833; -78.156778
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Rodophil, Virginia
Unincorporated community
Front of Ingleside, historic home located at 10920 Rodophil Road
Front of Ingleside, historic home located at 10920 Rodophil Road
Rodophil, Virginia is located in Virginia
Rodophil, Virginia
Rodophil, Virginia
Location within the Commonwealth of Virginia
Rodophil, Virginia is located in the United States
Rodophil, Virginia
Rodophil, Virginia
Rodophil, Virginia (the United States)
Coordinates: 37°22′06″N 78°09′24.4″W / 37.36833°N 78.156778°W / 37.36833; -78.156778
CountryUnited States
StateVirginia
CountyAmelia
Elevation
456 ft (139 m)
Time zoneUTC−5 (Eastern (EST))
 • Summer (DST)UTC−4 (EDT)
ZIP codes
23002, 23083
Area code804
GNIS feature ID1477694

Rodophil is a rural unincorporated community in western Amelia County in the U.S. state of Virginia. It is located in Leigh District[1] at the intersection of SR 616 (S. Genito Road) and the southern terminus of SR 620 (Rodophil Road). It straddles the border of ZIP codes 23002 (Amelia Court House, the county seat, 13 miles east by road) and 23083 (Jetersville, 8 miles southeast by road). Rodophil is served by Amelia County Volunteer Fire Department Company 5, in Paineville, 3 miles northeast. A portion of the segment of U.S. Bicycle Route 1 that runs southwest from Richmond follows SR 616 through Rodophil.[2]

History

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Name

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At least one 1820 map noted the hamlet as China Grove. Sometime thereafter, it was renamed in honor of Rodophil Jeter (1765-1843), for whose family nearby Jetersville was also named. Rodophil Jeter owned property in the area, and was a delegate to the state legislature in the early 1800s as well as a prominent figure in Amelia County government.[3][4] Variants (or possibly misspellings) of the name of the community in older sources include "Rhodophil"[5] and "Rodolphil".[6]

Early post office

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Rodophil had its own post office by 1835;[7][8] the building may have been located on Route 620 across from the entrance to Ingleside, just north of Route 616. Tens of thousands of such small rural postal facilities dotted the American countryside by the late 1800s, and Rodophil continued to be noted as a "post village" or "post-station" in gazetteers at the turn of the 20th century[9] and even into the 1920s.[10] The later references may have been dated, however, since most of these "fourth class" post offices were closed in the early 1900s after the advent of rural free delivery.[11]

Civil War

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During the final days of the Civil War, in the phase known as the Appomattox campaign, contingents of both Union and Confederate soldiers passed through the vicinity,[12] although no significant engagements are documented to have taken place at Rodophil itself. Some of the most desperate fighting of the war, however, occurred in and around western Amelia County, and the last major battle involving General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia was fought a few miles southwest of Rodophil at Sayler's Creek, on the border of Amelia and Prince Edward counties, on April 6, 1865. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9.

Rosenwald School

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Reed Rock School, built around 1923 or 1924, was among at least a dozen Rosenwald Schools constructed between 1917 and 1928 in Amelia County. The particular design for Reed Rock called for a 2‑acre campus with a building to accommodate one teacher.[13] It is unclear exactly where the structure was located, but modern-day Reed Rock Road (SR 621) runs in a broad arc just northwest of Rodophil. During the early 20th century, the Rosenwald project was a collaborative effort that constructed thousands of facilities across the South primarily to improve the education of African American children. After integration, the Rosenwald model became obsolete, and many former Rosenwald properties were demolished or sold.

Present-day Rodophil

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Ingleside (see photo), a house on Route 620 with connections to the Jeter family, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1997.[3]

In 2015 the Virginia Department of Transportation, at a cost of $2.3 million, replaced the bridge that had carried SR 620 (Stony Point Road) over the Appomattox River into Cumberland County. Located approximately 5 miles northwest of Rodophil, it had stood since about 1910, and was one of the last surviving one-lane steel truss bridges in the state.[14]

References

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  1. ^ "General Highway Map, Amelia County, Commonwealth of Virginia". Virginia Department of Transportation, Richmond. Reprinted by Vintage Aerial, Maumee, OH, 1993. Retrieved July 15, 2023.
  2. ^ "Official State Bicycle Map". Bicyling in Virginia, Virginia Department of Transportation. Commonwealth of Virginia: 2018. Retrieved July 26, 2023.
  3. ^ a b Janet G. Murphy. "Ingleside 1997 Final Nomination", page 6 et al. National Register of Historic Places, Virginia Department of Historic Resources. Retrieved November 15, 2021.
  4. ^ "Rodophil Jeter", A History of the Virginia House of Delegates, Virginia General Assembly, Virginia House of Delegates Clerk's Office. Retrieved November 15, 2021.
  5. ^ "Proposals for Carring(sic) the Mail: Special Offices", bottom of Column 5, Staunton Spectator–Extra, Staunton, VA, Volume 28, January 15, 1851. Library of Congress archive. Retrieved December 3, 2021.
  6. ^ "Executive: Post Office Department–Virginia", Official Register of the United States Civil Service Commission, September 30, 1841, page 181. Washington: W.M. Morrison. Retrieved December 4, 2021.
  7. ^ Virginius Cornick Hall, Jr. "Virginia Post Offices, 1798–1859", The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 81, no. 1, January 1973, page 87. Virginia Historical Society, Richmond. Retrieved December 4, 2021.
  8. ^ Table of Post Offices in the United States on the First Day of October 1846, page 187. Washington: John T. Towers, Printer, for US Post Office Department, 1846. Retrieved November 28, 2021.
  9. ^ Henry Gannett. A Gazetteer of Virginia, US Geological Survey, Bulletin No. 232, Series F: Geography, 40, page 128. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1904. Retrieved November 27, 2021.
  10. ^ Angelo Heilprin and Louis Heilprin, editors. Lippincott's Gazetteer of the World, page 519. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1922. Retrieved August 2, 2023.
  11. ^ Rural and Urban Origins of the U.S.Postal Service. Report Number RISC-WP-19-007, pages 6ff. Office of Inspector General, U.S. Postal Service. August 26, 2019. Retrieved August 7, 2023.
  12. ^ "From Richmond and Petersburg to Appomattox" (map), Historic Petersburg Foundation, Inc., Petersburg, Virginia. Retrieved November 28, 2021.
  13. ^ National Register of Historic Places Multiple-Property Documentation Form, "Rosenwald Schools", Virginia Department of Historic Resources, page 82. Retrieved December 14, 2021.
  14. ^ "Recently Completed: Route 620 (Stony Point Road) Bridge Replacement", Richmond Region: Projects, Virginia Department of Transportation, Nov. 23, 2015. Retrieved July 15, 2023.
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