Partnership Would Add Life to Festival

The James River Batteau Festival, which wrapped up its 26th annual adventure down the river to Richmond over the weekend, received some welcome news earlier this month.

That news came from a City Council meeting at which the new executive director of Lynch’s Landing said she was interested in reviving the group’s old partnership with the festival. That would be a tremendous boost to the festival. At the same time, it would promote downtown Lynchburg and the historic James River.

Anna Bentson, who is in her second month as head of the downtown advocacy nonprofit, told the council she would like to a take a new look at her group’s association with the Batteau Festival. Up until several years ago, Lynch’s Landing organized a broader downtown festival that coincided with the batteau launch from Percival’s Island. That partnership ended in 2007 when the downtown group decided to focus on other projects.

When the first Batteau Festival left the Lynchburg riverfront in 1985, thousands of spectators gathered along the river in the area that is now the city’s public canoe launch. The festival increased in popularity to the point that batteau crews pitched their tents up at Point of Honor for the Friday night before the trip to Richmond began. Some years later, with the city’s help, a dinner was held at the Community Market on the eve of the Batteau Festival to honor the various crews that had come to town to pole their flat-bottomed vessels down the river.

It was a splendid time during which the city and the festival joined together to call attention to the days when the boats provided the transportation for goods such as tobacco and flour from the Piedmont to Richmond.

Councilman Turner Perrow brought up the subject at the meeting when he asked Bentson if Lynch’s Landing planned to renew its association with the Batteau Festival. She said she was aware of the past partnership and that she would like to renew the conversations in the future.

Perrow urged the group to take a new interest in the festival. “This is something that has been at the back of my mind for a long time,” he said, adding that he grew up along the river and has taken part in the festival for years.

“To me, personally,” he said, “that is something I would like to see Lynch’s Landing involved in and support.”

The James River Batteau Festival is an eight-day event that brings together recreated boats and crews for the 120-mile trek down the river to Richmond. The crews stop at river towns along the way to spend the night and hold mini-festivals at such long-forgotten places as Howardsville, Scottsville and Cartersville. Each evening is a celebration of the cultural heritage of the legendary river basin in music, song, dance and storytelling.

This year’s fleet of some 18 hand-made wooden vessels shoved off from Percival’s Island on June 19 with the crews dressed in clothing resembling that of the crews of boats that plied the river beginning in the early 1770s.

Some of the festivals downriver are actually larger than the one it left in Lynchburg, where it all began. Lynch’s Landing can change that by becoming involved once again to promote downtown and the history that has become an indelible part of it.