My best guess is that most Gazette readers have visited the Blue Ridge Tunnel by now. The east portal of the passage is in Nelson County; the west is in Augusta County. But few people know that three of the four tunnels built for the Blue Ridge Railroad between 1850 and 1860 were located in Albemarle County. That’s because only one–the Little Rock Tunnel–is still in operation. Greenwood Tunnel closed in 1944. Brooksville Tunnel once passed through Bear Den Mountain, which Interstate 64 crosses as it descends east toward Charlottesville.
Now destroyed, Brooksville was especially worrisome for chief engineer Claudius Crozet; he described its massive construction difficulties 23 times in letters to the State of Virginia’s Board of Public Works. Though brief quotations from these missives have appeared in various articles over the years, longer excerpts have never been transcribed and published until now.
This four-part series offers abridged, pertinent selections about Brooksville Tunnel from Crozet’s letters. Accompanied by explanatory comments, the excerpts focus on what Crozet called “appalling dangers” at the tunnel, along with his use of enslaved laborers. It’s important to know that Albemarle County slaveholders held all of the documented men leased by the State of Virginia for forced labor on the railroad.
Author’s note: In most cases, my transcriptions reproduce Crozet’s exact spelling, punctuation, grammar, and strikeouts (for ease of reading, some dashes between sentences are omitted). I have inserted clarifying words in brackets and paragraph breaks when necessary. Please note that Crozet referred to Brooksville Tunnel as the “second,” “2nd,” or “middle” tunnel until late 1853. That year he named it after Brooksville, a former plantation house that still stands at the base of Bear Den Mountain. He also referred to the Blue Ridge Tunnel as the “main” tunnel.…