The following article "Dick Parsons: The Black Slaveholder" highlights the story of Richard Parsons (ca. 1790–1868), a black batteau and, later, canal boat captain. A "free man of color," Parsons owned several boats, slaves, and a small plantation near the headwaters of the James River in Rockbridge County. Although the picture of life in antebellum Rockbridge was quite different from that found east of the Blue Ridge in places like Buckingham and further downriver, the attached article about Parsons, published in The Southern Workman in 1885, provides a valuable glimpse into the work of boatmen along the James River in the first half of the 19th century and the experience of slaves and freedmen in that industry which was so vital to the economy of the region.

According to the article, Parsons "became a very skillful trader, carrying wood, grain, and all sorts of country produce from the settlements among the mountains to the lowland towns, buying in return groceries and manufactured goods for the country folks. In the course of time he came to own several batteaux and gained the confidence of the farmers and merchants for whom he acted as agent, large and valuable cargoes being constantly entrusted to the brawny boatman, who fearlessly encountered the rapids of the swift narrow river, on its course to the sea, and could not be outdone in shrewdness when brain instead of brawn was needed in the business.”

The Southern Workman was a publication of the historically black Hampton Institute in Hampton, Virginia. One of the university's most widely known and influential graduates was Booker T. Washington.