Skinquarter is an unincorporated town located off U.S. Route 360 in the western part of Chesterfield County in

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

. It is located on the headwaters off Goode's Creek and Skinquarter Creek which flow to different places on the

Appomattox River The Appomattox River is a tributary of the James River, approximately long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed April 1, 2011 in central and eastern Virginia, named for the ...

. The town was named by the early settlers for a spring nearby where the Native Americans would

skin Skin is the layer of usually soft, flexible outer tissue covering the body of a vertebrate animal, with three main functions: protection, regulation, and sensation. Other animal coverings, such as the arthropod exoskeleton, have different ...

and quarter (chop into four pieces) deer. The

Baptist Church Baptists are a denomination within Protestant Christianity distinguished by baptizing only professing Christian believers ( believer's baptism) and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches generally subscribe to the doctrines of ...

that bears the name "Skinquarter" was founded in 1778. The first building was close to the spring. The present church building is the third or fourth building to be occupied by the church but it has kept the name Skinquarter continuously. It was a stop on the

Farmville and Powhatan Railroad In 1886, Randolph Harrison, of the Virginia department of Agriculture, cited Cumberland Mining Company, stating that businessmen would soon open a hotel at Lithia Springs, Farmville, VA for people seeking the healing waters. The Brighthope railway ...

from 1884 to 1905 and then on the

Tidewater and Western Railroad The Farmville and Powhatan Railroad went bankrupt in 1905 and became the Tidewater and Western Railroad. The line survived until 1917 when it was pulled up and sent to France for the World War I effort. The Tidewater and Western Railroad carried ...

from 1905 to 1917. In 1926, a few years after the railroad was sold, a gas station for automobiles and store, Skinquarter Market, was built here, near the site of the Railroad Station that was about 1/4 mile up what is now Skinquarter Road. In 1891 the train did not always stop but a

railway post office In Canada and the United States, a railway post office, commonly abbreviated as RPO, was a railroad car that was normally operated in passenger service and used specifically for staff to sort mail en route, in order to speed delivery. The RPO w ...

, a mail car on the Farmville and Powhatan, dropped off and picked up mail using the Mail on-the-fly technique. This was a hook and pouch system that let the train drop off and pick up mail without slowing down.

References

{{Reflist Geography of Virginia