Moseley is an unincorporated area in Powhatan and Chesterfield counties in the U.S. state of Virginia. It is located to the west of the metropolitan Richmond area.
Moseley, Virginia | |
|---|---|
 The 1891 Moseley Post Office on Moseley Road | |
  Moseley Location within the state of Virginia  Moseley Moseley (Virginia)  Moseley Moseley (the United States) | |
| Coordinates: 37°28′31″N 77°46′44″W / 37.47528°N 77.77889°W | |
| Country | United States |
| State | Virginia |
| Counties | Powhatan, Chesterfield |
| Time zone | UTC−5 (Eastern (EST)) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC−4 (EDT) |
| ZIP code | 23120 |
| Area code | 804 |
The United States Post Office for the community is located at 21431 Hull Street Road, with a ZIP code of 23120.[1]
Many upper-middle class communities have been built in this formerly rural area since the late 20th century, such as Magnolia Green, Summer Lake, Westerleigh and FoxFire. It is bordered to the east by the census-designated place of Woodlake.
History
editThe community was named for William Moseley, a major landowner who donated property in the late 19th century for a railroad station. It developed as a stop on the Farmville and Powhatan Railroad from 1891 to 1905, and then on the Tidewater and Western Railroad from 1905 to 1917.[2] It was also a stop on the Richmond and Danville Railroad, later renamed the Southern Railway (U.S.). It was absorbed by the Norfolk Southern Railway in 1982, which no longer stops in Moseley.
In the late 1800s some people would transfer between the two railroads here, although they had separate stations.[3]
In 1891, the train did not always stop. Staff used a railroad car on the Farmville and Powhatan Railroad, to drop off and pick up mail using the Mail on-the-fly technique. (This car was not designated as a railway post office. This hook and pouch system allowed crew on the train to drop off and pick up mail without the train slowing.[4]
The area was long devoted to agriculture. In the colonial period, tobacco was a commodity crop, a labor-intensive crop that planters cultivated and processed with the use of enslaved African-American workers. Soils became exhausted and mixed crops were introduced in the late 18th and 19th centuries.
References
edit- ↑ "Post Office™ Locations in ZIP 23120". Archived from the original on August 17, 2010. Retrieved September 16, 2010.
- ↑ "Virginia Landmarks Register". Virginia Department of Historic Resources. Retrieved May 16, 2016.
- ↑ Virginia. Railroad Commissioner (1893). Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioner of the State of Virginia. R.F. Walker, Superintendent Pub. Print. pp. xx–xxxi.
- ↑ United States. Post Office Dept (1891). Annual Reports. Report of the Postmaster-General. Miscellaneous Reports. pp. 822–823.
External links
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