Rocketts Landing


Rockett's Landing is a new urbanist neighborhood in southeastern Richmond, Virginia on the border of Henrico County, Virginia and the north bank of the James River. It was named after Robert Rockett, an 18th-century ferryman.
The neighborhood was originally a factory and water tower and has been converted into mixed-use development with brick streets. It will be the site of a future GRTC Pulse rapid transit station.

Civil War

In the American Civil War, and still a suburban hamlet of Richmond at the time, the northern fringes of Rockett's Landing were chosen to become one of the two sites in the Richmond area to serve as a Confederate Navy shipyard as compensation for the loss of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in May 1862, with yard installations eventually straddling both sides of the James River. During the remainder of the war, the yard serviced and built vessels for the James River Squadron, most notably its casemate ironclads such as, and. The yard ceased operations and was partially burnt by retreating Confederate troops, when Richmond fell to Union troops the next day on April 3, 1865, though the hamlet itself was spared according to the contemporary map, featured on the left.
When President Abraham Lincoln started his tour of the fallen city the following day, he came ashore at Rockett's Landing.