"Business is Dangerous in the Extreme": The Use of Innovation to Manage Risk and the Failure of Henry Heth in the Early Virginia Coal Industry

[...]the development of internal improvements dominated Heth's business concerns.32 Most coal mined in Virginia was transported by boat to Richmond, either down the James River or the James River Canal. Despite trying numerous, relatively expensive attempts to hoist the vessel and its cargo of coal to the surface, Heth salvaged only a small part of the coal and the ship was a total loss.35 With so many difficulties involved with the transportation of coal, it should be no wonder that Harry Heth constantly sought to develop and employ new schemes to solve the problem.36 Transporting coal on the James River required too many expensive and damaging transfers between vessels. Because the region lacked an integrated or centralized transportation system, the first major undertaking involving transportation that Heth became interested in was the construction of a canal on his land south of the James River in the summer of 1810. [...]Heth and the other colliers of Chesterfield County asked the Virginia legislature to upgrade the region s transportation networks by exploring new options: the construction of canals. [...]the high price and poor quality of Virginia coal meant it could not compete.71 Virginia colliers like Harry Heth struggled to increase production, but raising coal amid plantations, as it turned out, did not serve the future of the trade well.