Who is Newton Ancarrow?
Published on May 16th, 2019 by Judy Thomas
A blog series presented by Plants of the James River Project
Blog 2: Who is Newton Ancarrow?
Newton Ancarrow was born in 1920 and lived near, and played around, the James River as a child. He later graduated from the University of Richmond with degrees in chemistry and physics, and used this training in WWII, and later as a rocket engineer. This latter job fit one description of Newton to a tee, that is, he had “a need for speed.” In 1959 he bought a boat building business in NJ and relocated it to an area in Richmond along the James now called “Ancarrow’s Landing.” This area was previously notorious as a landing area for slaves to be sold in Richmond. It was also a site of the Confederate Boatworks. What could Newton Ancarrow possibly have to do with native plants? Blog 3 will tell you!
Read more in this series:
Blog 1: What in the World is the PJRP?
Photo Credit to the VCU Libraries in conjunction with the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden and the VCU Rice Rivers Center.
The Ancarrow Digital Archive at https://labs.library.vcu.edu/ancarrow/