Henry Heth (businessman)


Henry "Harry" Heth was a Virginia businessman who was active in the late 1700s and early 1800s. He is most known for his famous Black Heath coal mines in Chesterfield County, Virginia. He was involved in this business from the late 1790s to his death.

Family and Early Life

The early years of Henry Heth are shrouded in mystery.
He was most likely born in the British Colony of Virginia around 1759 to 1772. There are many tales of how Harry Heth's early life, and by combining all of them one can arrive at a fairly accurate report.
One source says that Henry Heth came to Virginia from England in 1759 along with his brothers, William and John, and all three became charter members of the Society of the Cincinnati. Additionally, it states that Henry served in the American Revolutionary War and had a son, Henry, who served in the War of 1812. This subsequent Henry had a son named John. This source was written one hundred years after these men lived and was from information received from Stockton Heth, son of John Heth and grandson of Harry Heth. Another reference states "that John Heth emigrated from the North of Ireland in the earlier half of the eighteenth century" and "settled first in Pennsylvania not far from Pittsburgh". There are bits of truth in both of these documents and yet neither tell the full story.
Most of the story can be found in a history of the Heth family published in 1934. According to this history, Harry Heth was the son of a man named Henry Heth who was born in Ireland on November 16, 1718. Furthermore, Henry apparently "came to the colonies from Newgate Prison as an indentured servant". How he ended up in Newgate Prison in London from Ireland is uncertain.
Later, after he had immigrated to the New World, Henry Heth married Agnes McMachan around 1749 in Frederick County, Virginia. Agnes was from a family living in Frederick County. According to various record, he seems to have acquired land near Fort Pitt and when the Revolutionary War broke out, he was a captain of an independent company stationed near Fort Pitt.
In his will, dated March 30, 1793, Henry names his six sons: William, Andrew, John, Henry, Hervy, and Richard. He names none of his daughters, but he does name Gabriel Peterson as a witness and executor. Henry also indicates that some of his children are minors, so at least two children were born in or after 1772. A 1797 land document gives the birth order of Henry's sons living at that time: William, John, Harvey, Henry, and Richard. It appears that Andrew has died. Henry is also listed as having six daughters, among them Mary and Anne or Nancy. Henry and his sons served in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War and received numerous land grants for their service.

American Revolutionary War

Henry "Harry" Heth may have served in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. His service is obscured by several points. First, his father was named Henry and also served in the army. This senior Heth was the captain of an independent company stationed near Fort Pitt, Pennsylvania. Second, there was another Henry Heth who served as a quartermaster for a Virginia regiment during the war. Lastly, Harry may not have been old enough to be a soldier during the Revolutionary War. In a 1782 census of the city of Richmond, he is listed as being 18 years old. Heth married Nancy Hare in 1787 at age 23.

Business career

Regardless of whether he served in the Revolutionary War, it is certain that sometime in the 1780s Heth came to live in the Richmond, Virginia area. In 1795, along with John Stewart, Heth bought a 99.5 acre piece of land upon which the Black Heath coal pits were situated. This was to be the beginning of a 55 year association between the Black Heath pits and the Heth family. Heth began to improve the pits, which until recently had only consisted of shallow pits in the ground, until they were the largest coal pits in the United States. Such was the quality of the coal from Black Heath that President Thomas Jefferson ordered some to be used in heating the White House.
Harry Heth maintained offices in Norfolk and Manchester, where he engaged in the coal business. Heth owned several coal mines in the area now known as Midlothian in northwestern Chesterfield County. Colonel Heth participated in working the Railey family's coal pits and became the owner of the Black Heath coal pits. Colonel Heth owned slaves, and prior to the American Civil War, the mines were largely worked with African Americans, mostly slaves. Manchester, at the head of navigation on the James River, was the closest export port for Heth's coal.

Personal life

Harry Heth married Nancy Hare on November 10, 1787 in Richmond. Nancy was twelve years younger than him. They had the following eight children:
Harry Heth's son, Captain John Heth, who served during the War of 1812, inherited Black Heath, the family house along the Buckingham Road near the Black Heath mines. It was at this house that his grandson, future Confederate Major General Henry Heth was born in 1825, about four years after Colonel Heth's death in Savannah, Georgia in 1821.