In 1873, a New Jersey timberman, David Steele, with financing from Baltimore interests, began a lumber business in Surry County, but went bankrupt a decade later. Baltimore investors Waters and Company incorporated the Surry Lumber Company in 1885. In 1886 it incorporated the Surry, Sussex and Southampton Railway, which delivered lumber to Scotland wharf on the James River (now the Jamestown Ferry terminal). The company (headquartered at Sedley, Virginia) and SS&S railroad grew, reaching their heyday around 1920. But the company did not replant after it cut the old growth pine, and found further logging in the area difficult after 1925.