To retain their claim as descendants, the brothers Benjamin and Richard Cocke cleared and developed the area of Bremo Bluff around 1725. In 1808, John Hartwell Cocke II began building a plantation estate of three houses, which he named Bremo. He invested in the James River and Kanawha Company to develop a series of locks and canals that began operating around 1840 to improve river transportation. A boat wharf was built to accommodate the river traffic that became an important part of the local economy by the 1850s. However, a series of floods and the American Civil War brought an end to this era.