Scottsville is a town in Albemarle and Fluvanna counties in the U.S. state of Virginia. The population was 566 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Charlottesville Metropolitan Statistical Area.

According to Scottsville’s website, the town “served as Virginia’s westernmost middle of giving out and commerce during the 1700s, when rivers were the primary means of travel in the new American wilderness.” During the late 18th and the 19th centuries attempts were made to add up navigability along the James, as capably as new central Virginian rivers. Part of this was the construction of a canal running vis-а-vis parallel taking into account the James west from Richmond. Scottsville was the largest harbor town along this route, called the James River and Kanawha Canal. The ultimate plan of this project was to be next to the Atlantic considering the Ohio River via the Kanawha River. These aims were not achieved, due to closure by the American Civil War and the efficiency of the railroads. It did however succeed in making Scottsville a busy, prominent town. In fact, thanks to a wagon road connecting Staunton to Scottsville, all of the agricultural profusion of the Shenandoah Valley poured into town en route to Richmond and the sea, thereby making Scottsville the largest grain make known in the state. Trade was disrupted like Union soldiers broke the canal works in the area. Then the train came, the tracks living thing laid directly on the towpath of the old canal, a monument to its demise. Eventually, the train too stopped taking passengers, leaving Scottsville a sleepy country town on a coal line.

Located close Scottsville, the Hatton Ferry serves as a seasonal crossing of the James River and has been the location of a ferry since the late 1870s.

Scottsville was the birthplace of Thomas Staples Martin, who served five terms as a Democrat in the United States Senate representing Virginia. Born at Scottsville in 1847, Martin served in the Confederate Army, then went on to practice law.