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Welcome to Tuckahoe!
The prominent Randolph family first began cultivating this property with the labor of enslaved Africans in the early 1700s. At one point Tuckahoe consisted of some 25,000 acres scattered along the James River and its tributaries; tobacco was the main cash crop, then wheat but the foundational assets were enslaved people and land. The Plantation has been owned by 5 families since it was built in 1733: The Randolphs sold the plantation in 1828 to the Wights. Afterwards, the Allens farmed it until the end of the 19th century when the Coolidges (descended from the Randolphs) bought it at a bankruptcy auction. The Thompson/Krusen family purchased it in 1935, during the great depression.
Route 288 was originally planned to run through Tuckahoe, but in1969, Tuckahoe was designated a National Historic Landmark because of its historic and architectural significance, and the property was saved from a highway’s intrusion. The Baker/Thompson’s 3rd generation currently live in the main house.
The current owners Acknowledge that the historic buildings and grounds here exist as they do today only because of the labor of enslaved people on land stolen from native people, and strongly condem all systemic forms of oppression that developed as a result of this tragic chapter in American history. This Nation’s Founding Fathers had high ideals, and a flawed worldview. This nation that they established with the declaration that “that all men are created equal,” was build on the backs of enslaved people, and we still have a long way to go aligning those ideals with our reality.
