Mercer Hugh Cosby built this farmhouse in the 1880s on 52 acres, where he grew tobacco and maintained an orchard. The property remained in one African-American family from the late 1800s and passed to his youngest son, William, in 1952. William Darl Cosby Sr., after serving in World War II, became a prominent educator in Henrico County, working as a teacher and principal through school desegregation in 1969. Until his death in 2006, he was the curator of the Virginia Randolph Museum, a National Register Landmark.