Chippokes State Park

Chippokes State Park on the James River in Virginia blends recreation with a plantation landscape that reaches back to the Powhatan-era Quiyoughcohannock and the 1619 cession of their lands to English colonists. That year Captain William Powell received the 750-acre tract, which later passed through several prominent owners and was worked for nearly 150 years by enslaved labor under the absentee Ludwell family. In the 19th and 20th centuries, resident owners expanded and restored its houses and grounds, and the estate became a state park in 1970. Now one of North America’s oldest continuously farmed places, it also preserves farming, forestry, and enslaved people’s history through its museum and adjoining Walnut Valley Plantation.

Virginia · United States