Chippokes Plantation

Chippokes Plantation is a 1,403-acre tract on the south bank of the James River in Surry County, Virginia, across from Jamestown Island. Bounded by College Run, Lower Chippokes Creek and Cobham Bay, it is now part of Chippokes State Park and still includes working pasture and cropland. The district holds thirty-seven buildings and structures, among them two unaltered plantation houses, one from about 1829-30 and one from about 1860, along with 19th-century outbuildings, slave quarters, and early-20th-century farm buildings and sharecroppers' dwellings. The plantation takes its name from a Native chief friendly to the English settlers. Its land was patented in the 1620s to Captain William Powell, later passed to Governor William Berkeley and then the Ludwell family, and was bought by new owners in 1837. Thirty-four identified archeological sites, four from the 17th century, may reveal early colonial life. The property was listed for its early settlement, its surviving 19th-century architecture, and its gardens and river views.