Chippokes Plantation State Park, Surry, Virginia

Planning this trip

I chose Chippokes Plantation State Park in Surry, Virginia, as a focus for the first half of this summer’s camping trip. The park is rich in history, with a working farm, a river, and an agricultural museum to explore – more than the average state park. As a horse-crazy young girl, I’d inhaled Marguerite Henry’s “Ponies of Chincoteague” series. Wouldn’t it be fun to take a day trip to nearby Assateague Island to see the ponies inspiring those stories? And the Jamestown Settlement Museum is a short ferry ride across the James River, another day trip opportunity. 

Exploring new interests is one of the many luxurious benefits of being (kinda, sorta) retired. I’ve found work in gourmet mushroom farming, puppetry, wine touring, and as a ghost tour guide. Camping at a history-rich state park like Chippokes is a natural choice given this year’s retirement gigs. Offering history tours of downtown Tampa and showing kids Florida farm life at Cracker Country Museum making butter, candles, and rope has deepened my appreciation for history in general. Cracker Country is a four-acre living history museum on the Florida State Fairgrounds comprised of 13 original structures built in Florida between 1870-1912.  

About Chippoke State Park

Chippokes was donated to the state of Virginia in 1967 by Mrs. Victor Stewart. Mrs. Stewart and her husband purchased Chippokes Plantation in 1917. They lived here until 1967, when Mrs. Stewart donated the plantation to the Commonwealth of Virginia. Her donation came with the requirement that the land be used to establish a museum of Virginia’s agricultural history. Chippokes has been a working farm since 1619. Long-time Virginia farmer Mac Berryman and his son manage the farm, growing cotton, peanuts, soybeans, wheat, barley, and rye. 

Slave labor

Once a plantation reliant on slave labor, on the official website Virginia State Park officials have renamed the park simply “Chippokes State Park.” I found it challenging to locate the actual building where slaves lived. On the official tour of the mansion, or “big house” as the master house on southern plantations was typically referred, I asked the Surry County volunteer tour guide with a family history stretching back generations about slave labor used on the plantation. She hesitated before commenting, “Slaves were needed because there weren’t enough local people to operate the plantation.” Her tour avoiding the topic of slaves seemed a stark contrast to the presentation I experienced at the Jamestown Settlement Museum, a short ferry ride from Chippoke across the James River. I plan to delve deeper into the museum’s detailed account of Virginia’s enslaved African Americans and indigenous populations in a future post.

In a conversation, the next day with Jim, one of the maintenance workers who is a recent transplant from Ohio, says he’s an outsider among a tight-knit community of people who trace their family lineage far into the past. He’s learned to tread lightly on the topic of slave labor.

Chippokes Plantation State Park is underfunded and heroically held together by volunteers and part-time staff. The agricultural museum is decently well organized to enjoy seeing the farm equipment used at Chippokes during its 400-year history. Everyone I encountered was kind and did their best to make my stay enjoyable. Nevertheless, I was happy to leave, I could feel the ghosts of the past, and it was not a pleasant feeling.

Who planned this trip?

The dominating question during my stay at Chippokes was how to survive the heat. Like many Virginia state park pools, the pool has been closed for years. It’s a funding issue, says a park staffer. The river is muddy and unattractive as a swimming option.

Wifi is terrible in the campsite area, disrupting my morning study rituals and yoga sessions. It took me a few days to figure out I could be comfortable at the “big house,” setting up my chair beneath a shade tree to take advantage of the wifi.

I’ve made a significant miscalculation in planning this trip with my sweet new pop-up camper to get out of the Florida heat. I try to remind myself that being on a learning curve is okay. My husband and another close friend encouraged me to not be so hard on myself and to view this as a first-time “shake-out” trip to iron out problems for next summer’s trip. But the heat is sucking the joy out of this trip.