Every family has its ghosts – psychological or literal, pleasant or unpleasant.  Old Virginia families are no exception.  The Randolph family of Colonial Virginia helped shape the customs and politics of the colony and of Colonial America, but among the illustrious men and women it has produced were those sometimes involved in grave misdoings.  Given these, it’s no surprise that Tuckahoe the family’s only early home still standing on its original site, at 12601 River Road in Goochland County, houses both a ghost story and a verifiable, gory tale of intrigue. 

Tuckahoe, an American Indian name for an edible water plant and the name of the creek bordering the property, was the boyhood home of Thomas Jefferson (whose mother was a Randolph) from the time he was two until he was nine years old in1752, when his family returned to Shadwell in Albemarle County.

Present-day visitors to Tuckahoe see the one-room schoolhouse where young Tom received his first education, and students of architecture find design elements later incorporated into the interior of his beloved Monticello.

Although the property dates its settlement to 1714, it was Thomas Randolph’s son, William, who built the Tuckahoe mansion visited today, the first or north section being constructed in 1733. Walking down Tuckahoe’s “Plantation Street” with its original outbuildings — dairy and smokehouse among them — makes visitors aware of how independent a 17th- or 18th-century plantation was.   

By 1745, William and his wife, Maria Judith Page, had both died, leaving their three young children orphans. Before his death, William had named his good friend, Peter Jefferson, and Jefferson’s wife, Jane Randolph Jefferson (William’s cousin), guardians of his children.  To honor their obligation to see the Randolph children cared for, the Jeffersons moved their own family from their home, Shadwell, to Tuckahoe for seven years, until the oldest Randolph son, Thomas Mann Randolph, reached 12 and could care for the younger children and run the plantation.

A haunted past…

Those who tour the house (by appointment only), might not be among the fortunate few to see the ghost of Mary Randolph, but thanks to a spirited tour guide, Beth Roan, they might feel Mary’s presence as the resident ghost.  The ghost seen by a former Tuckahoe employee, as related by Roan, is one of Jefferson’s orphaned second cousins, Mary Randolph, grandmother of John Marshall, fourth Chief Justice of the United States.

Forbidden to marry the man of her choice, Randolph fled Tuckahoe with him but was forcibly returned, married off to a much older man and later became insane. 

Visitors should stroll the grounds and take the Ghost Walk – allegedly haunted by Randolph, the woman whom Williamsburg author L.B. Taylor has labeled “the unhappy bride of Tuckahoe.” The boxwood-lined path marks the grand dimension of the former boxwood maze.

For visitors who consider a ghost story unbelievable or too frivolous, take heart and wait for the true tale of Ann (nicknamed Nancy) Cary Randolph of Tuckahoe and Richard Randolph of Bizarre, near Farmville.  Powhatan County author, Ruth Doumlele, who lives not far from Tuckahoe, chronicled the infamous courthouse hearing in her nonfiction book released earlier this year, The Randolph Women…and Their Men.

At the 1793 hearing, the handsome, 23-year-old Richard Randolph was accused of murdering an infant born of his sister-in-law, Nancy Randolph, and said to have been his child.  The drama is replete with historical characters and images that give truth to the tabloid buzz of the times: A jeering crowd outside the courthouse; Randolph’s wronged wife, Judith (who might well have poisoned her husband three years later while blaming Nancy); John Marshall and Patrick Henry as two of the defense counsels; and testimony by Thomas Jefferson’s daughter, Martha Jefferson Randolph, on the hotly contested issue of whether her good friend and cousin, Nancy Randolph, had indeed been pregnant.

Other testimonies — of screams in the night, blood found on the pillowcase and on the stairs the next day, along with missing sheets and quilt and a “report that a birth had been disposed of on a pile of shingles” – heighten the drama portrayed in Doumlele’s history. In the account, “A midwife testified of examining the bed and finding appearances of a possible birth or abortion. ”

By the end of the hearing, Richard Randolph was acquitted, and he and Nancy did not have to suffer a trial, though Doumlele ends that chapter by quoting Martha Randolph’s letter to her father, who was in Philadelphia: ‘They have been tried and acquitted, tho their lawers (sic) gained more honour by it than they did.’”

Tuckahoe today

Though the manor house has no furnishings original to it, the home seen by visitors is the same one Jefferson saw when his family moved there in 1745. Tuckahoe has been privately owned and cared for by distant descendants of the Randolphs since 1935, when Isabel Baker, sister to Jessie Ball du Pont (a distant relative of George Washington’s mother), acquired it.  Majority owners today are Isabel Baker’s grandson, Addison B. “Tad” Thompson, and his wife, Sue, who raised their four children at Tuckahoe; and Tad’s sister and brother, Jessie Ball Thompson Krusen and William T. “Tee” Thompson III.

Tee Thompson, a principal in a local securities firm, has said he and his wife, Carey, never encountered a ghost when they lived at Tuckahoe from January 1970 to January 1975: “Every now and then there would be a light on in the attic that we knew we hadn’t turned on—  but we always felt welcomed and safe in the house, so if there was a ghost, it was a friendly one.”

Presently Tuckahoe boards horses, and Daniel Thompson, Tad and Sue Thompson’s younger son, raises poultry, grass-fed beef, lamb and honeybees.

If you go…

For information on Tuckahoe, go to www.tuckahoeplantation.com.
The immediate grounds are open to the public ($5), Mon.-Sat., 9 a.m. -5 p.m.; Sun., 12-5 p.m.  To schedule special events or tours of house, email info@tuckahoeplantation.com or call 804-971-8329.