Lackey (also known locally in its heyday as "the Reservation") was a small

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

near Yorktown in York County,

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

established primarily after the American Civil War. Lackey is now extinct as the properties were bought by the federal government in 1918 for use as a naval military installation.

History

Evidence from an oral history study suggests there was a small

free people of color In the context of the history of slavery in the Americas, free people of color (French: ''gens de couleur libres''; Spanish: ''gente de color libre'') were primarily people of mixed African, European, and Native American descent who were not ...

community in this area before the Civil War. Free African American families were established primarily by unions between white slave owners and African or African-American women during the colonial period, when the working class lived and worked together. From 1860 to 1870, the black population in York County doubled, due to slaves escaping to Union lines. The total population in the county was majority black, with a portion having gained freedom before the war. After the war, a number of freedmen remained, settling in and near what became called "the reservation" and then Lackey, along the Yorktown-Williamsburg Road. Several hundred African-American families lived here by the turn of the 20th century. They worked in farming and/or (and sometimes both) as fishermen and oystermen in the local waters.Bradley M. McDonald, Kenneth E. Stuck, and Kathleen J. Bragdon, ''"Cast Down Your Bucket Where You Are": An Ethnohistorical Study of the African-American Community on the Lands of the Yorktown Naval Weapons Station, 1865–1918''
1992. William and Mary College Occasional Papers in Archaeology, pp. 10-12, full text online at Hathi Trust During

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, the properties of many primarily

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...

landowners along the former Yorktown-Williamsburg Road were taken to create a military reservation now known as

Naval Weapons Station Yorktown Naval Weapons Station Yorktown is a United States Navy base in York County, James City County, and Newport News in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia. It provided a weapons and ammunition storage and loading facility for ships of the United ...

. Oral histories indicate that as many as 60 African-American families were displaced by the Navy, and many of these were said to own their land. Three churches also had to vacate the desired land. Assisted by self-educated farmer

John Tack Roberts John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second E ...

(born approximately 1860), who studied law and became a magistrate, many of the displaced residents of Lackey were able to obtain financial compensation from the government for their property. A number relocated to the community of Grove in nearby James City County. Others moved to Williamsburg, or Lee Hall. Many were unable to buy comparable areas with their compensation, and turned from farming to other trades. Another small community, also named Lackey, was later developed along the Yorktown Road a few miles away. However, the original Lackey is now considered extinct and one of the many lost towns of Virginia.

References

External links

Bradley M. McDonald, Kenneth E. Stuck, and Kathleen J. Bragdon, ''"Cast Down Your Bucket Where You Are": An Ethnohistorical Study of the African-American Community on the Lands of the Yorktown Naval Weapons Station, 1865–1918''
1992. William and Mary College Occasional Papers in Archaeology, full text online at Hathi Trust. Geography of York County, Virginia Ghost towns in Virginia {{YorkCountyVA-geo-stub

History

Further reading

References

External links