Jolly's Mill Pond

On a quiet stretch of water just outside Williamsburg, recipes, archives, and heirloom crops are revealing stories that conventional history has overlooked. Dating back to the late 18th century, Jolly’s Mill Pond has become an outdoor classroom where Black, Indigenous, agricultural, and culinary histories are explored together around a shared table.

In the late 1700s, the pond and its dam were created to power a gristmill that served the surrounding community. Although the mill disappeared long ago, the landscape continued evolving through centuries of farming, recreation, and changing ownership. Rather than restoring the property to a single moment in time, current owners Bill and Angi Kane have embraced these layers, transforming Jolly’s Mill Pond into a place where visitors discover history through courses, tours, and, most importantly, the foods and drinks people enjoyed, from tea to bacon to barbecue.

That approach grew from the Kanes’ research into the property’s past. Historical records and archaeological investigations uncovered not only remnants of the original mill and dam, but also stories of people whose connections to the land had largely faded from public memory. Among them was Jeremiah Wallace, a Black farmer, real estate broker, and entrepreneur who bought the property in 1894. Discovering Wallace’s story transformed the way the Kanes interpreted Jolly’s Mill Pond, expanding it from the history of a mill into a broader story about land ownership, resilience, and the communities that shaped Tidewater Virginia. 

The Kanes’ discoveries shape everything from their cooking classes and farm dinners to workshops on native plants and regional food traditions. Attendees might sample heritage grains and teas (including yaupon, a significant Indigenous tea), prepare recipes like spoonbread and Johnny cakes, or learn how ingredients such as corn, beans, herbs, and sweet potatoes tell stories of migration, adaptation, and survival. Rather than presenting history as a sequence of dates, Jolly’s asks visitors to taste it, smell it, and walk through the landscape where it unfolded.