To My Neighbors in New Kent and Charles City Counties,
Inquiries arise from time to time regarding the purpose of my sizeable purchases of land in New Kent County. You, as interested citizens, are entitled to understand my plans and I am quite willing to disclose them to you.
I have acquired to date roughly 5000 acres of central New Kent County centered on the intersection of I-64 and Highway 155. Originally, some of this acreage was intended to become part of a farm associated with a home my ancestors built nearby in the 17th century. In the years since 2012, as my land and historical building purchases built up far beyond original expectations, a Foundation was formed to own some and eventually all of my real estate acquisitions. Its name is the Tidewater and Big Bend Foundation and it is dedicated to acquiring, restoring, landscaping and furnishing ante bellum houses and properties in New Kent and Charles City Counties and one other area in Texas.
The Foundation’s operating goal is to help educate Americans on our history by introducing visitors to rural homes, farms and old lifestyles much as Williamsburg shows us a restored urban colonial environment. The Foundation hopes to play a small but useful part in reminding future visitors of our young nation’s distinguished heritage and the hard-won accomplishments of our ancestors. Naturally, this heritage includes all races, genders, income levels, free and enslaved persons, and social orientations that constituted our way of life before 1861. How far we get with all of this remains to be seen, but the much larger and infinitely more prestigious restoration of Williamsburg serves as a distant ideal.
You can recognize us today by sizable forest clearances on #155, #249, Olivet Church Road and Cumberland Road and by our distinctive white fences, historical markers and restored residences. We have three historical restorations carried out to date, we will add three more within a year and we seek further acquisitions.
On a personal note, responding to the most frequently asked question: no, I do not dislike trees! But historically, most of the Tidewater region was devoted to farms and pastures and we are required to be true to that landscape format for our properties. There is plenty of scope for forests in our anticipated outdoor designs along creeks, on slopes and irregular terrain, and as complements to restored and rebuilt structures. Meanwhile we are proud of what we are accomplishing and perfectly willing to clear vegetation out to the roadside so you are able to evaluate our progress. Just be patient with us please.
The Foundation is committed to conservation and restoration of the rural landscape and precluded from real estate development. I own acreage not yet in the Foundation but in general, as the founder of the Tidewater and Big Bend Foundation, I share its views. So do not expect shopping centers, convenience stores and truck stops from me. My personal convictions do not preclude real estate development in every aspect, but I am not engaged in this historical enterprise to make money.
What I do in that regard is own and operate JB Poindexter & Co., a 7000-employee business that mainly manufactures commercial trucks that you see on the roads every day. In Virginia, for example, we operate a million square foot facility in Danville that produces vehicles for UPS, Federal Express and other delivery and freight operators. We are an industrious and almost certainly essential component of the US economy.
I sincerely hope that this brief account satisfies your curiosity about what I am up to here and where we are going. Thank you for reading it and for any support you care to afford our activities in New Kent and Charles City.
John B. Poindexter
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