The Foy Family & Household
The Foy family — French Huguenots who came to the Albemarle region by way of Baltimore and settled in New Bern, North Carolina — purchased Poplar Grove in 1795 when James Foy, Jr. acquired the plantation and “lands of the sound” from the estate of Revolutionary leader Cornelius Harnett. The family owned the property from 1795 until 1971.
Across several generations, the Foys and the many Black families they enslaved — and who later remained as tenant farmers — were bound together in the daily life of a working coastal plantation. The current manor house, built circa 1850 by enslaved artisans, replaced an earlier homestead and stands today as a testament to those individuals.
Detailed family histories and the genealogies of the enslaved community are documented in our Research & Genealogy section.