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Riddick’s Folly
Riddick’s Folly is an 8,000 square-foot, Greek Revival mansion with twenty-one rooms, built in the early 19th century. The Great Suffolk Fire of 1837 burned most of Suffolk, including a large number of buildings and homes belonging to Mills Riddick. Mr. Riddick was a lumberman and a prominent business man. with fourteen children. He built the new home following the fire, to house his large family. A Greek Revival was an anomaly in Suffolk, and such a large imposing one, earned it the name “Folly.” Mills Riddick only lived in the house for five years before dying in 1844. His son, Nathaniel, then lived with his wife and five children in the house.
During the Union occupation of Suffolk, the Riddick’s home became the Union headquarters of General John James Peck. The Riddick family fled to Petersburg. When the family returned home in 1865, it had been vandalized and stripped of most of the family’s possessions. One plaster wall on the third floor still has penciled messages written by Union soldiers and Confederate prisoners. The floor in that room is stained with blood.
Many personal possessions and period furnishings belonging to the Riddick families, have been found and returned to their home, which began restoration in 1980 as an historic house museum. The stories of the acquisitions are worth the trip! It’s on the National Register of Historic Places, Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission and Virginia Civil War Trails. The artifacts and furnishings, clothing, quilts and other textiles are truly amazing, and well worth your time for visiting. And the curator will be certain you are up close and personal! It was a great surprise to discover it’s the only house museum in Suffolk, and the only museum in the Tidewater area of early 19th century. I recommend it.