Lackey, Virginia

Lackey (also known locally in its heyday as "the Reservation") was a small unincorporated community near Yorktown in York County, Virginia, United States established primarily after the American Civil War.

Evidence from an oral history study suggests there was a small free people of color community in this area before the Civil 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.

[1] During World War I, the properties of many primarily African-American landowners along the former Yorktown-Williamsburg Road were taken to create a military reservation now known as Naval Weapons Station Yorktown.

Assisted by self-educated farmer John Tack Roberts (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.