The tide mill is a two-story frame structure built after the American Civil War with a gable roof built on a narrow mole which separates a small lagoon or mill pond from the bay.

It replaced an earlier mill destroyed during the war at which, it is believed, that corn was ground for General George Washington's troops when they camped nearby.

The central portion of the house is a late 18th-century temple-form building fronted by a later Ionic order portico.

Captain Sally Louisa Tompkins, the famous woman Confederate officer, was born at Poplar Grove in 1833.

This article about a property in Mathews County, Virginia on the National Register of Historic Places is a stub.