The name "Tuckahoe," meaning “it is globular," was a general term used by the Native Americans of the region when describing various bulbous roots which were used as food.

It was not until the early nineteenth century that Tuckahoe first became a semi-prominent part of the New York Metropolitan Area upon the discovery of vast, high-quality, white marble deposits near the Bronx River by Scottish businessman Alexander Masterson.

[5] In the 1840s, to serve quarry owners who transported marble to the city, the New York and Harlem Railroad opened two train depots in Tuckahoe.

The booming industry drew succeeding waves of German, Irish and Italian immigrant workers, and, after the Civil War, African-Americans who migrated from the South.

[12] The Nobel Prize winning scientists Gertrude B. Elion and George H. Hitchings worked there and invented drugs still used many years later, such as the cancer and autoimmune disease suppressant mercaptopurine.

Tuckahoe is bordered by the village of Bronxville to its south and the unincorporated portion of the town of Eastchester to the north and east.