The Tennessee Century Farms program, created in 1975, recognizes the contribution of families across the 95 counties of the state who have owned and farmed the same land for at least 100 years. Now overseen by the Center for Historic Preservation at Middle Tennessee State University, the program collects and interprets the agrarian history and culture, culminating in a book and traveling exhibit: Tennessee Agriculture: A Century Farms Perspective.
The Century Farms program has 1,507 certified farms. Of that number, 157 are 200 years old, 634 are 150 years old, and 716 are over 100 years old. The oldest Century farm in the state is Masengill Farm in Sullivan County, founded in 1775, owned by Sally Masengill-Bell.
The requirements for qualifying as a Century Farm are: (1) the farm has been in a family continuously for at least 100 years; (2) the farm has at least 10 acres of the original founders’ land; (3) the farm produces at least $1,000 of farm income annually; and (4) at least one owner is a resident of Tennessee.
Two special categories of Century Farms are Pioneer Century Farms and African American Century Farms. Pioneer Century Farms date to the mid-1700s when settlers, whose families originated in Scotland, Ireland, England, Wales, Germany, Switzerland, and France journeyed to lands west of the Unaka Mountains to establish farmlands on the “frontier.” These lands had been the hunting and dwelling places for centuries by Native American tribes, who established governments such as the Watauga Association (1772).
African American Century Farms were founded by emancipated slaves and their children. Freedmen had to overcome many obstacles to own land and it could take many years for freedmen to save enough money to purchase land. There are eight of these Century Farms across Tennessee, established between 1876 and 1906.
Counties around the mid south are abundant in Century Farms. Shelby County has a dozen, including Barret Farm in the unincorporated community of Barretville, dating to 1850. Bragg Brothers Farm, in northern Shelby County, dates to 1836. North of Rosemark, the Castles-McCalla Farm was established in 1875. The Macedonia community is home to Maplecrest Farm, established by William Battle III and Chloe Boddie Battle in 1846. Rembert Place Farm is the oldest Century Farm in Shelby County, established by Andrew Rembert in 1824. The original farm consisted of 2,000 acres, located ten miles north of Memphis and known as Seven Hills Plantation, and the plantation house was constructed in 1844.
There are over twice as many in Fayette County (250), and visitors to Somerville, TN may know of the Armour Farm, established in 1836 by William, an Irish immigrant from South Carolina, and Isabella Armour. The Bejach Farm, four miles north of Moscow, was started by Henry Benton Dillard in 1840 with 166 acres of farmland. Eleven miles northeast of Somerville lies the Boswell Farm, started in 1876 by William and Catherine Wirt Cannon with 178 acres, soon developing it to over 2,200 acres and nicknamed “Hatchie Hall.” In Williston, the Crawford Farm dominates. Job and Sarah Garrison Walker acquired 388 acres and founded a rural trade center. Owning and operating a steam-powered water system, a cotton gin, general store and post office, the family established the town of Walker Station, which eventually became Williston. Attracted by the simplicity and low cost of silk production, Job was one of many small farmers in Tennessee who planted mulberry groves and began nurturing cocoons in the 1830s. By the 1840s, Tennessee farmers produced over 1,000 pounds of silk, 90 percent of which was produced in East and Middle Tennessee. By 1850, Tennessee led the nation in the production of cocoons. Soon thereafter, however, great numbers of silkworms began dying and farmers abandoned their mulberry groves and cocoons, and by 1860, the silk industry in Tennessee vanished as quickly as it had appeared. In 1834, Edmund and Elizabeth Veneable Taylor established Sylvan Ridge Farm nine miles northeast of Somerville. Sylvan Ridge Farm is noted for its three intact antebellum buildings: the “Sylvan Ridge” home, a two-story frame structure built in 1832; the “Sylvester” home, also a two-story frame building constructed in 1850; and Taylors Chapel Church, a brick building that dates to 1847. Teague Farm dates to 1870 when Carroll and Nancy Teague began farming 106 acres, raising corn, cotton, dairy cattle, and mules.
There are 22 Century Farms in Haywood County, including two in the Booth family – one on Melvin’s side of the family and one on Becky’s side of the family. In 1894, following the death of her mother, Blanch G. Booth, one of eight children, inherited 84 acres which had belonged to her parents, Albert C. Booth and Sally Wattridge Booth.
The other Century farm in the Booth family is on Becky’s side: the Stewart Farm, established in 1882 by James Clancy Dezern, a German immigrant who came to Haywood County from North Carolina. He married Josephine McCoy and the Dezerns had seven children. Their daughter Hattie inherited the farm in 1930 and, with her husband Floyd Stewart, they continued to farm the land. One of the couple’s five children, Floyd Dezern “Pete” Stewart became the third generation to own the farm. After Pete’s death, his wife Maxine, Becky Booth’s mother, became the owner.
Milton and Becky Booth and son Bradley are proud to have two century farms in their family, both passed down through the female sides of the family. They raise cotton, soybeans, hay and Quarter Horses.
In the Jackson, TN area, Scott Woolfolk is the fifth generation farming his family farm. Originally called Walnut Flat Farm, folks now generally refer to it as Woolfolk Farm, where Scott has 1,000 acres in pasture and hay, raising beef cattle, and another 350 acres in row crop – rotating corn, cotton, and soybeans. He primarily grows SunGrazer Bermuda hay, since around 2002, and has had great success with it. A new venture this year is growing Alfalfa hay.
“We’ll be cutting hay through October and hope to get 4 to 5 cuttings a year from it. We plan to cut it every 30 days,” Scott said.
Scott’s dad John is the fourth generation of family farmers. He recently retired from the Farm Bureau and has moved back to the farm, helping Scott with whatever farming project he has going.
Their family farm was established in 1865 when William and Eliza Williams Person purchase 1,062 acres and established Walnut Flat Farm northeast of Jackson, TN. After the Civil War they eventually expanded their farm to 1,357 acres, managing cotton, corn, hay, swine and cattle herds. In 1870 William and two sons donated land for the site of the Claybrook Cumberland Presbyterian Church. In 1875 they gave land for the construction of the community’s black Methodist Church.
Daughter of the original owners, Susan Elizabeth Pearson inherited 153 acres of her parents’ land, and married John George Woolfolk. The present family home, called Walnut Flat, dates to 1870.
In middle Tennessee, Williamson County is home to 33 Century Farms. Beech Hill Farm, near College Grove, became the new home for former North Carolina residents William and Mary Harris Ogilvie in 1796, near a spring that still supplies the farm with fresh water. The farm’s 1830 slave quarters and 1850 stone springhouse are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Bond family own two Century Farms: Blue Grass Farm, dating to 1825 where John Bond operated a blacksmith shop as early as 1797, and Bond Farm in Bethesda community, dating from 1870.
South of Franklin lie two Cedar Lane Farms, established in 1896 by James Walker on 187 acres. North of Franklin lies Creekside Farm, which founder John McEwen used as an experimental farm for breeding cattle. Two mid-nineteenth century buildings at Creekside include a two-story house, built in 1835, which exhibits Greek Revival detailing, and the springhouse of native limestone dates to 1866. Longview Farm was founded by one of the few women landowners in the 19th century. While women worked the farms alongside men and often inherited farms, property laws did not favor female ownership. In 1897, Jennie Brown Pointer became the owner of about 200 acres in southern Williamson County near the Maury County line. The Luster family farm represents the dream of freed slaves who wanted to own land and to see their descendents have the opportunities so long denied them. Grant Luster, Sr., the son of an ex-slave, purchased a farm of just over 80 acres south of Franklin in November 1906. Maple Crest Stock Farm played an important role in the development of the Tennessee Walking Horse. The farm dates to 1870 and was originally located on 125 acres of land southeast of Franklin. William Harris Ogilvie, the farm’s founder, was best known as a leading breeder of Tennessee Walking Horses. A founder of the Tennessee Walking Horse Association in 1934, he bred the show horses until his death in 1977. South of Franklin, Maplewood Farm dates back to a Revolutionary War Land Grant, which Daniel Brown of South Carolina gave to the children of his sister, Elizabeth Brown Lee of Salisbury, Connecticut. The deed was registered in Williamson County in 1810. Maplewood is one of Williamson County’s oldest Century Farms. Its nineteenth century buildings include the Maplewood plantation home, constructed in 1836, its log kitchen, and the farm's original log cabin, built as a one room cabin in the 1790s and converted to a two-room dogtrot cabin in the 1800s. Maplewood is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The strength and courage of Tennessee farm wives who worked family farms in the absence of their husbands and sons during the Civil War is recorded in the history of the Jenny-Ben Farm in Greene County in east Tennessee.
Established in 1848, John W. Farnsworth and his wife Elizabeth Parman raised wheat, corn and livestock on their 257 acres. Another Century Farm founded by a woman is Milburn Farm, when in 1882, Sarah Ann Creamer Milburn purchased a farm of 84 acres in the Milburnton community. Her husband, the Rev. William Elbert Milburn had died in 1877, and Sarah was left to raise their three children.
Scruggs Homestead Farm in Greene County is only one among several Century Farms that identifies the founder as an avid horse racer. In 1799, Richard Scruggs of Virginia established the Scruggs Farm on 265 acres, where he owned one of the county’s first horse racing tracks. Family tradition boasts that “Andrew Jackson raced horses on this farm.”
There are many more Century Farms in Tennessee to explore. Find more information about them at: http://www.tncenturyfarms.org/ Descriptions of farms located in each county are available.
The Century Farms program has 1,507 certified farms. Of that number, 157 are 200 years old, 634 are 150 years old, and 716 are over 100 years old. The oldest Century farm in the state is Masengill Farm in Sullivan County, founded in 1775, owned by Sally Masengill-Bell.
The requirements for qualifying as a Century Farm are: (1) the farm has been in a family continuously for at least 100 years; (2) the farm has at least 10 acres of the original founders’ land; (3) the farm produces at least $1,000 of farm income annually; and (4) at least one owner is a resident of Tennessee.
Two special categories of Century Farms are Pioneer Century Farms and African American Century Farms. Pioneer Century Farms date to the mid-1700s when settlers, whose families originated in Scotland, Ireland, England, Wales, Germany, Switzerland, and France journeyed to lands west of the Unaka Mountains to establish farmlands on the “frontier.” These lands had been the hunting and dwelling places for centuries by Native American tribes, who established governments such as the Watauga Association (1772).
African American Century Farms were founded by emancipated slaves and their children. Freedmen had to overcome many obstacles to own land and it could take many years for freedmen to save enough money to purchase land. There are eight of these Century Farms across Tennessee, established between 1876 and 1906.
Counties around the mid south are abundant in Century Farms. Shelby County has a dozen, including Barret Farm in the unincorporated community of Barretville, dating to 1850. Bragg Brothers Farm, in northern Shelby County, dates to 1836. North of Rosemark, the Castles-McCalla Farm was established in 1875. The Macedonia community is home to Maplecrest Farm, established by William Battle III and Chloe Boddie Battle in 1846. Rembert Place Farm is the oldest Century Farm in Shelby County, established by Andrew Rembert in 1824. The original farm consisted of 2,000 acres, located ten miles north of Memphis and known as Seven Hills Plantation, and the plantation house was constructed in 1844.
There are over twice as many in Fayette County (250), and visitors to Somerville, TN may know of the Armour Farm, established in 1836 by William, an Irish immigrant from South Carolina, and Isabella Armour. The Bejach Farm, four miles north of Moscow, was started by Henry Benton Dillard in 1840 with 166 acres of farmland. Eleven miles northeast of Somerville lies the Boswell Farm, started in 1876 by William and Catherine Wirt Cannon with 178 acres, soon developing it to over 2,200 acres and nicknamed “Hatchie Hall.” In Williston, the Crawford Farm dominates. Job and Sarah Garrison Walker acquired 388 acres and founded a rural trade center. Owning and operating a steam-powered water system, a cotton gin, general store and post office, the family established the town of Walker Station, which eventually became Williston. Attracted by the simplicity and low cost of silk production, Job was one of many small farmers in Tennessee who planted mulberry groves and began nurturing cocoons in the 1830s. By the 1840s, Tennessee farmers produced over 1,000 pounds of silk, 90 percent of which was produced in East and Middle Tennessee. By 1850, Tennessee led the nation in the production of cocoons. Soon thereafter, however, great numbers of silkworms began dying and farmers abandoned their mulberry groves and cocoons, and by 1860, the silk industry in Tennessee vanished as quickly as it had appeared. In 1834, Edmund and Elizabeth Veneable Taylor established Sylvan Ridge Farm nine miles northeast of Somerville. Sylvan Ridge Farm is noted for its three intact antebellum buildings: the “Sylvan Ridge” home, a two-story frame structure built in 1832; the “Sylvester” home, also a two-story frame building constructed in 1850; and Taylors Chapel Church, a brick building that dates to 1847. Teague Farm dates to 1870 when Carroll and Nancy Teague began farming 106 acres, raising corn, cotton, dairy cattle, and mules.
There are 22 Century Farms in Haywood County, including two in the Booth family – one on Melvin’s side of the family and one on Becky’s side of the family. In 1894, following the death of her mother, Blanch G. Booth, one of eight children, inherited 84 acres which had belonged to her parents, Albert C. Booth and Sally Wattridge Booth.
The other Century farm in the Booth family is on Becky’s side: the Stewart Farm, established in 1882 by James Clancy Dezern, a German immigrant who came to Haywood County from North Carolina. He married Josephine McCoy and the Dezerns had seven children. Their daughter Hattie inherited the farm in 1930 and, with her husband Floyd Stewart, they continued to farm the land. One of the couple’s five children, Floyd Dezern “Pete” Stewart became the third generation to own the farm. After Pete’s death, his wife Maxine, Becky Booth’s mother, became the owner.
Milton and Becky Booth and son Bradley are proud to have two century farms in their family, both passed down through the female sides of the family. They raise cotton, soybeans, hay and Quarter Horses.
In the Jackson, TN area, Scott Woolfolk is the fifth generation farming his family farm. Originally called Walnut Flat Farm, folks now generally refer to it as Woolfolk Farm, where Scott has 1,000 acres in pasture and hay, raising beef cattle, and another 350 acres in row crop – rotating corn, cotton, and soybeans. He primarily grows SunGrazer Bermuda hay, since around 2002, and has had great success with it. A new venture this year is growing Alfalfa hay.
“We’ll be cutting hay through October and hope to get 4 to 5 cuttings a year from it. We plan to cut it every 30 days,” Scott said.
Scott’s dad John is the fourth generation of family farmers. He recently retired from the Farm Bureau and has moved back to the farm, helping Scott with whatever farming project he has going.
Their family farm was established in 1865 when William and Eliza Williams Person purchase 1,062 acres and established Walnut Flat Farm northeast of Jackson, TN. After the Civil War they eventually expanded their farm to 1,357 acres, managing cotton, corn, hay, swine and cattle herds. In 1870 William and two sons donated land for the site of the Claybrook Cumberland Presbyterian Church. In 1875 they gave land for the construction of the community’s black Methodist Church.
Daughter of the original owners, Susan Elizabeth Pearson inherited 153 acres of her parents’ land, and married John George Woolfolk. The present family home, called Walnut Flat, dates to 1870.
In middle Tennessee, Williamson County is home to 33 Century Farms. Beech Hill Farm, near College Grove, became the new home for former North Carolina residents William and Mary Harris Ogilvie in 1796, near a spring that still supplies the farm with fresh water. The farm’s 1830 slave quarters and 1850 stone springhouse are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Bond family own two Century Farms: Blue Grass Farm, dating to 1825 where John Bond operated a blacksmith shop as early as 1797, and Bond Farm in Bethesda community, dating from 1870.
South of Franklin lie two Cedar Lane Farms, established in 1896 by James Walker on 187 acres. North of Franklin lies Creekside Farm, which founder John McEwen used as an experimental farm for breeding cattle. Two mid-nineteenth century buildings at Creekside include a two-story house, built in 1835, which exhibits Greek Revival detailing, and the springhouse of native limestone dates to 1866. Longview Farm was founded by one of the few women landowners in the 19th century. While women worked the farms alongside men and often inherited farms, property laws did not favor female ownership. In 1897, Jennie Brown Pointer became the owner of about 200 acres in southern Williamson County near the Maury County line. The Luster family farm represents the dream of freed slaves who wanted to own land and to see their descendents have the opportunities so long denied them. Grant Luster, Sr., the son of an ex-slave, purchased a farm of just over 80 acres south of Franklin in November 1906. Maple Crest Stock Farm played an important role in the development of the Tennessee Walking Horse. The farm dates to 1870 and was originally located on 125 acres of land southeast of Franklin. William Harris Ogilvie, the farm’s founder, was best known as a leading breeder of Tennessee Walking Horses. A founder of the Tennessee Walking Horse Association in 1934, he bred the show horses until his death in 1977. South of Franklin, Maplewood Farm dates back to a Revolutionary War Land Grant, which Daniel Brown of South Carolina gave to the children of his sister, Elizabeth Brown Lee of Salisbury, Connecticut. The deed was registered in Williamson County in 1810. Maplewood is one of Williamson County’s oldest Century Farms. Its nineteenth century buildings include the Maplewood plantation home, constructed in 1836, its log kitchen, and the farm's original log cabin, built as a one room cabin in the 1790s and converted to a two-room dogtrot cabin in the 1800s. Maplewood is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The strength and courage of Tennessee farm wives who worked family farms in the absence of their husbands and sons during the Civil War is recorded in the history of the Jenny-Ben Farm in Greene County in east Tennessee.
Established in 1848, John W. Farnsworth and his wife Elizabeth Parman raised wheat, corn and livestock on their 257 acres. Another Century Farm founded by a woman is Milburn Farm, when in 1882, Sarah Ann Creamer Milburn purchased a farm of 84 acres in the Milburnton community. Her husband, the Rev. William Elbert Milburn had died in 1877, and Sarah was left to raise their three children.
Scruggs Homestead Farm in Greene County is only one among several Century Farms that identifies the founder as an avid horse racer. In 1799, Richard Scruggs of Virginia established the Scruggs Farm on 265 acres, where he owned one of the county’s first horse racing tracks. Family tradition boasts that “Andrew Jackson raced horses on this farm.”
There are many more Century Farms in Tennessee to explore. Find more information about them at: http://www.tncenturyfarms.org/ Descriptions of farms located in each county are available.
