Brookberry Farm Tour

Saturday, April 25, I had the privilege of "touring" a major section of Brookberry Farm with Bo Gray and also Debbie McCann and her husband. Debbie is writing a book on the history of the farm. We are both fortunate enough to have been brought together by Bo at this time, as both of us should be able to pool our resources in researching various aspects of the history of the farm.

Debbie, by necessity, is focusing on just the farm. I understand that and support her efforts in that regard in order to get her book published. I am more interested in finding the land on which Sam and Lydia Harrison Stewart lived, died, and were buried. Before this is over with, I suspect I will end up mapping out the original owners of the entire Tomahawk Branch, aka Stewarts Branch, section of land. This region encompasses property as far north as Yadkinville Hwy (almost), lying between Olivet Church Rd and Robinhood Rd, and then as far south as where it feeds into Muddy Creek between Country Club Rd and Phillips Bridge Rd.

Saturday, we also had the privilege of meeting Lyons Gray and his family. Lyons is Bo's uncle, and one of the five sons of Bowman Gray Jr. Lyons was telling us how his father began buying the land around 1946, built the house in 1949, and they moved into the house in March of 1950.

We also discussed Nathaniel Lash and Aggie Brooks Lash and their slaves...

We then went down a path to the creek (one of the creeks), then back around to the north and west in the lower fields, eventually coming back to the gravel entrance from Ketner Rd, and back up the house. We took a few pictures and video footage, which I'll post later.

Lyons gave Debbie some names which we can use to look for the 1940s deeds. I'll refrain from posting that info here for now. I am scouring the Internet looking for anything and everything I can find on Stewart, Lash, Brooks, and any other name that comes up in the course of researching these farms (Stewart's farm and Brookberry farm). I will start posting those details in subsequent posts and will then begin to assimilate those findings into something more concise and to the point. This is a work in progress...