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 This house was built in the 1940s on the George Neal Jackson farm. It replaced an older two story home. When the house was built, the farm's tenant was the Tice Herrmann family. (Contributed photo) [Click to enlarge] |
"The farm has always been such a wonderful part of our life. We just grew up thinking 'farm,'" she said, although she pointed out that no family members have ever lived on the farm. "On Sundays we would drive out and visit with the farm families."
In November, the farm, now owned by Stone and her sister, Jane E. Stonner, was named a Saline County Century Farm for being in the same family for more than 100 years.
Harriet Virginia Parkhurst Jackson(Contributed photo) [Click to enlarge] |
George Neal Jackson(Contributed photo) [Click to enlarge] |
Together, Jackson and Smith established the Smith and Jackson Mercantile business, which, according to a bill of sale Stone has from April 5, 1881, shows they sold "Staple and Fancy Groceries. Queensware, Wooden and Willow Ware."
Eventually, Smith sold his share and returned to Kentucky, but Jackson's business continued to prosper, according to Stone, and he became involved in many Miami activities, including the Miami Methodist Church, the Masonic Lodge and Miami school board. He was also vice president of Miami Savings Bank.
Stone has also found documentation showing Jackson gave loans to several people who were struggling in the time after the Civil War.
"There was one lady where he had loaned $1,000 to several times and she paid it back," she said. "I thought 'Good for you, Grandfather.' He was helping people in a rough time."
Jackson had been raised on a large farm in Kentucky, and it was in 1895 that his "farming instinct came out again," according to Stone. He purchased 97 3/4 acres from George W. Scott. In 1896, he purchased 85 3/4 acres from Will H. Kinley. The farms were part of the original farm of George Rider, who had divided the farm among his many heirs.
"So Grandfather got into the (livestock) business with his budding farm and he got Oscar Chilcott as a tenant," explained Stone.
"He had never lived on his farm," she said, adding that he would ride his horse out each day from their home in Miami to look things over.
Next, Jackson purchased the Miami Livery Stable.
"He was just a pretty busy person with his farm and the mercantile business," she said, adding that an article in a Saline County history book said he sold his enterprises in 1900 and devoted himself to farming.
He still stayed very busy.
"At this period of time, right after 1900, the world was recovering and these fat cats in New York and Chicago were finding out about this good beef that was out here in the west -- and the steaks -- and they wanted that good food on their tables, so it made a market for livestock," she said.
Her grandfather made a connection with the Chicago stockyards, becoming a commissioned salesman.
"So what they did was they would contact Grandfather, and they wanted so many head of cattle, and Grandfather would go around to the neighbors if he didn't have it, and he would buy up their cattle until he got enough to ship the cattle," she explained.
By 1907, Jackson had purchased most of the Rider estate from his heirs.
"So by 1907, he had restored the original Rider farm except for 40 acres, and we never have acquired that 40 acres," she said. He also purchased land from the Curzon and Bishop estates, to form a farm of more than 400 acres.
George and Harriet had three children, Emma Elizabeth, who died at 3 months; Charles Thomas; and George Neal Jr. Although the family lived in Miami, the boys were required to spend summers on the farm, living with the tenant family, to help with the work.
"Grandfather wanted the boys to learn, and a little hard work wasn't above them," she said.
They eventually attended the University of Missouri College of Engineering. After an "adventure" in the gold fields in Alaska, George Neal Jr., Stonner and Stone's father, returned to Miami where he established his own business, a garage. He married Ethel Susan Elizabeth Fisher, who was from another "old" Miami family.
"When Dad came back he needed help with the farming. So my dad used his engineering, and cars were very popular, so he built a garage and helped his dad with the farm operations, but they had tenants," Stone said.
Her grandfather died of cancer before she was born.
"Then everyone relied on dad to see that everything moved on and to take care of Grandmother." Her grandmother died when she was in high school.
Through the years several tenants lived on the farm, which first had an older two-story house and two large barns. In the 1940s, a more modern house was built. The Tice Herrmann family was the operators at the time.
Before that family, the Roll Coleman family worked the farm, and Herbert Malan also worked the farm for a while. For the past 42 years, according to Stone, the Joe Clements family of Miami has operated the farm, with the third generation now farming the land.
Stone has many, many childhood memories of the farm.
"The farm had also been so important. I can remember as a little girl this cold, cold weather and they would butcher. We weren't out on the farm watching them, but they would bring in these hams, shoulders and sausage and Dad put up these big boards on our back porch which was enclosed but not heated," she said, adding that her mother would fry the sausage and the tenderloin with her help and then can the meat. "It was so good." She can also recall the smells from the brown sugar and salt cures used on the meat.
Although she doesn't have any pictures of wheat threshing, she can still picture it in her mind.
"When they used to thresh wheat, it was such fun to go out and watch them. They used the horses and everything and had the big haystacks and the huge diesel, and it made such terrible noise and these big, wide old belts they had hooked up," she said.
While she was growing up, the farm had Hereford cattle and Duroc hogs, and most of the grain raised was used to feed the livestock.
"My brother at one time had a calf in 4-H from off the farm and we had to go out and see the calf every day or so. There was a big scale and we had to weigh the calf and see if it gained weight or not," she recalled.
After their father's death in 1966, Stone and her sister purchased the share of their brother, Charles N. Jackson, who lived in Colorado until his death in 1995, and formed a partnership. They sold the livestock to settle the estate.
"We decided row crops were the big thing, so we reestablished farming practices," she said. Since then they have done extensive work to the farm, building terraces, tiling, removing brush, old buildings and fences.
They have added ponds and waterways, she said, following good conservation practices. While walking the farm with Wayne McReynolds of the Natural Resource Conservation District, she was told her grandfather had tiled the farm using clay tiles, which were probably dug by hand.
"So Grandfather, I found out, was a pretty progressive farmer," she said.
Stone, who had a successful journalism career as the assistant regional editor of TV Guide magazine in Atlanta, Ga., before coming back to the area to take care of her ailing mother, said they are very proud of their "century-old farm."
"As I grew older, I realized how important this was to my grandfather and grandmother. It established them as permanent people in a community, as people who were willing to help build the community," she said.
"That's one of the most wonderful things about the American people and the pioneers. They got out there and they just were not afraid to take a chance."
Contact Marcia Gorrell at marshallag@socket.net
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