For a brief historical sketch of each farm, click on the farm name.
The following map is for a general geographical understanding. It does not provide the specific locations of the farms because of privacy reasons.
Map courtesy of Carole Swann, Tennessee Department of Agriculture
Marshall Sartain
Located three miles northeast of Pelham, the Elk River Sartain Farm
contributed to the success of the Tennessee Farm Demonstration program of the
1930s. The property dates to 1846, when James and Rebecca Brown Sartain moved
from
James Sartain operated the family land until 1910. His
son, James Sartain, Jr. obtained the farm in 1912 and made many improvements.
Purchasing 143 acres of land, James, Jr., “cleared and drained” this property,
“tore down the old log house and replaced it with a two story frame house” and
“built three barns.” He and his wife Mary Hargis had eight children and the
family raised corn, hay, barley, oats, swine, cattle, horses and sheep. When
government officials established the Unit Test Demonstration Farm Program in
1935, they designated the Elk River Sartain Farm as one of their demonstration
centers.
In 1941, the current owners acquired the entire farm.
John, the founders’ grandson, was the manager and in 1976, Gene Myers worked
the farm, raising hay, corn, cattle and swine. Today, the owner is Marshall
Sartain.
James Burnett
The Farmers Alliance was the most significant agrarian organization of
the nineteenth century. Established in the late 1800s and early 1890s, the
John Burnett purchased 82 acres in 1870 and established
the Burnett family farm, which is approximately one mile east of Pelham.
Burnett and his wife Martha Jane Rust had nine children and managed a
diversified farm. The family raised cotton for clothing, corn, wheat, cattle
and swine for food and horses for transportation. A member of the Grundy County
Court, John also “helped build and maintain the early roads in the community.”
The second generation owner was Johnny Burnett and his
wife Jennie Wilson. By purchasing shares in the family farm from his brothers
and sisters and buying 36 additional acres of land, Johnny established a farm
of 152 acres. An active member of the Farmers Alliance, Burnett produced corn,
wheat, sugar cane, hay and livestock.
L. H. Burnett
Descendents of John Burnett also owned the L. H. Burnett
Farm, located one and a half miles east of Pelham. The current owners share a
common history with the Jim Burnett Farm, but their traditions add some
interesting details to the family’s history. For instance, John Burnett, a
local justice of the peace, designed his home with his duties in mind. “When he
built his new home,” the family remembers, “he left no connecting door between
the living room and kitchen. This was to protect the women folk of the family
from any contact by sight or sound with the persons” on trial before Squire
Burnett. The second generation owner, Johnny Burnett, operated a sorghum mill
and raised mules for sale at “Mule Day” in
In 1950, L. H. Burnett, a grandson of the founder,
acquired ten acres of original farm. He now manages 52 acres and his cousin
Gene Myers sharecrops the land, raising corn, wheat and soybeans. His wife
Gladys Burnett is the Pelham postmaster. Chairman of the Grundy
Thomas Layne Sissom
Four miles south of Viola is the Sissom Farm, established by William
Wooten in 1868. This property may date to 1816 but the documents on file are
vague and the family has designated the later date as most reliable. On his 137
acres, William practiced general agriculture and at one time owned 40 head of
swine, 45 head of cattle and 33 sheep. His son James B. Wooten acquired 55
acres of the farm in 1893. He married Eudora Winton and fathered four children.
Little is known about the farming operations during James’ ownership except
that he grew wheat.
The farm’s third owner was Charlie F. Wooten and his wife
Ethel Layne, who operated the farm through the middle decades of the twentieth
century. After Charlie’s death in 1966, Ethel managed the land for the next
seventeen years, growing hay and corn. In 1984, the farm acquired its current
owner, Thomas Layne Sissom, who is the founder’s great nephew. Sissom has a
sharecropping arrangement with W. B. Hoover and his farm yields wheat and
soybeans.
Charles Emmett White
Before the 1850s, Robert Gilbert White and Malinda Lowe
established the White Family Farm that is located in
In 1855, Charles T. White, the son of the founder,
acquired the land. Charles’s wife was Mary C. Elliott White, a descendent of
Scotch-Irish Elliotts who migrated from
Charles and Mary had eight children and their son Charles
Walter White became the next owner. During his ownership, a farm house was
constructed by slave labor. The clay for the bricks was dug from the red clay
banks on the farm and burned near the side of the house. While Charles managed
the farm, he also was a “local peddler who bought goods such as chickens, eggs
and butter from local households.” These items were then places in a horse
drawn covered wagon and taken to the Miners’ Company Store in Tracy City,
Tennessee. At the store, Charles exchanged his goods for such items as coffee,
candy, matches and sugar.
Charles’s son, Emmette Milton White, became the next
owner of the farm. During the 1930s, Emmette and his brother Homer established
a rock crusher on the land. They used the crusher to crush lime to sell to
farmers to build up the soil in the area. In 1967, fire destroyed the original
brick home. Some of the bricks from the original house were saved and the
bricks were used to construct a fireplace in the new home in 1981. Emmette and
his wife Elsie Dell Haynes had two children and their son Charles Emmett White
became the current owner in 1998.
Today, Charles, his wife Janice Burnett White and their
daughters cultivate corn, wheat, soybeans, hay and pasture. In addition, they
raise cattle and horses.