Lawrence County

            Lawrence County was established in 1817 and its county seat is Lawrenceburg. The county has had some famous figures in its history such as David Crockett who served as one of the first commissioners and justices of the peace and James D. Vaughan, a publisher of gospel music. In addition, the county has had a history of immigration with many German Catholics coming to the area in the 1870s and the Amish settling in the county in the 1940s. Lawrence County has seven Century Farms and the oldest is the Alexander Springs Farm that was founded in 1853. For more information regarding Lawrence County, please go to the Tennessee Encyclopedia of History & Culture website.

For a brief historical sketch of each farm, click on the farm name:

Alexander Springs Farm

Beuerlein Farm

Carrell Farm

Crews Farm

Frank Neidergeses Farm

Old Lee Long Farm

Rocky Top Holstein Farm

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

Alexander Springs Farm

William Alexander

            The 14^th District of Lawrence County is home to the Alexander Springs Farm, a property whose history is closely tied to the Military Road, a major antebellum transportation route in southern Middle Tennessee. In 1853, Absalom and Ellen Fields Alexander established a farm of 1,015 acres, ten miles north of Lawrenceburg. The founders bought land that ran adjacent to the old state Military Road, which the region’s first telegraph wires followed in the 1840s. While an ideal location for a farm in peacetime, the Alexanders realized that troops traveling the road during the Civil War would bring certain destruction to their farm. Before hostilities began, the family dismantled their stage coach stand and several other buildings that stood along the Military Road and moved them three miles to the east. The farm escaped the ravages to war until 1864 when General Joe Wheeler’s raid against the Federal armies in September stripped the property “of all food, crops and livestock,” leaving the owner with “only one crippled horse.” Weeks later, a skirmish between the Confederate soldiers of General John Hood and Union occupation troops took place on the farm. The Military Road that had brought prosperity in peacetime brought “devastation” in wartime.

            Absalom and Ellen Fields Alexander raised seven children and their son Mack Keller Alexander obtained 329 acres of the farm in 1874. A magistrate for 27 years and a member of the county school commission and the county highway commission, Mack Alexander found it impossible to make the large farm profitable. Although he operated a diversified farm of corn, small grains, hay, cotton, sheep and cattle, and the Louisville and Nashville Railroad built through the farm in 1883, he decided to sell 269 acres of the property.

            Despite the farm’s reduced size, family members continued to till the land from the late nineteenth century through the twentieth century. Its advantageous location along the Military Road brought benefits in 1914 when the state constructed the county’s first highway along the old road. Fourteen years later, the farm obtained electricity.

            In 1965, William Fields Alexander, the founders’ grandson, received 60 acres. He managed a farm of soybeans, tobacco, cotton and corn until his death in January 1986. Today, a cousin, Douglas Skinner, owns the farm.

Beuerlein Farm

Charles Beuerlein

            The Beuerlein Farm is one of Tennessee’s best examples of the homesteading phenomenon of the late nineteenth century. Located adjacent to the town of Lawrenceburg, the farm dates to 1872 when Michael Beuerlein of Bavaria, Germany, acquired 160 acres through the Catholic Homestead Association. He immigrated to America in 1870 and moved to Ohio, where he met his wife Frances Renner. He and Frances “traveled to Tennessee in a covered wagon.”

            The Beurleins and their seven children grew a variety of agricultural commodities, including miles, small grains, wheat and corn. At one time, the farm expanded to 199 acres, but at a later date the family sold 104.5 acres. John A. Beurlein inherited the remaining acreage of 1912. Beuerlein, his wife Sophia Held and their eleven children were among the first “to grow strawberries for commercial use.” They also raised several different types of livestock, foodstuffs, alfalfa and cotton.

            In 1955, Charles C. Beurelein, the founders’ grandson, obtained 63 acres of family land. His family has farmed this property for the last three decades. In 1976, their crops and farm products were beans, hay, strawberries, corn, cattle, chickens, wheat, oats, cotton and swine.

Carrell Farm

Lester Carrell

            Seven miles west of Summertown is the Carrell Farm, established by S. A. and Mary Carrell in 1874. The Carrells, the parents of seven children, owned 450 acres and grew corn and small grains while looking after herds of sheep, cattle, swine and horses. Their son J. N. Carrell was the farm’s second generation owner. He and his wife Molly Frances had three sons. At harvest time, the family would cut the large wheat crop with hand cradles. Threshers would arrive “and stay two weeks or more to thresh the grain.”

            The founders grandson E. B. Carrell was the farm’s next owner and he cultivated 205 acres. Carrell altered the farm’s operations and began producing beef cattle, corn and soybeans. Together with his wife Elma he raised four children. In 1985, his sons Lester and Arthur inherited the farm. Lester lives on the farm and works its 205 acres, growing soybeans, corn and hay.

Crews Farm

Jeremiah Crews, Jr.

            The enduring nature of the farming landscape in Lawrence County is a part of the story of the Crews Farm, which is four and a half miles west of Lawrenceburg. Jonas and Eliza Helton Crews acquired 800 acres and founded the farm in 1865, the last year of the Civil War. Union sympathizers, the founders were natives of North Carolina. With their nine children providing much of the labor, the family produced corn, wheat and livestock.

            The second generation owners were Jeremiah Benjamin Crews and his wife Emma Blackwell. The parents of five boys, the Crews grew corn, cotton and wheat and raised sheep, hogs and cattle. A tornado in 1931 did considerable damage to the property and “blew the top story of the old home place away.”

            Jeremiah Benjamin Crews, Jr., inherited 100 acres in 1938. He has now retired from farming and leaves the property’s operation to his five children. Dorothy Crews Richardson and her family work the land, raising a herd of beef cattle. Although unoccupied for years, a large two-story brick house that dates to 1843 still stands on the farm. The Crews family points with pride at their management of this Lawrence County land. “The original lands,” Mrs. Richardson writes, “ran along Crowson Creek to the west of Lawrenceburg, gently rolling with beautiful stands of hardwood trees. The bottoms and more level lands were cultivated and it stands more or less as it was in the early 1900s.”

Frank Neidergeses Farm

Frank Niedergeses, Jr.

A native of Prussia, Frank Niedergeses, his wife Sophia and their children moved to Lawrence County from Cincinnati in 1871. They cultivated 188 acres and Frank operated “a tan yard where he tanned leather.” He also had the honor of presiding over “the first Parish meeting of the first Catholic Church in Lawrenceburg.”

 Frank Niedergeses, one of the founders’ nine children, inherited 150 acres of family land in 1918.  He and his wife Cecilia were the parents of seven children and the family worked together on the farm, raising corn, small grains, strawberries and livestock. One son, James D. Niedergeses, later became the Bishop of Nashville.

 In 1962, the grandsons of the founders inherited 128 acres to which they later added 900 acres of farmland.  Edward Niedergeses worked the farm raising wheat, soybeans, corn, hay, dairy products and beef cattle. The current owner is Frank Niedergeses Jr.

Old Lee Long Farm

Ronald Bonner

            Tennessee farm families that escaped the ravages to armed conflict during the Civil War often fell prey to unscrupulous vagabounds who took advantage of the chaotic legal system of the early post-war period. One such unlucky farm family was the Long family of Ethridge. Allen J. and Rebecca Ann Long acquired title to 138 acres in 1858 and established the family property, which is located five miles north of Lawrenceburg. The Longs, who were general farmers, operated a grist mill. They also owned a store which served as the local post office. Spared from the violence of the Civil War, the family suffered during the Reconstruction. Family tradition remembers that when a group of “carpetbaggers” demanded gold from the family store, a male family member refused to give up the money and the robbers “tied him to a tree and killed him.”

            In 1927, L. L. Long acquired 144 acres of the farm. In 1976, the family reported that Mr. Long, who still lives in the Ethridge community, “owns his own blacksmith shop-welding shop and works every day.” Although he was 80 years old at the time, he cultivated the annual tobacco crop, cutting, hauling and stripping the tobacco. L. L. Long and his wife Lillie Jones were the parents of four daughters and their daughter Betty Jean Bonner and their son-in-law Fay Bonner currently work the land, producing tobacco, corn, wheat, vegetables and livestock. Today, Ronald Bonner is the owner of the farm.

Rocky Top Holstein Farm

Bob Garner

Nickolas and Anna Bauer Oehmen established the farm with 272 acres in 1872.  The parents of fifteen children, the Oehmens raised corn, wheat, oats, hay, potatoes, cattle, and swine.  In about 1880, the family donated land for the construction of a public school for the children of the community. It operated until 1925.

 The founders left their farm to their thirteen adult children in 1915.  The children sold 128 acres but continued to produce foodstuffs, livestock, ducks and turkeys on the remaining acres.

 Bob Garner, the great grandson of the founders, obtained his first tract of family land in 1953.  He received additional acres in 1962 and 1968.  As of 1976, the Garners owned 184 acres and operated a grade A dairy with 90 head of Holstein cattle.