The Organization of the Farm

John Jay Homestead

John Jay began planning his farm soon after he amassed the 750 acres by inheritance and purchase in the 1780s.

In 1832, William Jay made several improvements to the Jay farm. He enlarged the cow barn, renovated the ...

The Farm Manager’s Cottage

John Jay Homestead

The brick cottage was built ca. 1800 for Jay’s first farm manager, Major Samuel Lyon. Lyon oversaw such daily activities on the farm as: ditching and draining land; building and maintaining fences; plowing, planting, and harvesting fields; ...

The Homestead Farm

John Jay Homestead

This property has seen many changes. Over 2,200 years ago, Native Americans lived and hunted here. As the family’s tenanted farm in the 1700s, it produced wheat, rye, corn, and other grains. After Jay’s retirement and the ...

The Animals of a Turn of the Century Farm

The animals of a turn of the century farm were very important to the self supporting farmer. We have tried to represent some of the more common animals found on the farm. We presently have sheep, goats, beef cows, dairy ...

The Higgerson Farm

The Battle of the Wilderness

Before you are the fields of the Higgerson Farm, one of only a few major clearings on the Wilderness Battlefield. On the afternoon of May 5, Union troops swept across this open space, bound for bewildering ...

The Civil War at Ferry Farm

George Washington's Ferry Farm, seen here from the opposite side of the river, was in the middle of the Union lines during the Battle of Fredericksburg in December 1862. On December 11th Union engineers began building a pontoon bridge at ...

Not So Little A Farm On the Prairie...

The agricultural censuses for 1860, 1865, and 1870 make it clear that J.B. Mahaffie had one of the most valuable farming operations in the township.

In 1865, J.B. owned 570 acres of land, with 240 of them enclosed by fence. The ...

Union Artillery at the Morris Farm

A point approximately 400 yards in front of you marks the center of a line of Union cannons positioned on the Morris Farm on March 19, 1865. These massed guns played a significant role in blunting the final Confederate attacks ...

The Old Farmhouse

This century-old farmhouse is one of the only reminders of the agrarian past of Eastport. Yet, in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, horse racing and farming were the economic mainstays. As late as 1798, there were only two buildings ...

The Doty Settlement / The Pioneer Farmstead

Side A: The Doty Settlement

As Oxford Township was developing in the mid-1800s, a cluster of farmsteads near its northern border was designated the "Doty Settlement." As was the custom, the community took its name from a prominent family in the ...