Knox County

Knox County was created from parts of Greene and Hawkins counties in 1792 by Governor William Blount during territorial administration. Knoxville is the county seat and is the headquarters of the Tennessee Valley Authority and home to the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The county also has the oldest historically black college in East Tennessee known as Knoxville College and the home of the historically significant dwelling of Governor Blount, a National Historic Landmark in the county. Knox County has eight Century Farms and the oldest is McBee Farm that was established in 1785. For more information regarding Knox County, please go to the Tennessee Encyclopedia of History & Culture website.

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

Green Acres Farm

McBee Farm

Murphy Springs Farm

Prater Farm

River View Farm

Shackelford Sons Farm

Spring Meadow Farm

Thompson 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

Green Acres Farm

Walter L. Carter

            The link between early transportation routes, farm location and the development of local commerce and industry can again be seen in the history of the Green Acres Farm, established by William Carter in 1803. William located his original 200 acres east of the Mascot community, at an advantageous site along the Nashville to Washington, D. C. road. The house that he built for his wife Ann Yale and their nine children also became a stage coach inn for travelers. Family tradition states that Andrew Jackson, on his inaugural trip to Washington in 1829, stayed there. Besides managing the farm and the inn, the Carters also owned an iron foundry in the early 1800s.

            In 1816, Winston Carter and James Madison Carter inherited an 872 acre farm from their parents. Winston later turned over his portion of the property to his brother and moved to Sevier County. James, a stagecoach driver, used his cash income to build a grist mill on the farm. In 1861, he willed the homeplace and land to his son Martin B. Carter, III.

            For the next 91 years, the land continued to pass through generations of the Carter family. The founder’s great great grandsons, Walter and William Carter, jointly inherited 350 acres of the family land in 1952. The farm has since been divided into two separate farms and Walter’s Green Acres Farm now has 240 acres. Walter and his nephew Stephen work the land, specializing in hay, cattle and tobacco production.

McBee Farm

Charles McBee

In 1785, Col. John Sawyers of Augusta County, Va., established a farm about 12 miles east of Knoxville. A veteran of the Battle of King’s Mountain, where he served in a regiment commanded by Capt. Isaac Shelby, Sawyers used his wealth and military reputation to gain political prominence in Knox County. He served as a justice of peace, a position appointed by Gov. William Blount in 1796. Sawyers also served as a militia commander and a Knox County representative in the Tennessee House of Representatives. Married to Rebecca Crawford, Sawyers was the father of 10 children.

            In 1831, one of the sons, William Sawyers, inherited 333 of the family land and by the following year, 1832, he had built the first portion of the extant family home. Although later remodeled in the 20th century, the dwellings retain several original features, especially the original hard-carved walnut stair rail of the staircase. According to a survey of extant Knox County architecture, it may have been the first Greek-Revival influenced dwelling in the county and was probably one of the finest frame houses built in the county before 1850.

In addition to farming, William was a miller and had a gristmill that he operated just east of his house from about 1840 to 1945. He wed Elizabeth Cassady and they had seven children.

            The third owners of the farm were Nancy Ellen Sawyers and husband G. C. McBee. McBee was locally noted as a Greek and Latin scholar and served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. In 1890, the couple’s daughter, Sallie Bell McBee, became the owner. Allie McBee’s capable management of both the land and mill kept the farm in operation during learn years and provided the framework of 20th century improvements and modernization by son Walter and  grandson Charles McBee.

            Sallie’s son, Walter McBee, eventually became the sole owner of the property in the 1930s. He was the first in the family to embrace the progressive agriculture movement and left his mark on the landscape. Accepting the advice of extension agents, he planted burley tobacco and built an extant burley tobacco barn. He later launched the family’s dairy business in the 1930s and modernized the family home in 1957. At that

time, Walter was planning for his retirement as a farmer and as a rural mail carrier for 30 years. The remodeling of the circa-1890 kitchen wing into a modern kitchen, utility room, bathroom and garage later was cited in the January/February 1961 issue of The Business of Farming as a model example of modernizing farm living.

            After Walter McBee retired from active farming, son Charles McBee began managing the property. As a graduate of the agricultural program at the University of Tennessee, Charles was eager to implement new farming ideas and expand the farm’s dairy production. He worked with advisers from the University of Tennessee Extension Service, and then in 1966 the McBee Farm became one of the first six family farms in Tennessee to become part of the UT-TVA Rapid Adjustment farm-demonstration program. The program used computers to better monitor production costs and outcomes. Charles eventually built on his successful experience with the program to become an acknowledged leader of the dairy industry in Tennessee.

In the late 1970s, McBee became board chairman of the American Dairy Association in Tennessee. By the 1980s, he served on the boards of the Knox County Farm Bureau and the Knox County Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Committee and was the president of the Knox County Farmer’s Co-op. Today, Betty McBee Sloan, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Walter McBee and sister to Charles, lives in the 19th century farmhouse, her brother noted.

Murphy Springs Farm

 Kevin P. Murphy
John P. Murphy
Mary Workman 

            Just one year after Tennessee became a state, Robert Murphy purchased a farm in the Grassy Valley area of central Knox County.  Robert and his wife, Martha McNeil, were the parents of Polly, John, Alexander, William, James, Elizabeth, Maria, Patsy, Harriet and Hugh.  In these early years of settlement, the family built a cabin and cleared land for fields for crops of corn, potatoes, hay, flax seed, flour and cotton. Robert also donated land for the establishment of Murphy’s Chapel, a Methodist congregation.

            In 1850, William and Hugh Murphy became the second generation to own the farm.  Hugh married twice, though his first wife, Sarah White, was the mother of his seven children.  Hugh served as the banker for the neighborhood and also was a teacher at Fancy Hill School.  The house he built in 1841 still stands and is in the process of being nominated to the National Register of Historic Places.

            Hugh’s second wife Dicey LaRue Murphy and his children, Robert Fillmore Murphy, John Rush Murphy and William Alanzo were the next owners of the property. Although Hugh gave the farm to all of his children, these were the ones who chose to continue to farm the land.   This generation of Murphys provided land for the Corinth Methodist Church and for the Powell Valley Railroad Company to construct a railroad line.

            The farm’s owners have, over the years, been active in education, businesses, civic groups, and churches, as well as agricultural organizations.  For example, Robert M. Murphy Sr. was the first Agricultural Extension Agent for Knox County and was instrumental in bringing the Farm Bureau to Knox County.  Alvin R. Murphy, who worked for Wallace and Tiernen, invented the first chlorinator.   He was also instrumental in the formation of Hamilton National Bank and Holston Hills Country Club.

            The farmstead has many historic structures and buildings that were built in the nineteenth or early twentieth centuries including a smoke house, spring house, wash house, wood shed, chicken coop, barn and cottage. For about twenty years, Joe Mitchell has worked the farm, raising primarily cattle and hay. A seven acre field fronting the farm is used by the East Tennessee Draft Horse and Mule Owner’s Association.  With historic equipment drawn by mules and horses, they plow and plant the field in the fall and then use a combine to harvest the oats in the spring.  The family reports that a number of onlookers always gather to watch the mules and horses at work.  Kevin P. Murphy, John P. Murphy, and Mary Workman are among several family members that own that farm at present, but are the only ones that reside in Tennessee.

Photo (top left) : A view of the farmhouse in 1895.

Photo (top right): A present day view of the farm house on the Murphy Springs Farm.

Photo (bottom): The smokehouse on the Murphy Springs Farm was built during the late nineteenth century and was used for smoking meats until the 1950s.

Prater Farm

Elsie L. Prater

The Prater Farm shares a large part of its history with another Knox County property, River View Farm which was certified as a Century Farm in 2005.   These farms are part of over 1000 acres purchased in 1801 by Benjamin Prater.  He and his wife, Nancy Lane, had seven children and raised cattle, corn, and wheat for food, horses for farm labor and transportation, and sheep for food and clothing.  Their son, Samuel, was the next generation to own the farm in 1851, and his son, Alexander, the third generation of the family to farm the land.

             As the Praters continued to farm the land throughout the nineteenth and into the twentieth century, William Hugh Prater acquired the property around 1936.   While the Tennessee Valley Authority flooded much of the region, the family reports that William Hugh Prater, who died at the age of 95 in 2003, loved his land and refused to sell it to TVA.  Under William’s ownership, the farm produced cattle, sheep, hay, wheat, corn and watermelons, goats, tobacco and pigs. He and his wife, Lorene Lox Prater, had three daughters, Elsie, Adriance (Guider), and Martha (Webb). 

In 2002, these siblings, who are the great, great great granddaughters of the Benjamin and Nancy Lane Prater,  acquired about 360 acres of the acreage.  Elsie reports that they  have been active members in the Farm Bureau for many years, and today they raise cattle, milk goats, hay and horses.  A nineteenth century log house, smokehouse, and several barns remain on this farm which their ancestors founded more than two centuries ago.

River View Farm

William Lafayette Williams

            Benjamin and Nancy Lane Prater founded the River View Farm, which is four miles west of Concord, in 1801. The Praters owned well over 1000 acres and they produced the traditional farm products of East Tennessee: cattle, corn, and wheat for food, horses for farm labor and transportation, and sheep for food and clothing.

            The parents of seven children, Benjamin and Nancy willed the farm to their son Samuel Prater in 1851. In turn, Samuel, at an unspecified date, deeded the property to his son Alexander L. Prater. The farm continued to be transferred through the hands of different generations of the family for over 100 years. Little else changed in the farm’s history until the era of the Great Depression. By the 1930s, tobacco cultivation had become part of the farming landscape. Then in the 1940s, the Tennesee Valley Authority acquired much of the farm for a reservoir. Today, Fort Loudon Lake covers most of the original River View Farm.

            William L. Williams, in 1972 and 1973, acquired 60 acres of the farm, together with a one-fourth interest in another 166 acres of the original family land. He is the founders’ great great great grandson and as of 1976 he raised beef cattle, tobacco and hay on his property.

Shackelford Sons Farm

Charlotte H. Shackelford
Karen L. Shackelford Hodge
Scott Monroe Shackelford

In 1899, George David Shackelford and his wife Martha E. Hickman Shackelford, purchased 55 acres, the beginning of a farm that would eventually exceed 200 acres and support cattle, hogs, donkeys, horses, and chickens in addition to crops of wheat, corn, and tobacco.  Prior to 1919, a community store located on the farm beside the “buggy road” offered eggs and produce for purchase or barter. 

George and Martha’s son, John Monroe Shackelford, acquired the interests of his seven siblings in 1945.  He and his wife, Nona Maude Sherrod Shackelford, continued to raise wheat, tobacco, beef cattle and corn.   Mrs. Shackelford was an active member of the Carter Home Demonstration Club in the 1940s and 50s.  Their son, John Monroe Shackelford, Jr., participated in 4-H Club and FFA during his school days and became owner of the farm in 1999.  His widow, Charlotte H. Shackelford and her children, Karen L. Shackelford Hodge and Scott Monroe Shackelford, currently own the farm. Scott Monroe Shackelford, great-grandson of the founder operates the 120 acre farm, raising Angus cattle and hay.

Photo: Aerial view of the Shackelford Farm in 2003.

Spring Meadow Farm

James T. Bailey

            Bordering the northwest corner of Sevier County and the southwest corner of Jefferson County, Spring Meadow Farm dates to 1842, when Reverend David Adams acquired 42 acres of land. He later expanded his farm substantially by purchasing 170 acres. Married twice, Adams fathered fourteen children and his daughter Amanda Adams Bailey and her husband Joshua Curtis Bailey obtained 100 acres of the original farm in 1867. Joshua raised sheep and practiced general agriculture, producing barley, fruit and dairy commodities. To prevent soil erosion of his land, he planted orchard grass, seeds of which he sold as far west as Arkansas. A trustee for the Methodist Episcopal Church South at Strawberry Plains, he also was a member of the faculty at Strawberry Plains College.

            James T. Bailey, Sr., the founder’s grandson, received title to 126 acres of the family land in 1910. Active in the Strawberry Plains Methodist Church, he “was highly respected in the community” and was “a hard working family man.” James diversified the farm by cultivating tobacco and by beginning a small dairy.

            In 1964, James T. Bailey, Jr., inherited the farm. He presently breeds registered Hereford cattle and grows tobacco, hay and garden vegetables. Like his father and grandfather, James has served in several lay positions at the Strawberry Plains Methodist Church. He also was the president of the Knox County Farm Bureau for 26 years. Married to Kathleen Loftis, he has fathered four children who each share ownership in the farm.

Thompson Farm

James P. Thompson

            Progressive farming ideas and techniques have shaped the Thompson Farm of Knox County into one of the region’s most modern dairy businesses. Boston and Mary Zachary Damewood, who purchased 200 acres of land ten miles north of Knoxville in 1845, began the farm as a general agricultural operation. The parents and their eleven children tilled most of their land in corn, wheat and hay. “In the springtime they drove their cattle to Cades Cove for pasture” and “in the fall they would drive them home again.”

            In 1897, Cleo Damewood inherited the farm from her parents. She married Alex F. Thompson and they raised six children. The family grew corn, barley, wheat and hay and raised swine, cattle, chickens, ducks and geese. Model progressive farmers, the Thompsons “always tried to work with the (agricultural) extension department to try new ideas and share the results of the same. This farm has been a test demonstration farm and many local groups as well as foreign visitors have toured the farm and home.”

            William Paul Thompson, the founders’ grandson, inherited 194 acres of the property in 1942. In 1976, William shared the ownership of the farm with his son James P. Thompson. Managing a large dairy operation, with over 100 Holstein cows, James and his boys also cultivated tobacco, hay and silage. Today, James P. Thompson owns the farm.

Photo: The large dairy complex indicates the Thompson's farming success over the last 100 years.