Sequatchie County

            Sequatchie County was established in 1857 and its county seat is Dunlap. One of the prominent natural resources that the county has had in its history is coal mining. Companies such as the Chattanooga Iron and Coal Corporation and the Southern States Company operated and employed many residents of the county during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Railroads have also been significant in the county’s history with the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway line that provided transportation and shipping services. Sequatchie County has two Century Farms and the oldest is the Gray Farm that dates before 1850. For more information regarding Sequatchie County, please go to the Tennessee Encyclopedia of History & Culture website.

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

Corine Johnson Farm

Gray Farm

Map courtesy of Carole Swann, Tennessee Department of Agriculture

Corine Johnson Farm

Zachariah Taylor Barker

            The nineteenth century Middle Tennessee farmer who practiced general farming often became a dairy producer in the early twentieth century and then became a livestock breeder in the 1960s and 1970s. The Corine Johnson Farm, established by John A. Heard in 1860, reflects this basic agricultural pattern. The farm originally consisted of 250 acres near the mouth of the Big Brush Creek in Sequatchie County. Throughout the Civil War, Heard’s property suffered from looting and vandalism, but Heard recovered from these depredations and operated a profitable farm of corn, wheat, beef cattle, chickens and hay until 1879. In that year, his grandson Thomas Barker received title to the entire farm. Thomas married Mary Austin and fathered four children. Little else is known about this period of the farm’s history.

            In 1903, the daughter of John Heard, Emeline Heard Barker, and her husband Burl Bennett Barker, Sr., obtained the property. They were the parents of ten children and under their ownership the farm yielded corn, hay, cattle, poultry and swine. The land next passed to Burl B. Barker, Jr., the founder’s grandson, in 1927. Burl, like many progressive farmers of the 1920s, began a dairy operation. He and his wife Flora had four children and in 1941, 85 acres of the family land passed to their daughter Corine Barker Johnson, the great granddaughter of the founder. The Johnsons worked the property for well over 30 years, concentrating in livestock production. Since the original Century Farm survey in 1976, Mrs. Johnson and John Bennett Barker have passed away. Presently, Mrs. Josephine Barker lives at the original John Heard home and shares ownership with Zacariah Taylor Barker.

Gray Farm

William N. Gray

            The Gray Farm, established prior to 1850, is the oldest Century Farm in Sequatchie County. William Hixson was the farm’s founder. Married twice and the father of eleven children, he raised corn, wheat, sheep, beef cattle and swine on a farm that, at one time, contained 650 acres of land. In 1866, Newton J. Hixson acquired 277 acres of his father’s property. Newton and his wife Adeline Davis began farming in the difficult days following the Civil War. Their crops and products were corn, wheat, sheep, cattle and swine. Newton died ten years after establishing the farm, leaving Adeline to manage the land until her death.

            A. L. Gray and other family heirs operated the farm for the first four decades of the twentieth century. Few changes took place in the farm’s activities during these years. In 1940, Newt W. Gray, Jr., obtained 230 acres and remains one of the farm’s current owners. Newt, the founder’s great grandson, shares the farm with his children and their families and they work as partners, raising dairy products, corn and wheat. One of the farm’s nineteenth century buildings, a log crib, is still used in the farm’s operations.