Rowesville Valley Farm

Rowesville Valley Farm

Carol T. Jones
John H. Jones

In 1894, Milton Bond purchased 50 acres on Normandy Road in Bedford County for $500 with a promise to make payments for the next six years. He raised a variety of crops and livestock on his farm, including hay, corn, wheat, vegetables, fruit, cattle, chickens, hogs and horses. In 1912, he donated one-half acre to the Methodist Episcopal Church South, and the Rowesville Methodist Church was built. The church served the community until 2008, when the property came back to the family. Milton married Lucinda Margaret Bond, and they were the parents of three children.

In 1918, Lena Bond Troxler, a daughter of Milton and Lucinda, and her husband, Walter Bearden Troxler, acquired the farm. They raised tobacco, hay, corn, vegetables, cattle, goats, chickens, hogs and horses. The Troxlers’ eight children were active in 4-H and later the Farm Bureau, and three sons served their country in the military, including two were in World War II. The Troxlers “lived off the land, survived the Depression years and sent six of their eight children to college,” the family says.

Upon Lena’s death in 1970, six of the children inherited the farm. Arthur and Frances Troxler lived and worked on the farm during this time. Between 1970 and 1992, the children and grandchildren of the third-generation owners often visited the farm to help in the garden, play in the creek and attend Rowesville United Methodist Church. Hay, Black Angus cattle, chickens and vegetables were raised on the farm.

In 1992, Carol T. Jones, the great-granddaughter of the founding couple, and her husband, John H. Jones, acquired the family farm where they live in a new home built on the site and using some materials salvaged from a 19th-century house. A neighbor, Todd Carter, works the farm where hay, vegetables, pears, blueberries and blackberries are raised.