Spring Hills Dairy Farm
Steve Stimpson and Linda Stimpson
Most Tennessee farm dwellings are fascinating barometers of agricultural prosperity and family expansion. They usually began as small one or two room houses, but as the farm became more profitable and the family expanded in size, the owners would make additions to the original house to meet the immediate needs of their family and farm operations. An excellent case in point is the Spring Hills Dairy Farm. Angeline Huffman Elkins founded a farm of 162 acres in 1858. Her land initially produced honey in addition to the livestock and crops common to Middle Tennessee farms. Angeline and her husband Asa W. were the parents of eight children and to accommodate their large family, they expanded their original homestead in the early 1870s by adding a kitchen, a hall, two first floor rooms, and one large second floor room.
In 1901, their son Robert E. Elkins acquired the farm. Adding three acres during his ownership, Robert continued to raise bees for honey and cleared additional land for cultivation. His daughter Mattie remembers that “when we moved here in 1900 one of the hill fields of 30 acres had lots of big stumps to plow around.” Robert was an active member of the Bedford County Farm Bureau.
Robert Lee and Mattie Elkins Locke obtained Spring Hills Dairy Farm in 1938. Like her grandparents, Mattie and Robert Locke produced honey, several types of livestock, and “all kinds of grains and hay.” With a herd of about 35 Jersey cows, they also introduced dairy farming to the farm’s activities.
Currently, the great, great, great grandson of the founder, Dr. Stephen Stimpson and his wife Linda own the property. In 2006, the original farm house was taken down, however, a barn and a dairy barn still remain standing on the property.