[479] STATEWIDE PROGRAM RECOGNIZES BRADLEY COUNTY FARM’S CONTRIBUTIONS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 22, 2009
CONTACT: Caneta Hankins, 615-898-2947

STATEWIDE PROGRAM RECOGNIZES BRADLEY COUNTY FARM’S CONTRIBUTIONS
Levi Trewhitt Farm Becomes County’s Sixth Tennessee Century Farms

(MURFREESBORO)— The Levi Trewhitt Farm in Bradley County has been designated as a Tennessee Century Farm, reports Caneta S. Hankins, director of the Century Farms program at the Center for Historic Preservation, which is located on the MTSU campus.
The Trewhitt family traces its roots to England. Their migration, ending in Bradley County in the 1830s, was through Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina. Judge Levi Trewhitt is believed to have bought his first tract of land around 1836, the same year Bradley County was established.
Levin Sr. was married to Harriet Lavendar Trewhitt, and the couple had 14 children. During the Civil War, Trewhitt and his son, Levi Jr., were captured by Union forces and taken to a prisoner of war camp in Anniston, Ala. The younger Trewhitt eventually escaped and returned to the farm, where, according to the family, he hid in a dugout on the farm. His father, however, died in Alabama. His body was returned and buried at Fort Hill Cemetery in Cleveland.
The family has a deed for the farm that dates to 1865 when Levi Trewhitt Jr. became the owner. He and his wife, Sarah Wattenbarger Trewhitt, had eight children. Following the Civil War, the family continued subsistence farming and added a gristmill. Family history records that Levi, who lived until 1916, gave the county some acreage to build the original Waterville Elementary School sometime around the turn of the century.
William Trewhitt and wife Annabelle Dodson Trewhitt were the third generation to live on the farm, along with their two children. While managing the farm, William served as president of the Farm Bureau in Bradley County for several years. Annabelle was a member of the Waterville/Red Hill Home Demonstration Club and also served as president.
In 1919, the farm passed to their daughter, Ganelle Trewhitt McClure. Married to Morris McClure, they are the parents of William M. McClure and Ganelle McClure Samples. Morris and William were longtime members of the Waterville Ruritan Club. Morris was a charter member and William had perfect attendance with the club for 27 years. Ganelle McClure Samples was a state-level 4-H winner.
Today, the farm is owned by William M. McClure, the great-great grandson of the founder, and his brother-in-law, James Samples. William serves as the farm’s manager and has some acreage in pasture and woodland. He also raises hay and dairy replacement heifers.
The Levi Trewhitt Farm, in the same family for five generations that span the history of Bradley County, is the sixth Tennessee Century Farm to be certified in the county, Hankins said.

About the Century Farms Program

The Century Farm Program recognizes the contributions of Tennessee residents who have continuously owned, and kept in production, family land for at least 100 years. Since 1984, the CHP at MTSU has been a leader in the important work of documenting Tennessee’s
agricultural heritage and history through the Tennessee Century Farm Program, and continues to administer this program.
The Tennessee Department of Agriculture began the Tennessee Century Farm Program in 1976 as part of the nation’s bicentennial. Today, the TDA provides a
metal outdoor sign, noting either 100, 150 or 200 years of “continuous agricultural production” to Century Farm families.
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To be considered for eligibility, a farm must be owned by the same family for at least 100 years; must produce $1,000 revenue annually; must have at least 10 acres of the original farm; and one owner must be a resident of Tennessee.
“The Century Farmers represent all the farm families of Tennessee,” Hankins said, “and their contributions to the economy, and to the social, cultural and agrarian vitality of the state, both past and present, is immeasurable. Each farm is a Tennessee treasure.”
For more information about the Century Farms Program, please visit its Web site at http://histpres.mtsu.edu/histpres. The Center for Historic Preservation also may be contacted via mail at Box 80, MTSU, Murfreesboro, Tenn., 37132, or by telephone at 615-898-2947.

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ATTENTION, MEDIA: To interview the farm’s owners or request a jpeg of the property, please contact the CHP directly at 615-898-2947.