[307] Giles County Farm Join Ranks of State's Century Farms Program

FOR RELEASE: Feb. 9 2011
CONTACT Info: Caneta Hankins, Center for Historic Preservation, 615-898-2947


GILES COUNTY FARM JOIN RANKS OF STATE’S CENTURY FARMS PROGRAM

Matt Gardner Homestead Recognized for Agricultural Contributions

(MURFREESBORO)— The Matt Gardner Homestead, located in Giles 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 at Middle Tennessee State University.
The Century Farms Program recognizes the contributions of Tennessee residents who have owned and kept family land in continuous production for at least 100 years.
The Matt Gardner Homestead is one of seven certified Century Farms in Tennessee that was established by an African-American. Matt Gardner was born into slavery in 1847, and in 1862, he and his family and 74 other slaves were sold by Richard Vasser of Limestone County, Ala. to Richard C. Gardner, a Nashville merchant who owned a plantation in Elkton, Tenn. a rural community in southern Giles County near the Alabama border.
After Tennessee abolished slavery in 1865, Matt began to save money. In 1877, he posted a $1,250 marriage bond to make Henrietta Jenkins his wife. The couple had 11 children and raised cotton, corn, hay, sorghum, vegetables, cattle, and pigs. Gardner and John Dixon purchased 106 acres in 1889, and Matt paid the note off in 1896, becoming the sole owner.
Matt was a successful farmer who added acreage through the years and also worked tirelessly for his community. In the late 1880s, he established the first school for blacks in Elkton, boarded the teachers at his home and paid their salaries. He served as a minister and purchased a 15-acre gravel island in the Elk River to conduct baptisms. He traveled and preached at various churches in Giles County as well as in Limestone County, Ala.
During World War I, Matt helped to organize the Elkton Negro Army Comfort League, which contributed money for African-American soldiers. The women in the organization also knitted sweaters, wristlets and caps for the soldiers.
He received a certificate from the Tennessee Home Food Supply Program, signed by then-Gov. Prentice Cooper, in 1942 “for having grown 75 per cent or more of all the food necessary for the family and livestock and in leadership for better living in the community.”
Matt’s death in 1943 was deeply felt by the community. His obituary reads, “His influence upon his race was noticeable, and he commanded the respect of all the hundreds who knew him while here. No one could be more missed from the walks of life in our section than he, for so many years a familiar figure, with his happy smile and cheerful attitude, his rugged honesty and devotion to his numerous friends of both races.”
Fifty-four years after the founding of the farm, Matt and Henrietta’s son, John Gardner, acquired 95 acres of his father’s farm. Married to Lera Driver and then to Alma McClaurine, John had seven children. He continued to raise the same crops and livestock as his father. His brother Raymond, like their father, served as a minister and became the pastor for four churches in the area.
The third owner of the farm was James Gardner, John’s son beginning in 1970. He and his wife, Eunice Gardner had four children. Keeping in family tradition, he raised the same crops as his father and grandfather. Another grandson of Matt Gardner, Buford Gardner, served as the second African-American alderman in Giles County from 1984 to 1996. The bridge across the Elk River at U.S. Highway 31 and Dixontown Road was renamed in Buford Gardner’s honor.
The current owners of the Matt Gardner Homestead and Farm are Gary D. Gardner, Jewel Bailey and Carla Jones. On 52 acres of the original farm founded by their great-grandfather, Gary and his brother Stanley and nephews Stanley Jr. and Kalab raise hay and cows. Three generations live on the farm today. Gary and his wife, Tilda, also have completed the Tennessee Master Gardner volunteer certification program.
The house built by Matt Gardner in 1896 was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995 and also is on the Tennessee Quilt Trail. The family has established a nonprofit organization to oversee the Matt Gardner Homestead Museum, which interprets farm life in rural Tennessee and tells the story of the transition from slavery through Reconstruction into the 20th century. For more information on the Matt Gardner Homestead and its history and future, go to www.mattgardnerhomestead.org or call Carla Jones, president of the organization, at 317 547-9386.
Since 1984, the Center for Historic Preservation at MTSU has been a leader in the important work of documenting Tennessee’s agricultural heritage and history through the Tennessee Century Farms Program.
For more information about the Century Farms Program, please visit its website at www.tncenturyfarms.org.The Center for Historic Preservation also may be contacted at Box 80, MTSU, Murfreesboro, Tenn., 37132, or 615-898-2947.

• ATTENTION, MEDIA: To interview the farm’s owner or request jpegs of the farm for editorial use, please contact the CHP at 615-898-2947.




Founded in 1911, Middle Tennessee State University is a Tennessee Board of Regents institution located in Murfreesboro and is the state’s largest public undergraduate institution. MTSU now boasts one of the nation’s first master’s degree programs in horse science, and the Council of Graduate Schools in Washington, D.C., acclaims MTSU’s Master of Science in Professional Science degree—the only one in Tennessee—as a model program. Recently, MTSU unveiled three new doctoral degrees in the sciences.