[373] Warren County Farm Joins Ranks of State's Century Farms Program

WARREN COUNTY FARM JOINS RANKS OF STATE’S CENTURY FARMS PROGRAM

River Valley Farm Recognized for Agricultural Contributions

(MURFREESBORO)— River Valley Farm, located in Warren 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 MTSU.
The Century Farms Program recognizes the contributions of Tennessee residents who have owned and kept family land in continuous agricultural production for at least 100 years.
River Valley Farm is bordered by the Barren Fork River and takes its name from its fertile valleys and river bottoms. James Jasper Lance (1791-1879) was given a land grant of 100 acres in 1828--one on which he grew corn, vegetables and livestock. The farm had several fresh-water springs, which continue to be used today.
Clayton Nale Lance, James’s eldest son, was born in 1813. In 1836, Clayton took his wife, Matilda Luttrell Nance, his young son, James S., and Matilda’s mother and traveled to eastern Alabama, where they lived among the Creek Indians at Talladega. According to the family, “they also witnessed the march of the Indians from Alabama to their new home in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma).” On their way back to Tennessee, Clayton helped dig the canal around Muscle Shoals. Once back on the farm, he acquired a tract from his father in 1851 and raised corn, soybeans, cane, wheat, chickens, cattle, hogs, horses and mules.
At the end of the Civil War, Tilman Cantrell Lance, another son of Clayton and Matilda, inherited the 100-acre farm just after the Civil War. Tilman served in the Confederate Army in the 11th Calvary, Company L. He and his wife, Amie E. Davenport Lance, were the parents of Matilda, Collie and Eddie.
Using some of the farming techniques his father learned from the Creeks, he raised large vegetable gardens along with corn, cane, cotton, mules, horses and chickens. Tilman and Amie left the property to their daughters, Matilda and Collie.
Matilda Lance Barnes and her husband, R.C., became the fourth owners of the farm in 1909. Willie, Edna, Colonel Doyle and Amy were their children. During this time, the Barnes family owned approximately 200 acres and raised corn, soybeans, cattle, hogs and mules.
After R. C.’s death in 1918, the farm went to his and Matilda’s son, Colonel C. Doyle Barnes. He and his wife, Hilmer Martin Barnes, had five children, but only Doyle lived to adulthood. Along with the River Valley Farm, Doyle Barnes owned another farm where he operated the Clearmont Mill and ground flour and meal during the Great Depression. The family recalls that “he was a very generous person and would strive to barter for most anything to keep a family from going hungry.”
Colonel C. Doyle Barnes, Jr. acquired the farm in 1956. He married Lucille Vera Tenpenny Barnes, and the couple had five children and continued to raise vegetable gardens, a herd of 75 to 100 dairy cattle and hay. “C. D.” was a progressive farmer concerned with preserving the farm for future generations. He followed many conservation practices and dug ponds that were fed by the springs. All of his children showed registered Holsteins and Guernseys at fairs in Tennessee and Kentucky. This was a very important time for this next generation. They remember the 1910 barn, which is still in use, as the center of the farm’s dairy operations and the main source of income. Vickie Barnes Bouldin, who documented the family farm’s history in the Century Farms application, writes, “If that dairy barn could talk, it might tell of the cold mornings that were so difficult for that teenager to roll out of bed, get milking and feeding done and then go to school. It would tell of the tie that binds our family together throughout life and would help form each of our characters today. Although at that time in our life we thought we had it hard, I can truly say that it made us the individuals we are today.”
In April 1993, Jimmy and Paula Barnes and Michael and Vickie Barnes Bouldin purchased the 197-acre farm from Lucille Barnes. Jimmy and Vickie are the great-great-great-great grandchildren of the founder. They continue to grow hay and converted several acres to grow nursery stock of fruit and ornamental trees.
Today, Jimmy and Paula Barnes are the sole owners of the River Valley Farm. Jimmy and Vickie’s sister, Joyce, live in the 1953 home of C. Doyle Barnes and is the seventh generation to live on the land. Most of the 61 acres of the farm are used for the nursery. Jimmy and his son Jimmy Jr. work the farm as well as the Heritage Farms Nursery.
The River Valley Farm is the seventh Century Farm to be certified in Warren County.
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 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.