An Introduction to 3 Cent Farm
I would like to introduce myself and this place that my friend, photographer Bill Yates, has grown fond of and made so many nice pictures in. I am the current owner and resident of 3 Cent Farm. The first structures on the farm were built in the early 1820s just as revolutionary war Georgia began to expand westward from Augusta and the Savannah River watershed. As it spread, the movement west displaced the Creek Indians who had held these lands for centuries. 3 Cent Farm is a place in this old part of Georgia, largest state geographically speaking east of the Mississippi River. It is in Hancock County in the Oconee River watershed about four miles, as the crow flies, from Milledgeville, Georgia, which was the capital of Georgia from 1804 to 1868. If the crow kept flying a couple more miles he could land at Andalusia Farm founded at roughly the same time and being the place where Flannery O’Connor and her mother kept a dairy farm going and where she wrote so many of her great stories.
Today Hancock is very rural and it is the next-to-poorest county per capita of Georgia’s 159 counties. It was once one of the richest places in the young United States because of the value of cotton and enslaved people. The farm was a couple of thousand acres in size until it was sold off in large chunks in the 1970s to large corporate timber operations. It had remained in the hands of three families for more than 150 years. It was settled by the West family who held it until after the Civil War. Then, a Mr. Jones married a West daughter and they farmed it until a Mr. Homer Lowe married a Jones daughter. It was sold off by Earnest Lowe, Homer’s son, who retained the 30 some odd acres we occupy now, until his death in the late 1970s.
Mr. Lowe held onto the old homeplace and farm headquarters with its original structures including more than a dozen barns, outbuildings and a country store. This central parcel had been the beating heart of the place and the remnants of an old sawmill, a blacksmith shop, and grist mill are still in evidence. It is perched up on a small brow that slopes down gently to Rocky Creek on the south side and Island Creek on the north. Both creeks drain into the Oconee River (now Lake Sinclair) about two miles west.
My wife and I acquired the place in 2008 from a gentleman who had taken good care of it, along with his mother, after Mr. Lowe’s passing. We were living in Atlanta at the time and wanted a place to get away to that would be different from Atlanta. And this was it. Most of the original layouts and materials that had put the old place together organically over the years remained when we came here. Since our arrival we’ve made a few “improvements” but not many. Our daughter and her family fell in love with it and bought the 20 acres next to ours that had once been part of the original place. We have been very fortunate to be able to be here together full time now for the last few years.
Living here is something of an adventure. (I’m writing this only now because the power that was out the past four hours is finally back on.) But for me the sense of history, and frankly, the quirky bones of this old place is a beautiful experience. And I feel grateful to those who came before me who put the place together and held it in place for so long. We can’t escape the darker history of the place: moving indigenous people out, enslaving others, and a violent war. This followed by generations of brutal Jim Crow injustice. General Sherman came through here on his March to the Sea, as did a celebratory General Lafayette on his return visit in 1825. But the land and this watershed had its own vast history even before all that. And that, and the possibility of keeping some interesting history and old American material culture, alive is what we keep our focus on. That’s what we are hoping to preserve.
Bill has quite a few lovely photos in this archive of the old general store that sits on the road where it was built in the 1920s. It replaced the old store that was built pre-Civil War that burned down. Our family and friends have had many gatherings there over the years: weddings, music festivals, workshops, and hangouts. Along with the other old barns and special (not so special) spots around the place, the general store has come to feel like part of the family. Over time you grow to feel like you are part of it. Or maybe you become part of it. You realize this is just your time here now. You wonder who and what comes after you are here. It’s the power of a real place with a little history to it.
When our daughter and her family moved out here, they first lived in the old house. They tried natural farming with heritage breed hogs - Tamworths. They would run the pigs through the pastures and woods. One day they realized they were farming in the third century since the farm was settled so they called their operation “Three Centuries Farm.” Over time we shortened the name to 3 Cent Farm. We know what it stands for and now so do you.
I want to thank Bill and all our family and friends who have visited over the years to share a little time on this old place with us. That’s the real treasure at 3 Cent Farm. That time we share here together.
William Boling Hancock County, Georgia, July 31, 2024
William Boling is a writer, artist, lawyer and the founder and publisher of the independent art book company Fall Line Press located in Atlanta and Milledgeville, Georgia. www.falllinepress.com and @falllinepress
