By Laurin Penland
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/whqr/local-whqr-880416.mp3
Wilmington, NC – In North Carolina there are sixteen hundred recognized century farms, meaning farms that have been in one family for more than a hundred years. Many of them are no longer farmed on, and are at risk of being sold off or developed. WHQR caught up with Pender County Commissioner F.D. Rivenbark on his farm, one he says, is still going strong.
Rivenbark says, "On this little road alone, it's one mile and it dead ends. When I was a child there were 6 and 7 houses and I could walk along - of course I knew everybody. On this road now there are 30 houses and most of those have been placed there in the last 8 or 10 years. And that's the way it's going all over Pender County."
F. D Rivenbark's two hundred and twenty acre farm is on a flat stretch of land divided by a mile long highway in Burgaw. Rivenbark stands outside the brick ranch style house he and his wife built. A huge mower is parked in his driveway next to a white Cadillac sedan.
Rivenbark took us for a tour in his Cadillac. He pointed out into the pasture and said, "My grandfather is buried where you see a clump of trees back there. You see the clump that extends back into the field back there."
The farm has been in Rivenbark's family further back than he has been able to trace. Rivenbark says technology has made farming relatively easy, but there are challenges. He farms mostly beef cattle and soybeans.
He says, "Right now, it's the extremely high cost of input. Fuel for the tractor. Fertilizer, insecticides, pesticides, and I don't own the combine so I pay a pretty good price to have grain, corn, and soybeans harvested."
The grass is green and the ground damp and squishy next to the pasture where Rivenbark keeps his cows. In the distance is a stand of pine trees. One of the few things Rivenbark's farm has in common with the past is those pine trees. Except now they're clear-cut. He says they used to be selectively cut and snaked out by horses.
"My father said when he was quite young the only way to make any money in this part of the world was to go into the piney woods."
Rivenbark says the old folks would use the trees for turpentine, for railroad crossties, or to build tar kilns.
He says, "That's stumps, lieder wood stumps and you build a fire and smolder it and the tar runs out of the stump and they capture it and sell it. We're talking turn of the century. My father was born in 1895."
Inside Rivenbark's house, he points out all that's left of the original plantation house - a few bricks that he reused for a chimney. One brick had the imprint of a human hand. He thinks they were made by slaves. Rivenbark says he doesn't know much about his distant relatives, but he did have one story about a trip his grandfather made to the store:
"He took that oldest daughter on the buggy from the farm area here to Watha. And when they got their staples and their groceries and whaetever back in the buggy, he picked her up and set her back -- and she was 7 at the time -- and he looked south and he said, 'Lord child, my house is on fire.' And she said, Daddy, how did you know it's our house?' He said, 'Child, it's the only one in the area.' So that tells you a lot about the area."
Since the house burned down, Rivenbark's grandfather and aunt Madge have long since passed away. And as the generations of Rivenbarks came into the world and left it, the farm was parceled out, sold, and sometimes developed. F.D. Rivenbark says he has spent a lifetime buying back portions of the farm and watching houses sprout up on neighboring property. It remains to be seen if the farm will be yet again divided and sold off. He says neither of his daughters have any interest in farming, but that his grandson loves coming out to the farm. So, he says his grandson will inherit the farm as a life estate, meaning that he won't be able to sell it. Then, the farm's future will be up to his grandson's children.
Do you have insight or expertise on this topic? Please email us, we'd like to hear from you. news@whqr.org.