A Modern Link to Early 1900s Farming

A Modern Link to Early 1900s Farming

By Lynne Kaye

As a friend said soon after we moved to the Middleburg area, “if you really want to know what’s here, drive the gravel roads.” I took her up on that advice, enjoying new discoveries along our many country roads. One of the discoveries was that while Virginia horse and wine country has a reputation for wealth and exclusivity, modest houses and other modest structures dot the country roads. These modest buildings come singly and in clusters. Quite a few of the buildings are on the outskirts of large country estates. These modest buildings juxtapose with the large estates they border. I wondered, “what is the history of these buildings? Why are they here?”

Historical maps of the area help explain the provenance of the modest buildings. The Yardley- Taylor map of Loudoun County from the 1850s and the 1876 map of Fauquier County, show that many of today’s country roads were already in place when the maps were drawn. Quite a few of today’s country estates already existed as well.

These estates were working farms in the late 1800s and early 1900s. At the time, working farms required much more labor than they do today. According to the National Academy of Sciences, at the end of the 1800s, it took 35 to 40 hours of labor to produce 100 bushels of corn. In contrast, by the end of the 1900s, thanks to the adoption of tractors and other mechanization, it took less than 3 hours of labor to produce the same amount of corn. Other crops required similarly high amounts of labor at the end of the 1800s. Per the USDA, farms employed 41% of the U.S. workforce along with 22 million work animals in the early 1900s. In other words, many more people lived on and near this area’s farms than do today. A hint of the old population is still visible in the row of mailboxes and house numbers at the entrance to some estates.

Local transportation was also very different in the late 1800s and early 1900s than it is today. It relied on human and animal feet. Consequently, the people who worked on the farms either lived on the farm, within a few-mile walk, or within a relatively short horse or wagon ride.

This history explains the modest buildings that dot the country roads. They were built by people who wanted to be near, but not on, the farms. The buildings were modest in the same way that many of today’s apartments and houses that follow high school or college are modest. They signal a new, more independent beginning. In the case of the area’s modest buildings, it was a life that was highly related to, but at least somewhat independent from, the surrounding farms.

As farms mechanized during the 20th century, many people who worked on the farms took different jobs, and sometimes, moved away from the area altogether. As a result, changes occurred to the modest structures that bordered the farms. Some of the modest structures are still loved and cared for, some have been supplemented with more modern structures, while others have been abandoned to the ravages of time and the elements. These modest buildings provide an important historical link to the area’s late 1800s and early 1900s farming society and practices. There is a clear relationship between the modest structures and the nearby large estates. While it may not appear so to a modern eye, the modest structures and large estates fit together as part of a single farming story.