HISTORY
FARM to forest Now a recreational area, Umstead once housed dozens of families by GENIE SAFRIET
B
efore William B. Umstead State Park was a recreational oasis, dozens of families called this land home. One hundred years ago, this rural farming community included a church, school, and general store at Adams Crossroads (where Raleigh-Durham International Airport now stands); another church and school within the Ebenezer section (near the modern-day Ebenezer Church Road and Highway 70); and, down by Crabtree Creek, the Company Mill, which ground corn and wheat. The land was a mix of forest and fields, and numerous creeks 46 | WALTER
supported smaller mills. European settlers came to the region in the late 1700s. The majority were of English descent — grants from the King of England motivated them to cultivate the territory. Farmer William Warren’s 1779 grant was one of the first, and his family still owned the land when it was sold to create Umstead Park in the 1930s. By the early 1900s, more than 60 families were living on 50- to 70-acre homesteads that had been passed down through generations. Most were subsistence farmers; the soil had gradually eroded through poor practices. “They were just barely get-
ting by,” says Joe Grissom, who grew up on a farm in the area. “They’d grow a little corn for the cornmeal and to feed the mule that plowed the garden.” Now in his 90s, Grissom recalls that in the Company Mill vicinity, “only one homestead had tobacco; the rest of them grew cotton. They had apple orchards, livestock, and everybody had their own pigs.” Families lived off the land, hunted squirrels and rabbits, and periodically drove over dirt roads to buy staples in Raleigh or Durham. “They were good people,“ Grissom, whose family was one of the last to leave, says about his neighbors. “Once
courtesy Stories in Stone
Ebenezer School teacher Genevieve Woodson on her porch speaking with Sid Brown.
