Farming and agriculture have been a part of the land in Greene County for far longer than many people realize. Though the extent and methods have changed over the year, decades, and centuries, the results have been the same — people have survived and thrived.
The first farmers here, over two thousand five hundred years ago, were the Adena people. Many of us are familiar with the Adena from their use of large earthen burial mounds. Many small mounds are throughout Greene County, and there is the extremely large mound that gives Moundsville its name. As farmers, however, the Adena left a much smaller footprint. Adena people did not have large sprawling fields with many varying crops. Instead, they had small patches of earth with a few domesticated plants. Pumpkin, squash, sunflower, and goosefoot (a leafy vegetable used similarly to spinach) were used to supplement their diet, which was primarily “fed” by their lifestyle as hunter gatherers. It would be another fifteen hundred years before we would see farming on a larger scale.
The Monongahela people appear in the archaeological record around the year 1000AD. Often considered the first “true” farmers, they raised crops of corn and lived in well laid out permanent villages, unlike the Adena before them who still lived a somewhat nomadic existence. The Monongahela were the last group of Native Americans who called Greene County home. They disappeared from the archaeological record around 1635, and evidence shows that disease and conflicts with the Iroquois and other groups in the region largely wiped them. The Shawnee, Delaware and others would travel through and often hunt in what we know as Greene County before European settlement began, but there is no sign in the historical and archaeological records that any of these groups had permanent settlements here.
It wouldn’t be until the 1760s and 1770s that European settlers would start filtering into the area we now know as Greene County and establishing settlements and farms. The Minor, Van Meter and Swan families were among the first of the European families to call this land home. John Minor is often credited with establishing the first mill in Greene County in the 1770s.
The first farms were small and similar to the first “farm” plots used by the Adena over two thousand years ago. In the 18th century, Greene County was a vast woodland paradise — old-growth trees covered the land. When pioneer settlers first arrived, they first would have to clear the trees from a small plot, in part to get logs to build a home and to have a sunlit patch where they could grow a few small crops. Corn would have been one of those crops, along with other vegetables that would have supplemented their diet. Like the Adena people, the diet of the Pioneer settlers consisted of what they gained from hunting and gathering wild plants, with small farm plots supplementing.
Some early pioneers grew on a larger scale. Wheat and other grains could be found in immense fields, and usually the owners of such crops would have also had a mill to process grain into flour. They could sell or trade this to other settlers for different goods and services.
Livestock wasn’t kept as commonly as it would be in the 19th century. A farm may have a cow or two, maybe a hog — just enough to sustain a family. Over the course of the later decades of the 18th century and into the 19th century, farming would expand. By the 1850s, farming was huge. It was the only large-scale industry in the area. The Industrial Revolution, along with easier and cheaper access to tools and equipment, would help make large-scale agriculture a reality. Farmers could now produce a surplus and weren’t just sustaining themselves.
There are a handful of resources to learn about 19th and early 20th century farming in Greene County. Caldwell’s Illustrated Combination Centennial Atlas Of Greene Co. Pennsylvania published in 1876 gives nearly a farm-by-farm view, with many illustrations showing what many of these 19th century farms looked like. We can also learn from directories in the atlas the types of farming. Every landowner in Greene County is listed in the directory; approximately 90 to 95 percent are listed as farmers, with other occupations including doctor, blacksmith, tanner, stock dealer, cooper and similar industries.
The many illustrations give us a further glimpse into area life. Merino sheep were common livestock, along with Durham cattle, Chester White pigs, and dairy cattle. Corn, wheat, and hay were among the most common crops. Later, in 1916, the American Agricultural Farm Directory for Greene County provides us with a very similar glimpse of life into farming a few decades on.
It would be remiss to not mention the importance of the poor farm in Greene County as well. Now the site of the Greene County Historical Society, the poor farm sat on 147 acres of land, 140 of which were cultivated for various purposes. The facility was used to house and provide the general welfare for the indigent population of the county, but in practice the poor farm was not much different from the average farm in the county. Crops grown included tomatoes, potatoes, cabbage, and various beans; cattle and chicken were also raised. Many goods were canned and much of the livestock was butchered and smoked in the smokehouse to be used later, and much of the cattle were raised and sold to help fund the farm.
Farming still exists in Greene County, perhaps here more so than anywhere else in the region. While its popularity is nothing compared to what it was more than a hundred years ago, it is still very much a part of the rural lifestyle here, and one that should be celebrated. Many still grow on their land and raise livestock, and that will probably be the case for many more years to come. Farmers markets are available in Waynesburg, and we can find a great deal of local produce at many of the events hosted around the county.
The small number of resources available to learn about this history of farming in Greene County may seem unlikely, but that is largely because it was simply the way of life. Caldwell’s 1876 atlas is probably the single best resource, as it gives the most details. From Caldwell’s, you can see the acreage of a farm, the type of farming done, and the products raised. Census records are also an excellent asset; they will give the occupation of the landowner and give the assessed value of the land they lived on. The 1916 Agricultural Farm Directory will give us the same information that Caldwell’s Atlas does, but for a generation later. A few good maps are available: Patterson’s Farm Outline Map and Rainey’s Farm Outline Map both fill the gap in time between 1876 and 1916. All these resources can be found at Cornerstone Genealogical Society if you are interested in further research.