Till a Hundred Years
At the beginning of 2025, there were 1,988 farms in North Carolina that are at least 100 years old. Also, there were 134 that go back 200 years or more. Each has been in continuous operation by the same family.
We know this because in 1970, the North Carolina State Fair sent out applications to find Century Farms. The initial crop was more than 800. They had a party at that year’s fair. Since then the farm families have held a reunion every five years. The Bicentennial Farm recognition started in 2016.
As evidenced above, applications are still rolling in, about five per month.
The designation, which is administered by the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Sciences, requires documentation of “an abstract of title or original records such as original deed or land patents. Other authentic land records may be acceptable in some cases.”
Continuous family ownership is proved with the title residing “in a blood relative of the original owner, or a legally adopted child of the descendant.” Continuous residence in the state or on the property is not required.
To maintain a farm for that long, a family must have respect for the land, deep roots and the ability to diversify. Last year agriculture brought in $103.2 billion making it the largest industry in North Carolina. At the same time the state is losing farmland to development at an increasingly high rate. A 2022 study by American Farmland Trust states North Carolina ranks number two in the nation behind Texas in the probability of the loss of 1.6 million acres of farmland between now and 2040.
Here’s a look at three Century Farms in the Cape Fear area—one in New Hanover County, one in Brunswick and one in Pender—and how they’re doing as we move into the second quarter of this century.
Talley Brothers Farm, Wilmington
One of the latest to get recognized as a Century Farm, and only the second in New Hanover County, is the Talley Brothers Farm—Howard and Monty—on Talley Lane near the top of Hewlett’s Creek off Masonboro Loop.
(The other Century Farm in New Hanover County, founded in 1800, was known as Gabriel’s Landing and then Old Oak Point. The main house sits on Airlie Road and overlooks Wrightsville Sound; it is no longer in production. Some of the existing buildings are on the National Register of Historic Places.)
The history of the Talley farm gets complicated. According to its current resident, John Howard Talley III, who goes by Howard, the story includes Hewletts, Hulets, Pritchards, Herrings, tobacco, lettuce and Roma tomatoes.
Howard says, “John Hulet, as he spelled it, known as Captain Jack, was the patriarch of the Hewlett family.” He owned all the south side of Hewlett’s Creek and most of Masonboro Island, he says, adding that the youngest of his nine children, George Washington Hewlett, was Howard’s great-great-grandfather. The property changed hands along the way.
This Century Farm story starts in 1902, when his great-grandfather, James Pritchard Herring, and his wife, Edna May Hewlett, bought 99 acres of the property for $1,500. Their daughter, Alice Rea Herring, married John Howard Talley. Their son, John Howard Talley Jr., and his wife, Betsy—Howard Talley’s parents—built the farmhouse currently standing on the property.
Since then, parcels of the farm have been sold off. What remains is 20 acres; Howard still farms about 10 acres while continuing his career as an accountant.
His small fields bloom with corn, squash, okra and peas. If you’re in the right place at the right time, his wares are on sale in the green barn behind the main house. It’s worth the trip.
Humphrey Farms, which spreads across 580 acres outside of Burgaw, is currently run by Gina Humphrey Marasco, who is in the fourth generation.
In 1912 her great-grandfather and uncle bought the land. They also owned a mercantile in downtown Burgaw, where the Glass Cloche is now.
“It was truly a family operation,” says Marasco. “And they were very concerned with quality and stewardship of the environment. We continue that today.”
The original crops were tobacco and cotton, as well as loblolly pines for building materials. The farm now has a mill, but back then the logs were floated down the Cape Fear River to sawmills closer to the port. Many sank to the bottom; they are now being retrieved and her husband, Robert, who used to make custom cabinets, is milling them on the farm.
The next generation, Marasco’s grandfather, farmed the same crops. In 1968, her father came back to the farm and added corn, soybeans and hogs. “At one point my dad was the number one hog producer in North Carolina.” The advent of corporate farms and Hurricane Florence put an end to that.
He stopped growing tobacco around the time a federal price support program of allotments was discontinued.
In 2012, when her father had a stroke, Marasco and her husband closed their Wilmington-based small businesses and took over day-to-day management of the farm. And it was time to diversify again. They renovated an old tobacco barn that had been hidden under vines and turned it into a store that sells products from their farm—their muscadine grape cider is so in demand they only sell it by the gallon—and packaged goods produced by other farms: Goshen Homestead kombucha; Ellison Foods chicken sausage; scuppernong grape juice from Lu-Mill Vineyard; and honey from Shaken Creek Bee Co. The farm also has agritourism and farm-to-table dinners.
The 220-acre Indigo Farm sits on property that has been in the Bellamy family since 1766. As a Century Farm, it is recognized as having its start in 1921.
Fourteen of its acres are currently farmed by Sam Bellamy; his wife, Sarah; their granddaughter, Sallie, and her husband, AJ. During the ’80s they started selling direct-to-consumer and now have three locations: year-round onsite at the farm, where they offer pumpkin picking and farm tours; seasonally at the Myrtle Beach farmers market; and on Thursdays at the Horry-Georgetown Technical College International Culinary Institute of Myrtle Beach.
Before direct-to-consumer, the Bellamy farm raised hogs, peanuts and cash crops like tobacco and some indigo.
Large in Bellamy’s memory is his grandfather, Samuel James Bellamy, who was a diversity farmer extraordinaire during the Depression. He built a grist mill to grind corn for human consumption and a hammer mill to make coarser cracked corn best suited for the animals. The machinery was for hire to process other farmers’ corn.
“He even had a screen to grind oyster shells for chickens,” says Bellamy. “He made furniture for himself: He would go into the woods, take a tree and bring it back to his lathe; he had his own steel forge.
“It was always fascinating to go through his barns and shops; it looked like a wizard lived there.” He adds: “He saved hair to make paint brushes.”
What's Next
The oldest farm in the program is the Hill Taylor Farm, established in 1733 in Duplin County, which predates the NC Department of Agriculture, established by the General Assembly in 1877. There are 28 farms that broke ground before the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776.
With the Hill Taylor Farm approaching its 300th anniversary in just eight years, North Carolina may soon celebrate its first Tricentennial Farm—a milestone that would span 12 generations of continuous family ownership through the Colonial era, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, two World Wars, the Great Depression, and into the 21st century. As development increasingly threatens farmland across the state, these historic properties serve as living reminders of North Carolina’s agricultural roots. These families have adapted while maintaining their connection to the land—showing that with determination and innovation, a farming legacy can stretch across centuries.
