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NVS form 10-900 a
<br /> OAB Apprwtil Ne.I024-0011
<br /> United States Department of the Interior 33
<br /> National Park Service
<br /> National Register of Historic Places
<br /> Continuation Sheet
<br /> Jacob Jackson Farm / Maple Hill
<br /> Section number _8 Page 6 Orange County, NC
<br /> successful bidder at one hundred forty-two dollars and thirty-seven cents.14 The following
<br /> May, she petitioned the Court of Pleas for a final settlement of her husband's estate. Her will,
<br /> proved in February, 1855, directed that Martha (Patsy) should have one hundred dollars and
<br /> that Louisa, along with her husband, John Turner, should have "the residue of my
<br /> estate"including the "real property of which I shall be seized and possessed." "
<br /> During the 1850s, Orange County and other parts of North Carolina experienced a
<br /> period of unprecedented agricultural growth and prosperity. Newspapers and agricultural
<br /> publications had been widely circulated, bringing farmers information about new and
<br /> vigorous varieties of seeds, improved farm machinery, deep plowing, rotation of crops, and
<br /> the use of lime and fertilizers. As a result, crop yields per acre increased and local markets were
<br /> developed that offered farmers more and better opportunities to sell their produce.'
<br /> The Orange County Agricultural Census of 1860 is the first that provides a record of
<br /> farming activities on the Jacob Jackson Farm. John Turner appears as the owner of 713 acres in
<br /> four separate tracts of land valued together at five thousand six hundred and seventy-two
<br /> dollars. The census reports total production numbers for Turner's four farms and provides a
<br /> record of diversified farming activities including those which took place on the Jacob Jackson
<br /> Farm, but it is not possible to determine precisely what was produced there.
<br /> John Turner, a prosperous man, raised six hundred bushels of wheat, three hundred
<br /> and seventy-five bushels of corn, two hundred bushels of oats, one hundred and twenty-five
<br /> pounds of wool, fifty bushels of peas and beans, seventy-five bushels of Irish potatoes, and
<br /> three hundred bushels of sweet potatoes but no dollar values were given for his field crops.
<br /> Home-made manufactures, five gallons of wine, and one hundred pounds of butter, were
<br /> valued at one hundred fifty dollars. John owned five horses, one team of mules, six milk
<br /> cows, two working oxen, sixteen other cattle, fifty sheep, and eighty swine, together worth an
<br /> estimated one thousand dollars. The cash equivalent for animals slaughtered was determined
<br /> to be one hundred and sixty dollars. Much of the produce was probably sold in nearby markets,
<br /> thus extending the influence of the Jacob Jackson Farm in Orange County and the central
<br /> Piedmont at this time in the period of significance.
<br /> John Turner,his wife, Louisa, and two sons and a daughter under ten years of age are
<br /> recorded in the population census of 1860. Turner was a member of the growing middle class
<br /> of North Carolina farmers whose land holdings and affluence provided a relatively
<br /> comfortable standard of living. Slaves are said to have brought food prepared in the log cabin
<br /> to the Turner family by passing it through the sliding windows into the basement of the
<br /> 1°Deed dated August,23,1847,Book 35,p.505,Orange County Register of Deeds Office,Hillsborough,N.C.
<br /> "Will dated October,5, 1854,Book G,p.84,Orange County Estate Records,Hillsborough,N.C.
<br /> 2i Lefler and Newsome,pp.369-71.
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