By Mackenzie Ferguson

Walker Douglas Ferguson Farm 

You’ve got a Food Lion, a Family Dollar, and a CVS. Take your pick, because that is pretty much it. With a population of only 1,100 people, those are the only stores for essentials in the town of Brookneal, Virginia. Anything else might be found 40 minutes away, in South Boston. Three miles down the road from the stores, there is one gas station, The Jiffy Mart, followed by a run-down and hardly used funeral home. Most local roads do not have dividing lines and have a 55 mile-per-hour speed limit for both cars and trucks. And if you like to shop, you’re out of luck, unless you enjoy thrifting and antiques. 

My brother Walker Ferguson and my dog Emma sitting and fishing at Doris’ Dock at Lowell’s Lake.

As boring as this small town may sound, it holds one of my favorite places on earth, the Walker Douglas Ferguson Farm. The location itself is just three miles from Brookneal, 40 miles south of Lynchburg. It’s a 358-acre landscape of winding dirt paths and fields that previously grew corn and tobacco, but are now soybean fields. Each field contains one or two deer stands that are often used by my family for turkey and deer hunting.

Throughout the property, there are several outbuildings, as well as barns that hold most of the farming equipment used to cultivate the soybeans. The dirt paths that run through the property ultimately connect to the pond, which we call “Doris’ Dock at Lowell’s Lake,” after the names of my deceased grandparents. This four-acre pond, which stretches alongside the Stanton River, contains mostly largemouth and striped bass, and very few but massive catfish.

Lowell’s Pond, unlike anything else at the farm, is where my siblings and I spend most of our time fishing, swimming, and searching for arrowheads. Though it does not seem like much, some of my family’s best memories with our grandparents come from this pond. Today, the farm still has the remains of old rotted outbuildings and roughed up arrowheads, all of which show the history of the place. 

The remains of the Barksdale family house

In 1938, Walker Ferguson, my great-grandfather, bought 141 acres of solid pine forests with two two-room houses for just $3,200. Becoming a successful farmer with a growing family, Ferguson then bought the remaining 217 acres with four additional houses. At this time, the Ferguson Farm consisted of the Ferguson family and four families of sharecroppers. Sharecroppers were groups of families that lived on a property and had their own space dedicated to their own produce and livestock. In return for the housing, the families helped the Fergusons farm the land.

One of the families, the Barksdales, lived right in front of the cornfield (as shown on the map below) and had been one of the closest sharecropping families to the Ferguson family. Together, the Ferguson and Barksdale families successfully produced corn, tobacco, and livestock, becoming one of the most popular farms in Brookneal. The main house—with two bedrooms, a kitchen and one bathroom—was where my grandfather lived with his six siblings. One can only imagine how crammed it must have been. With fluctuating electricity and running water, the Ferguson family spent most of their time working or playing outside and often had dinners with the other sharecropper families. But as time went on, the Ferguson family farm slowly withered and was eventually sold. 

The Ferguson family sitting around the bonfire during a small family gathering

When I had asked my father, Rod Ferguson, what the Ferguson Farm was like as a child, he explained that “it was still a well-operating farm by my time. Tobacco was still growing, lots of livestock and corn, and my grandmother would keep me for hours working in the tobacco fields. I worked, pulled, and grew crops basically all summer.”

Eventually his grandparents, Walker and Cecil Ferguson, passed away, and the farm had then belonged to another farmer, who transformed the farm into solely a tobacco farm. “There were several years where I would only occasionally drive by the place, and just see how things were operating,” Ferguson said. “It was sad, seeing where I spent most of my time, and knowing that the farm was originally ours.”

It wasn’t until 1999 that my grandfather, Lowell Ferguson, repurchased the farm and decided to use it for recreational and leisure purposes. From there, my dad’s side of the family spent several years re-establishing the farm and decided to rename it the Walker Douglass Ferguson Farm, after my great grandfather. While the property never recovered as a full-fledged operating and profit-making farm, it became the hotspot in our family for hunting, fishing, and many family reunions and small gatherings. 

Although the property is located in the middle of nowhere, and still to this day is inconsistent with running water, it is still my family’s favorite place to be. When asked what the Ferguson farm means to them and what some of their favorite memories are, my brother and sister did not hesitate to answer. My brother Walker said that the farm is “one of those places that you know will result in happiness. It doesn’t seem like there’s much to do, but when you’re with family, there are endless possibilities. And my favorite memory is definitely fishing with Grandaddy. Or the time I killed a huge turkey.” My sister Lilly Ferguson claims that “the farm is a place to get away from Richmond, and spend quality time outdoors and with family. The best memory I have is when dad and I bush hog the fields.” So while the small dirt paths and narrow soybean fields do not sound all that amazing, they hold some of the most beloved memories to the Ferguson family. 

A layout of the Walker Douglass Ferguson Farm

All photos by Rod Ferguson.