INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. – When the ancestors of Jeff Hall and Randy Weinantz purchased land in Indiana in 1818 and 1821, they settled in what was then the frontier. They had to build homes and clear land to begin farming. Two hundred years later, the descendants of those settlers still own the farms their ancestors started.

The Hall and Weinantz families recently received two of 51 Hoosier Homestead Awards presented by the Indiana State Department of Agriculture. The program honors farms that have remained in the same family for 100, 150 or 200 years. Since the awards were first given in1976, more than 5,800 families have been honored.

“I think my ancestors would feel like I do about our family owning the farm for this long,” Hall said. “It’s very meaningful. It was a challenge to keep it in the family for 100 years, let alone 200.”

Weinantz said his ancestors would probably be shocked at the technologies farmers have today and the yields they produce. “We think back to what they saw when they first moved here. There were a lot of trees that needed to be cleared. I would think they would be elated at where things are now.”

Hall’s fourth great-grandfather, Peter Harrison Cornwell, was born in Prince William, Va., and migrated to Orange County, Ind. Cornwell’s land grant for the property is dated Feb. 17, 1818. He purchased 160 acres.

“(ISDA) requires a lot of documentation,” Hall explained. “We have the old abstract that has information on who gave or sold the property (to later generations). It has 60-70 pages of details. It was interesting to go back and study family history.” 

Hall’s father, Charles William Hall, applied for the Centennial recognition in the 1970s or 1980s. “He didn’t go back as far as I did. I had a feeling it was older than he originally researched. I was curious. I thought there was more to it than what my dad had found.”

Over the years, though the farm has remained in the same family, the surname associated with it has changed from Cornwell to Pickens to Hall. The farm has grown to 240 acres. A cousin, also a descendant of the Cornwell family, currently rents most of the land and farms it.

“Growing up, we had poultry, cattle, feeder pigs and put up hay,” Hall said. “We have a big Amish population near us and I make those comparisons. My ancestors probably farmed in much of the same way.”

Today, the farm has beef cattle and grows alfalfa, corn and beans.

The oldest structure on the property is a house the family is tearing down because it’s not repairable, he noted. “It was built around an original log structure that was probably built in the mid-1850s. It was a two-story log house. We took some of the logs (from the cabin) and had them made into bowls as a way to remember it.”

A barn on the property has a date of November 1890 painted on one of the beams.

Charles died in 2006. Jeff’s mother, Marilyn, still lives on the farm. “I have two kids in college,” he said. “I make a point of going with the kids to the farm to mow and to do chores. There’s an interest (on the part of his kids) in the farm but I don’t know if it’s enough to carry on. I hope it at least stays in the family one more  generation.”

The land grant for the Weinantz farm is dated 1820 and was signed by then-President James Monroe in 1821. Benjamin Ensley, a Revolutionary War soldier from Pennsylvania, purchased the initial 80 acres in Bartholomew County. Randy Weinantz is the seventh generation to live on the farm.

The property became the Weinantz farm after Randy’s grandmother, Mary Ensley, married his grandfather, Russell Weinantz.

“Each generation has expanded the farm, which is now about 920 acres,” Randy Weinantz said. “It hasn’t been easy (over the years), but it’s been a good ride. My ancestors were hardworking, dedicated people. They were dedicated to the land.”

Benjamin Ensley probably traveled the Ohio River and entered Indiana at Madison, Weinantz said. “He was probably just moving west, looking for fertile farmland. The land in southern Indiana was sold first. He settled around Columbus. There was plenty of water and fertile land.”

Randy and his wife, LuAnn, live on the farm’s original 80 acres. There was previously a small one-room log cabin that was probably the original house, he said.

His brother Rick lives in a restored 1840s-era two-story log cabin. “Someone built a barn around the 1840s cabin and that protected it over the years,” Randy explained. “Rick wanted to live in the cabin and wanted to move it. They tore the barn down and tried to move the cabin but they couldn’t even budge the wood beams. They later had a house moving company move it.”

The farm also has a bank barn dated 1871. Most of it has been restored but the family doesn’t use it as a working barn.

Early on, the family probably grew mainly corn or hay and maybe a little wheat, Weinantz said. Later generations raised Black Angus cattle, and Randy’s father, Bob, who died in 2011, was a dairy farmer. Today, they grow corn, soybeans, seed corn and popcorn.

The 1980s, with interest rates of 20 percent, were hard on the family farm, Weinantz recalled. “That was pretty close for us. We survived but it was a few scary years. There were probably some lean years, too, for the earlier generations. It would be heart-wrenching to be the generation that had to give up the farm.”

With his nephew and son involved in the operation, Weinantz said the family knows the farm will continue another two-three generations.

For information on the Hoosier Homestead program, including requirements, visit https://www.in.gov/isda/programs-and-initiatives/hoosier-homestead/.