26Mid-SepteMber 2010


Brown County farm has been in the family for 212 years


By Kyle Sharp Mary (Martin) Bick remembers an


unexpected heavy snowstorm that hit her family’s Brown County farm when she was young. Her family and none of the neighboring farm families had made it to town for food and supplies ahead of the storm. So, her uncle Elmer hitched his tractor,


one of the first in the area, to a wagon and invited all the neighbors to hop on for a trip to town. “The whole wagon was full of neigh-


bors because we were so excited to get out,” Mary said. “But not far up the road, the wagon came unhitched, and Elmer didn’t realize it. He just kept going up around the bend. He couldn’t hear us all yelling, because the tractor was so loud. I laughed so much at all the comments the guys on the wagon were making.” That story is just a small sample of the


family history that has taken place on the farm, about 3 miles north of Ripley. It has been in Mary’s family for 212 years. Alexander Martin was born in Virginia


in 1758. An orphaned child from what was likely an illegitimate pregnancy, he was bound to the family of William Johnston and raised by William’s son, Zachariah Johnston, in Augusta County, Va. When war broke out between the American colonies and Great Britain, he joined the newly created Virginia Militia and was severely wounded at the battle of Guilford Courthouse, N.C., in March 1781.


liveStoCK Ohio’s Country Journal “The Johnstons went to Guilford,


wrapped him in blankets and brought him back to their home, called ‘The Barrens,’ to mend,” Mary said. The wound resulted in the loss of Alex’s


right leg, but that didn’t stop him from liv- ing a full life. He married Jane Black and they moved to their own farm in Bourbon County, Ky., about 1790. There, they started a family and already had five children when Alex purchased 400 acres in Ohio about 1798 and moved the family. The original deed to the property was signed by John Adams. At the time, the land was part of Hamilton County. It would transi- tion to Clermont County before finally being part of Brown County. “I was told they lived in an old hollow


tree when they first moved here,” said Mary, who grew up on the farm and returned to the home place 35 years ago with her husband, Joe Bick. Alex and Jane Martin built a log cabin


on the property and engaged in general farming. Alex also was active in his church and the community, serving as a justice of the peace and carrying out an unsuccessful bid for Congress in 1806. The Martins eventually had a total of 14 children. Legend has it that some of those children were responsible for the demise of the fam- ily’s original log home. “They say the kids were playing with a


cat, tied a rag on its tail and set the rag on fire,” Mary said. “Then the cat ran into the house and it burned down.” In 1812, Alex decided to build a large


stone house on the property, similar to the Johnston home where he had grown up. Stone was quarried from nearby land, and with the help of his sons, the home was completed in 1816. Called “Stonehurst” with walls that are 3 feet wide at the base and narrow up to 2 feet wide at the peak, it still stands on the property today and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Unfortunately, Alex didn’t get to enjoy it long. He passed away the same year it was completed. Alex and Jane, along with one of their


sons, Alexander Jr., are buried in a family cemetery on the farm. “They say Alex’s son James, who was


the administer of his estate, is buried here in the yard, but we don’t know where,” Mary said. The farm was passed to Alex’s oldest


When Mary Bick was growing up, “we had some rip-roar- ing fires” in this fireplace, she said. Her dad, Robert Martin, loved to keep a fire going. The painting of cows hanging over the fireplace was painted by her aunt, Eliza Martin, who owned the farm from 1920 to 1939.


son, Henry, who along with his wife, Phoebe, had nine children. In 1840, Henry built a brick home on the farm. The bricks were made with clay dug and kiln dried on the property. Many family members have lived in the stone and brick houses over the years. Henry and Phoebe saw burley tobacco become the farm’s main cash crop in the


Mary (Martin) Bick and her husband, Joe, currently reside on the Brown County farm that was acquired by her great, great, great grandfather Alexander Martin in 1798. The Bicks are pictured here with their son-in- law, Ray Campbell, who currently leases the farm. The farm is registered as an “Ohio Century Farm” through the Ohio Department of Agriculture, having been in the same family continuously for more than 100 years.


1850s. In addition to farming, Henry served as an associate judge, a justice of the peace and as a school director for Brown County. The farm next passed to Henry’s son


Samuel in 1857. Samuel and his wife, Catherine, farmed the land for many years and raised four children. In 1920, the farm passed to two of Samuel and Catherine’s children, Henry and Eliza Martin. Henry turned the property over to Eliza when he left a promising career in medicine and moved his family to Colorado to become a homesteader. Eliza and her brother, Kyes Martin, then


operated the farm. Electricity was added to the farm in 1935, and indoor bathrooms about 1940. In 1939, Kyes’ son Robert and his wife, Clara, bought the farm for $5,000. Robert and Clara are the parents of Mary Bick. They lived with Mary, their only child, in Stonehurst from 1928 until 1934, when Robert started an appliance store in Ripley and moved the family there. He sold gas stoves and contracted to sell propane gas tanks to operate them. The business was going well until all was lost in the Ohio River flood of 1937, which bankrupted the family. Robert then started his own bottled


propane company and ran it, the Ripley Gas Co., for 25 years. About 1940, Robert moved his family back to Stonehurst. Mary eventually married Joe in 1952 and they lived in the Cincinnati suburbs. In 1973, Mary and Joe Bick acquired


Stonehurst and 100 acres of the farm after her parents passed away. They remodeled the stone home, tearing off an old wooden addition and replacing it with a stone addi- tion that matches the original home. They


The stone house, “Stonehurst,” on the farm is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was com- pleted by Alexander Martin in 1816 and has housed numerous family members in the nearly 200 years it has stood on the farm.


moved back into Mary’s childhood home in 1976 and still live there today. Mary fondly tells stories of riding on


the crossbar of a horse-drawn plow with her father and grandfather, playing in the barn with cousins, riding a “go-cart” repeatedly down a hill for fun — the cart was actually an old car frame — and rush- ing outside with her parents when they heard an airplane fly overhead. About 1978, without warning, a cousin


sold the rest of the original farm, including the 1840 brick home. The Bicks’ son-in-law, Ray Campbell, now leases the remaining 100 acres. He pastures 17 black cow-calf pairs on the property, makes hay and rais- es 43 acres of soybeans. Ray is married to the Bicks’ daughter, Barbara, who is an administrator at Maysville Community College in Maysville, Ky. They live on their own farm about 4 miles away. The Bicks’ son, Roger, has had a full career in the mili- tary and currently works at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. The future of the family farm is uncer-


tain, but Mary prays it will stay in the family and not be sold to development. She’s proud of her family’s long heritage on the land. “I’m sure they all felt a sense of ‘this is


our roots,’ and they were determined to stay,” Mary said. “It just shows the stamina of the people involved. They stuck to it in the good and the bad times. It was a refuge. They loved the land.”


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52