The Franklin News-Post
P. O. Box 250
310 Main Street, SW
Rocky Mount, Virginia 24151
540-483-5113
Fax: 540-483-8013
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Staff Photo by Morris Stephenson:
Roddy Moore, director of Ferrum Colleges Blue Ridge Institute, points to the new general location of the institutes 1800-era farm museum. The present buildings will be relocated to the west of where they now stand and still will be on the south side of Route 40 West across from the BRI building.
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Monday, December 10, 2007
By MORRIS STEPHENSON - Staff Writer
Work began this week on the relocation of the Ferrum College Blue Ridge Institute's Farm Museum, a project that is expected to take about two years.
Roddy Moore, director of the BRI, said the 1800-era farm will be moved several hundred yards to the west of its present location, which will be closer to Ferrum Elementary School.
The buildings are a replica of an 1800 Virginia Blue Ridge German farm.
The new location is still on the south side of Route 40 West, across the road from the BRI building.
The move is in its preliminary stages following the relocation of the farm animals to a temporary home.
Moore explained that the split rail fences are being taken down and two tents have been erected to give workers who will be hewing logs shelter from the weather.
Phase one of the project calls for the removal of the log cabin, kitchen and large barn.
"There are a number of bad logs in the house so new logs will be used to rebuild the house," he said. "Once it is rebuilt, we'll let the new logs age for nine or 10 months before we do the chinking."
He noted the kitchen will be relocated and the barn will be moved by the summer.
Phase two will include moving the smoke house, baking oven and the blacksmith shop.
At one point, there were plans to build three barns on the site, a Scotch-Irish farm from the 1850s and a "melting pot" style farm from the early 1900s period.
"We will relocate our farm museum buildings to pretty much the general area we originally had planned for the third farm," Moore said.
He added that the new location is where the horse show is held each year at the Blue Ridge Folklife Festival.
Moore said the changes were not made until he and college officials had several meetings with consultants. Ed Chapel, a Ferrum College alumni who is a senior architectural historian at Williamsburg, was the major consultant.
"This is the most exciting time we've had here at the institute," he said. "It's unusual that you build something and then have the opportunity to go back and correct or change things."
The farm museum was established and dedicated in 1976 and the late Sen. Harry F. Byrd Jr. was on hand for the dedication.
"The people who built this farm were primarily from western Franklin County and they knew how to do things," Moore said. "If it hadn't been for Charlie Lee Adkins and the people who worked with him on the project, this farm museum would not have been built. That group didn't know there wasn't anything they couldn't do. They made this farm museum happen. |
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