Holmestead Farms is a sustainable farm located in Perry County, Alabama. It produces a range of organically grown produce and pasture-raised meats, all of which are available for purchase through its online store and at local farmers’ markets. The farm also offers tours and educational programs.
Seven miles west of Marion, you may visit the site of one of Alabama’s last active plantations, one which has been in the same family since the early 1800s. William “the wagon maker” Moore came from South Carolina to Alabama in 1819 shortly before Alabama gained statehood. The farm has grown from the original 80 acres which William Moore homesteaded into thousands of acres.
William Moore and his wife were the parents of eleven children. One of their granddaughters, Mary Elizabeth, married Charles A. Webb, Sr. It is from this granddaughter that the present owner, Charles Holmes, is descended. He, along with his wife, Jenny Cooper Holmes, raised their three sons, William, Webb, and Cooper, to be active in the farm’s operations. Charles served an apprenticeship under his uncles, J.C. and Charles Webb, for 20 years. After their death, he and his family took the lead in operation of the farm as the sixth-generation descendants of William Moore.
Most of the buildings are original to the site, and much of the handiwork of William Moore “the wagon maker” can be seen. Historic papers, a deed signed by Andrew Jackson, and other items of interest may be viewed in the Country Store. Farm equipment, such as wagons, plows, planters, hay rakes, and other pieces, may be seen also.
You can tour the original home site. The family home burned in 1927, and the family moved to Magnolia Hill in Marion. A cousin, Mary Katharine Arbuthnot Avery, with her husband Richard, make their home at Magnolia Hill today. Much of the furnishings of the family home was saved from the 1927 fire and graces family homes today.
On the property surrounding the original home site, one can visit the log seed house used with the first cotton gin, the second cotton gin, a carriage house, a smoke house, a chicken coop, a potato house with a pit for the storage of vegetables, lard, and sausage, the plantation store with its pot-bellied stove and other items of interest, the blacksmith shop with its tools, the weaving house, a two-story early Federal/Greek Revival style house with clapboards covering the original log structure (Cooper’s home), a canning house, the overseer’s house, tenant quarters, barns, a fire house with a 1930s fire engine, and much more in their authentic setting. Most of these structures date to the 1800s.
Tours available by appointment: Jenny Holmes 334-683-9955
