Farming

Several years ago my wife, Tracy, published a powerful article in The New Castle Record in Craig County, Virginia. She represented our values: genuine, simple, rural, the heart.  Her words then explain the sentiment now behind Old Town and Sinking Creek farms.

 

Sinking Creek Farm

We are pleased that we can share the Sinking Creek story with you as you explore this site. Sinking Creek is a place — literally the creek that flows gently through our farm in southwest Virginia — periodically disappearing from the surface to traverse limestone caves. Sinking Creek is the name we give to our two interrelated and connected farms, one in Williamson County in middle Tennessee and the other ten miles outside of New Castle, Virginia.  It is also a state of mind-a movement. A movement to share the knowledge and the centeredness that unfolds from the land, the animals, the water, the trees and the nature to which we are stewards.  At Sinking Creek, you will discover prehistory through vibrant civilizations from a thousand years ago and a modern history from spirited people of today. You will know the balance of nature in its cycle of birth to death, both rough in its winters and tender in its springs.  You will know the past legacy of two antebellum homes where spirits are still felt. And you will delight in a present legacy of active organic grass-fed beef operations, horses and cattle that inspire us, and a herd of people who are eager to share their experiences with you.

-Tracy and Bill Frist

Old Town Farm

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Old Town Heritage Project

Places on the landscape are imbued with meaning by those who experience and interact with them – and by those who remember and pass on their past stories. The Old Town Heritage Project is about remembering, celebrating, and preserving one very special place on the landscape that has served as a point of contemplation for many dozens of generations – from the earliest Native American settlers of Middle Tennessee over 12,000 years ago to the more recent peoples of the American historic era.

Located at the confluence of Browns Creek and the Harpeth River, Old Town lies in the center of one of the original branches of the Old Natchez Trace – one of the most important travel routes from the interior South to the lower Mississippi River valley for at least 2000 years. The Old Town Bridge, built by federal soldiers in 1801, is one of the oldest surviving bridges in Tennessee and reminds us of the many thousands of travelers who crossed this very spot for over a century. Even older are the earthen platform mounds built by native people over eight centuries ago – less visible today are the archaeological remains of the fortified 10-acre Mississippian era town that housed as many as 100 families between A.D. 1100 and 1450.

The Thomas and Margaret Brown House, built about 1846, has also played host to many generations of Middle Tennessee families, their slaves, servants, and employees. To this day, Old Town offers what it has for many generations – a place to find peace and serenity while contemplating the past, present, and future.

Old Town Heritage Project