Two centuries, same family

In 1993, the department began partnering with the Ohio Historical Society and Ohio’s Country Journal to administer the Outstanding Ohio Century Farm Program. It became the Ohio Historic Farms Program 20 years later when program expansion provided an opportunity to recognize Bicentennial Farms, said program Administrator Erin Dillon. Century Farms and Sesquicentennial Farms, at 150 years old, are also recognized.

Bicentennial Farms are uncommon in Ohio, with the Gregg’s 284-acre spread (which also has the distinction of being the state’s second-oldest certified organic farm) is one of 126 such farms, Dillon said. Ronald Elliot of Gambier was the first Knox County farm owner to receive Bicentennial designation in 2014, with the Greggs next in line. Another local Bicentennial Farm is set for recognition in 2023, when the farm of Curtis N. Bechtel of Fredericktown will turn 200.

“What the Greggs and their ancestors have accomplished over successive generations shows a long and sustained commitment to a legacy of family farming, and the preservation of agriculture as part of Ohio’s heritage,” Dillon said.

Nancy Gregg has undertaken some of the family’s farming legacy research, and credits her daughter, Michelle, for also doing much of the work submitted to the department of agriculture for certificate consideration. They were given the option of purchasing special signage to commemorate the bicentennial milestone, which they have placed on their property.

According to the Gregg family, Samuel Gibson and his wife, Ruth, moved to Knox County from Frederick County, Maryland, somewhat ironically near an Ohio town — Fredericktown — where they would settle. In May 1819, they purchased the northeast quarter of Section 5 in Berlin Township. They bought the land from Frederick and Elizabeth Floracker, who had it federally deeded to them under the administration of the young nation’s fifth president, James Monroe.

Over the ensuing decades, different generations and their family members would extend their farming parcel purchases to include parts of Ankenytown and Palmyra — a small dot on the county map just east of Ohio 13, and just south of the Richland/Knox county line.

“Over the last 200 years, many representatives of this family’s lineage have had the privilege of owning and working these same local sectors of land,” Nancy Gregg said. “It has indeed been a continuing passion and connecting legacy for those who have chosen to engage in the multiple aspects of rural agriculture, extending the opportunities of a traditional lifestyle to their children and possibilities available to future generations.”

The Gibsons left the farm to their seven children. Their son George W. Gibson, and daughter and son-in-law, Ruth and Joseph Crane, owned the bulk of the farm for many years.

George Gibson had two daughters, Abigail and Eliza, while Ruth and Joseph had three children, who were Samuel Wheelus Crane, Mary Elizabeth Crane Woodward, and Henry Francis Crane. The Cranes, along with their first cousins Abigail (Gibson) Gregg and Eliza Gibson, were the third generation to own the farm.

They later transferred their farmlands to their cousin, Rev. Isaac Leedy, in 1885. Nancy Gregg said Leedy led a church group in Ankenytown known as The Brethren.

“Isaac’s connections span the Ankenytown Leedy families, of which Wilma Elizabeth (Leedy) Gregg originated, and even shirt-tale relatives of Nancy (Kunkle) Gregg are connected as well,” Nancy said, in reference to herself. “So, his involvement in the networking played an integral part in multiple aspects of the family lineage.”

From 1895 to 1910, other owners of family farm parcels included Leedy’s second cousin, Loren M. Alexander and his wife Laura, and their brother-in-law Charles Brown. When Brown sold a parcel in 1910 to his nephew, Bryan C. DeBolt became the fourth generation to own the farm.

In 1943 DeBolt sold the farm to his daughter, Lilly DeBolt, and her husband Howard Gregg, who was the great-great grandson of the original farm founder, Samuel Gibson. Lilly DeBolt was at one time the teacher of a one-room schoolhouse that was originally located across the road from where Randy and Nancy Gregg now reside. Howard and Lilly (DeBolt) Gregg sold to their son and daughter-in-law, Stanley and Wilma Gregg, who became the farm’s sixth generation of owners.

Nancy Gregg said Rev. Leedy and Lilly Gregg significantly impacted the networking of several connecting family trees, which would intertwine over the years to keep farm operations in Berlin Township intact.

“They were not only connections biologically, but through marriage and then through their offspring,” she noted.

Stanley and Wilma Gregg were the farm’s proprietors from their marriage in 1946 through retirement in the early 1990s. They had three sons, including Michael, who became FFA director at Lucas High School during the early 1970s; present owner Randy; and Gary, who passed away at age 3 from a grave illness.

Randy and Nancy Gregg bought the farm from his parents after renting some farm property starting in 1974. Stanley Gregg, 96, still resides in the family farmhouse. His beloved wife Wilma passed away in September 2019.

“Randy’s career has been as a masonry contractor but he’s a farmer at heart,” Nancy said, adding that Randy’s brother, Michael, is a recent retiree who travels to the farm quite often each week to help his father and younger brother Randy.

Nancy Gregg said the next generation of farm ownership, the eighth, is full of promise for continued farm success. Her daughter, Michelle, who was the Fredericktown High School FFA president from 2000 to 2001, works as a private contractor/inspector in the agribusiness field. She is ardently involved in family farm operations including crop harvesting. Her brother John, 31, majored in horticulture at the Knox County Career Center. He works as a groundskeeper for Mount Vernon Nazarene University.

The farm continues to thrive as a certified organic grain and hay operation. The Greggs also maintain cow-calf herds of Angus, Charolais and Limousin cattle.

Leedy family members continue to celebrate their annual family reunion at a small park near the junction of Ankenytown Road and Yankee Street.