Close-knit family enjoying their bicentennial Lewis Lands

Bladen County – Lewis Lands is one of three Bicentennial Farms and one of 20 Century Farms in Bladen County, according to Andrea Ashby, director of the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Community Services Public Administration.

The Lewis family submitted their application for Bicentennial recognition and it was approved in November 2023. Once approved, the certificate was signed by Gov. Roy Cooper, Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler and North Carolina State Fair Manager Kent Yelverton.

Once that was signed which took somewhere around six weeks, the NCDA&CS send the certificate and the small recognition sign to the family. The Century Farm application was submitted in June 2022 and the sign and certificate was sent in July.

To be eligible for the program, a farm must be in continuous family ownership for 100 years or more or 200 years or more for the Bicentennial recognition. On the application, the family provides the family lineage of ownership and the relationship to the current owner. Some people provide copies of deeds and some do not.

They are not required to provide those copies. We are looking for the correct timeline of months and years and the line of continual family ownership.

The Century Farm program started at the 1970 North Carolina State Fair where the theme was “Salute to Agriculture.” Reunions are held every four years and the organization typically has around 2,000 people attend the event. At the 2016 Century Farm reunion, the Bicentennial Farm Program was launched.

“We have a total of 2,069 family farms in the Century Farm Program and 123 in the Bicentennial program,” Ashby said. “We will be holding the reunion this year during the North Carolina State Fair, Oct. 21. Anyone whose farm qualifies for the Century Farm or Bicentennial Farm programs is encouraged to download an application from https://www.ncagr.gov/divisions/public-affairs/public-affairs-century-f… and apply. We accept applications anytime, but to be included in this year’s reunion, we need to have their application on file by Aug. 12”

In terms of the Lewis farm, the first owner of record for the family was Jasper Hester, January 1789, eventually passing the land to E.J. Lewis in 1882. He is a great-grandfather of the current owner Seth F. Lewis. Seth Lewis has owned the property since 1967.

Just recently Seth and Phyllis Lewis and their family got together to have a picture taken outside of their home, showing off the sign that was sent to them from the state signifying their distinction as a bicentennial farm. One of only three in Bladen County.

The farmland is located on Marsh Road north of Bladenboro.

Family is everything to the patriarch and his wife. So much so that each and every one of their children live on the family farmland in various locations of the property.

Although Seth Lewis actually grew up on the property, his wife grew up 2 miles away on her family farm. They grew up as neighbors and worshipped together growing up in the same church, which was Hickory Grove Baptist Church.

The Lewis’ have raised their children in Bladen County and two of their sons have gone on to become pastors while their daughter has worked for the past 20 years for a hospital.

Cameron Lewis is the pastor of Riegelwood Baptist Church in Riegelwood, North Carolina. He and his wife, Kelly live on the family farmland and do a lot of the animal husbandry, owning goats, chickens, a horse, a cow and many goats.

Seth Lewis was originally born a quarter-mile from the home they live in today and he four siblings.

“There were five children born in that house,” Lewis said. “Dr. SS Hutchinson drove out for the deliveries and Phyllis’ grandmother was always on call as the midwife. They lined her up when they guessed the date for the delivery.”

Now the family has around 125 acres on the family farm.

“Today the farm is still a working farm,” Lewis said. “We rent out most of the acreage to a distant cousin, Eddie Hester. He’s planting corn this year. We are also delighted to have Cameron and Kelly and their family with the active part of the farm. They have animals on the back side of the farm. They love the animals and the farm life and they are keeping that part of it the heartbeat.”

Cameron and Kelly in addition to pastoring in Riegelwood and running an active farm also homeschool their children.

“We homeschool with the thought of keeping a consistency for our kids because we’ve been on the mission field overseas in Africa,” Kelly Lewis said. “Since moving back to the farm, it’s been a blessing to be able to live close to family and on the family farm. We have added the agricultural classes to our our homeschooling so we are able to study the different areas of farming and things such as birthing, vaccines and so much more.”

They have a son in college, majoring in civil engineering while their daughter Anne is going into a nursing program.

“They are heading to college with a lot of life experience that they have gained on the homestead,” she said. “They learned how to build things with Cameron who is a carpenter and pastor.”

“It’s been fun to teach them how to milk a cow,” Cameron Lewis said. “Also how to butcher a cow, how to plant a garden, how to care for chickens and sustainability. It’s fun to think about how are learning some of the same things their ancestors learned on this same farm years and years ago.”

Kelly said that she grew up a city girl in Lumberton and is blessed to have been joined of the Lord to a well-rounded country man such as Cameron. She brought forth the story of how Cameron trained a Jersey Ox to ride and plow.

“When I met him, I learned about learning on the land and we’ve been in a type of homesteading ever since,” she said.

“I had a blessed childhood,” Cameron said. “We grew up with 4-H and getting exposed to Harmony Hall over in White Oak, but what really made me appreciate what we have here is going up north and spending five years going overseas and being able to come back and realize what a blessing this is.”

The Lewis clan is all about family. They have family dinners together, they all reside in the same area, they have all had a chance to move away and came back home. Part of this was because of the parental influence that Seth and Phyllis have upon them and the peace they maintain in their home and on their farm.

“We’re close, live close, but we still respect each others privacy,” Cameron said.

Phyllis, raising a family and keeping a home was not just her only forte. She also has been a quilter for many years and other than restoring antique sewing machines, she also owns a long-arm quilting machine. She started quilting before they had the technology to watch the sewing being done.

She has made historic quilts and people send her material from all over the United States to put together quilts. Although quilting can be quite lucrative, Phyllis has given many away to family and friends and for fundraisers.

According to Kelly Lewis, her mother-in-law has over 300 quilts in the house.

Dr. Scott Lewis is the oldest son of Seth and Phyllis and has been the pastor at Hallsboro Baptist Church for 10 years. Cameron has pastored at Riegelwood for over 3 three years and Scott’s oldest son pastors at Hall Bluff. Their Daughter, Amanda Crabtree has been in the health care field for over 22 years and her title is public relations and marketing director at the Lumberton hospital.

“Being the middle child and the only girl was the hardest thing growing up,” Amanda said.

When Seth was raising his children, he was the Social Services director to the Town of Elizabethtown for 20 years and for 14 of those years he was the food assistance director and Phyllis was a teacher, so according to the couple, they had their hands full with the farm, their jobs and their kids going to Bladenboro High School.

The couple lists their passions as family, farm, church and music (where Seth took music at East Carolina University).

It is rare to be able to visit a bicentennial farm, but the rare thing about visiting the Lewis family is the premium they put on family and the bond that will keep this family together for generations to come.

Mark DeLap is a journalist, photographer and the editor and general manager of the Bladen Journal. To email him, send a message to: mdelap@bladenjournal.com