In 1922, Coke Gilliam paid $3,200 for a farm in eastern Rowan County, moving there from the Jersey City community in Salisbury so his children, he later said, “could learn to work and wouldn’t grow up in the streets.”
Now his son and daughter-in-law, Ezra and Marian Gilliam, have done something priceless: The couple recently worked with the LandTrust for Central North Carolina to place a conservation easement on the 75-acre farm, ensuring it will be there for future generations to see.
“The conservation easement is protecting a piece of prime farmland, but it is also protecting a way of life that is disappearing, the small family farm,” Michele d’Hemecourt, land protection specialist with the LandTrust, said in a press release. “This farm and the Gilliam family’s philosophy are an example of how the farm can be kept together through generations, and how a piece of land can sustain a family. I hope their story inspires others as much as it has inspired me.”
It was Ezra’s father, Coke Gilliam, who planted the conservation seed, the LandTrust said. He could have divided the land among his eight children, but firmly believed the farm that sustained his family through the Great Depression should be kept intact, as a family farm that could sustain them in future bad times.
When Coke Gilliam, a blacksmith, moved his family to the farm they raised corn, beans, apples, cucumbers, pumpkins, peanuts, sweet potatoes, grapes and peaches. They also had chickens and hogs.
They were a poor family, but they always had food on the table and meat all year long. During a time when “food security” wasn’t a buzz word, the Gilliam family believed in it. They believed that if you take care of the land, it would take care of you.
“We had everything, but we were very nearly poor,” Ezra Gilliam recalled. “During those Depression years, we heard about the Depression but never suffered, and it was all because of the basic philosophy of my mother and father.”
Coke gave the greater portion of the farm to Ezra, and gave his other seven children other assets of equal value, but they were assets that wouldn’t divide up a piece of excellent farmland.
Ezra has lived his life guided by four principals that his parents encouraged: “righteousness, value of work, integrity, and dependability.”
A graduate of Livingstone College, N.C. A&T and Iowa State, Ezra Gilliam is a former principal of Dunbar High School. He has stayed involved with agriculture and community issues over the years.
He recently rotated off as an adviser to the Farm Service Agency and served as a member of the Farm Committee of Cooperative Extension. He is an active board member of the Nazareth Children’s Home and the Dunbar Alumni Association.
“When I see compelling needs, I’ve always had the ambition to speak to them,” he said. “With that kind of attitude, you get shifted into various needs in the County.”
On the farm, he has been using best management practices for years and is on the cutting edge of farming, the LandTrust said. He recently built a state-of-the-art cattle facility that is the only one of its kind in Rowan County. It has water wells and a place to store manure. He has also constructed a pasture fencing complex complete with new wells and stream fencing.
“He is well respected in the farming community and with good reason,” the press release said.
The LandTrust says the Gilliam tract is prime farmland for soils of statewide importance. And, for a fifth of a mile, the property borders an unnamed tributary of High Rock Lake on the Yadkin River. The property is adjacent to Alcoa lands. The easement protects the property in its current state and allows for one additional residence to be built, but only by a family member.
The LandTrust received $10,000 from the Conservation Trust for North Carolina to pay for a survey and stewardship of the property.
“This is a great project, and I cannot say enough what an amazing couple the Gilliams are,” said Barry Williams, with the Conservation Trust.