By Stephen Smoot
This Saturday, Pendleton County will witness a perfect recipe for family fun. Take the fundamentals of the history and culture of local farming, add a healthy helping of food, then add in a dash of education and entertainment. Finally, finish off with the inclusion of visitors from all ages enjoying the experience of learning about farming from the 1700s to today.
The final result? Pendleton County’s first annual Farm Crawl.
As many Americans in urban and suburban areas have lost contact with where food comes from and how it gets to their table, agricultural states like West Virginia have created innovative ways to get visitors and locals alike back on the farm.
Indeed one recent study showed that 40 percent of Americans have never met a farmer. This lack of contact has contributed to the federal government especially attempting policies that reflect inferior knowledge of farms, farming, and farmers.
Jessica Hoover, one of Pendleton County’s two West Virginia University Extension agents, and Annie Humes, new executive director of the Pendleton County Convention and Visitors Bureau, seek to change that.
Humes related that she and Hoover “have both had the opportunity to hear” from officials in Hampshire County and elsewhere who have seen great success in linking farms together in an agricultural tourism event.
Once they reviewed the successes elsewhere, Humes shared that their reaction was “absolutely! Let’s do it!”
Hoover, through the West Virginia University Extension Service, “was responsible for coordinating the crawl in Pendleton County.”
The original model came from the idea of “pub crawls” that became popular in college towns about 20 years ago. Frostburg, Maryland, adapted the idea to create a more family-friendly wintertime hot cocoa crawl. Patrons have a menu of different locations to go and enjoy different styles of the same theme.
Mountain State Maple Days, of which Pendleton County has emerged as a premier participant, utilizes the same model.
Hoover last January described the single day event as “a self-guided tour through participating Pendleton County farms and agribusinesses” which will provide “an inside look at daily operations and allows participating stops to showcase what they offer.”
A lucky number of seven establishments will welcome visitors from near and far. Some, such as Swilled Dog and Dry Run Spirits Distillery, participate in the permanent spirits trail connecting Pendleton and Randolph counties. Dry Run and another participant, Mountain Cajun Getaways, also feature prominently in Mountain State Maple Days.
Swilled Dog operates in Upper Tract, Dry Run Spirits Distillery in Dahmer, and Mountain Cajun Getaways calls Circleville home.
The Pendleton County Farmers Market in Franklin, which will participate in the crawl, has served as a hub for agriculture education, entrepreneurship, and promotion of local farmers and gardeners selling their broad spectrum of products. Additionally, Blackthorn Lavender has produced and sold a number of goods produced from lavender grown on their Sugar Grove land.
OMG Acres represents a new entry in the field of area agricultural interests opening their gates to the public.
Avery Ouellette and her husband, Dan’s, journey to joining the Farm Crawl started a decade ago in Washington DC. Says Ms. Ouellette, they were “craving more time in nature close to the mountains.”
Along with their friend, Mark Mueller, they started evaluating their options in the mountains of both the Old Dominion and the Mountain State. They spent “a couple of years looking at different properties” until they happened upon a historic farm for sale in Fort Seybert. They “immediately fell in love with the beautiful piece of land” that was farmed by the Trumbo family.
A Trumbo family member from Brock’s Gap in Virginia was attached to the garrison at Fort Seybert, but along with several other men, were absent on a task that took them away from the fort during the infamous massacre led by Chief Killbuck. Mary Lee Keister Talbot’s book, “The Dyer Settlement and the Fort Seybert Massacre,” penned in 1937, shared that “very early . . . word got into the middle colonies, especially Pennsylvania, that there was very beautiful and fertile country in the river valleys to the southward.” This included the South Fork River that graces the Fort Seybert area.
Interestingly enough, that publication also calls the stream “Moorefield River.”
The beauty of the land and the region that served as a magnet for so many grew into an inspiration for the family’s efforts toward conservation. After obtaining the land in August of 2017, the Ouellettes started strategizing different ways to develop their holding while maintaining a mission to protect the natural beauty and functions of the land. “We wanted to be thoughtful about nature and the agricultural aspects to preserve,” Avery Ouellette added.
The year 2020 brought a double shock to their efforts. COVID hampered any work they wished to do. Even worse, their friend and partner, Mueller, received a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. Though expected to pass in months, Mueller survived for years, passing in November 2022. According to his obituary, “he spent thousands of hours” at OMG Acres “(cunningly recruiting friends to perform unpaid manual labor) restoring the beauty of the land and its buildings.”
Part of the legacy of Mueller includes his work on the historic buildings of the property, including the Trumbo cabin, which served as one of the first white settlements in the area, as well as a historic church.
“It’s really amazing,” said Avery Ouellette. While the property remains a work in progress, the family has proudly offered access during the Farm Crawl to visitors from afar and locals seeking to reconnect with family and area history.
Farm crawlers can also learn about family farming history on the opposite side of Pendleton County. Sites Homestead, located under the imposing limestone cliffs of Seneca Rocks near the Discovery Center, also joined the official itinerary.
Jeremiah Hyslop, from the United States Forest Service, explained that the purpose of including the Sites Homestead lay in “educating the public about relevant cultural history and supporting our community.”
Hyslop wrote in short description of the landmark in 2024 that the family that originally spelled their name in the more Germanic Seitz, constructed a home there in 1839. He added that “the Sites family originally resided in a pen log cabin, which was called such because it was approximately one log long and one log deep. Some 30 years later, the family expanded the farmhouse to the two-story structure which stands today.”
Ever since, the Homestead has served as a witness to history and a monument to the hardy families that hacked their livelihoods from the wilderness.
Part of the story of the Homestead also lies in studying how the land supported families through food production. A forest service volunteer, who holds status as a master gardener, and also an AmeriCorps worker assigned to the Appalachian Forest Natural Heritage Area, has developed a garden project. Its goal lies in “focusing more on vegetables that have cultural significance and heritage plants that have been propagated from the garden for 25 years.”
As Hoover explains, the event in Pendleton County is part of “statewide efforts to promote agritourism in the state” as it works to “promote and celebrate the thriving agritourism industry we have in the county.”
The Pendleton County Farm Crawl will take place between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Saturday.
