Earnharts Named “Land Conservationist of the Year”

In 2001, the North Carolina Wildlife Federation recognized Jean & John Earnhart, the owners of Lloyd-Andrews Historic Farmstead, as their Land Conservationist of the Year. Here is the Earnharts’ statement published in the award ceremony program.

Land Conservationist of the Year
John & Jean Earnhart
Chapel Hill, NC

In different eras we ask the land to sustain us in different ways. I'm a 10th generation descendant of those yeoman farmers who came from England, Scotland and Wales to Virginia and then Orange County, North Carolina, in the mid-1700's. These first settlers cleared the land, built isolated cabins and were fiercely independent tillers of the soil. This way of life continues until 1945 when my grandfather died. For the next 50 years the farm lay fallow. We planted loblolly pines in the old corn rows, sold a few tracts of the 599-acre land grant, saved the rest thanks to the use value tax for forestry. By 1990 the farm had become part of Carrboro's Northern Transition Area, designated for high density urban development. As a family – John and I, our son David, his wife, four granddaughters, and our son Philip – we decided to defy urbanization and make our own permanent zoning in the form of a conservation easement. I cannot tell you how happy we are to have honored our heritage by sealing this land forever as undeveloped fields and forests. We love the land, and we share it with friends who come to hike, groups from Haiku poets to a mushroom club, Audubon bird counters, and forestry students. Looking back, we ask: What other decision could we have possibly made?

Jean Earnhart, January 2002