HANCOCK COUNTY — Acre after acre of dark green soybean leaves flowed in a rolling motion, pushed by the warm summer breeze. Some 80 acres of land known as the Snodgrass Farm is filled with hundreds upon hundreds of yards of crops nearly ready to be harvested. The farm is surrounded by thick, enchanted woods on nearly every side and is earmarked by four different homestead areas.
Bill Snodgrass, a fifth-generation Snodgrass, still lives on the family farm, founded in 1864. He is one of four siblings who grew up on the farm and decided to stay. He is now living in one of the homes which are sprinkled throughout the spacious property. The Snodgrass Farm also houses and has housed numerous other Snodgrass family members during its 159-year history.
“We still care for the land here,” Bill said. “We’re tied to the soil.”
Bill and is wife, Pat, raised their five children, the sixth-generation of Snodgrass family members, on the family homestead. Now that generation is old enough to welcome in the seventh generation with some of those youngsters having lived on the land.
“I guess when it all started, there used to be a lot of timber out here instead of farm land,” Bill said, pointing at the field of crops behind one of the homes. “I remember my grandfather telling me he used to have to plow around a lot of stumps and that was a lot of hard work.”
The Snodgrass Farm in Hancock County was recently recognized for their 159 years of having a family farm and received a Hoosier Homestead Sesquicentennial Award for being in operation since 1864. The family farm was recently recognized during a homestead celebration by State Rep. Bob Cherry (R-Greenfield) and State Sen. Michael Crider (R-Greenfield) during the Indiana State Fair.
Farms owned and maintained by the same family for 100, 150 and 200 years can qualify for centennial, sesquicentennial or bicentennial Hoosier Homestead awards. The Snodgrass family farm was among 103 awardees recently recognized at the Indiana State Fair for their commitment to agriculture.
Bill noted that, when his parents died, the family farm was split up among siblings and belongs to different members of the Snodgrass family. However, Bill says it’s still a family farm and he’s proud of the fact state officials recognized the family heritage.
“It is special to me because I grew up here,” Bill said. “I know different family members will have different views of it all, but I do think it is still a special place.”
For Bill, who worked in the mortgage business for 51 years but also worked the farm during his off hours, he said growing up and then raising his own family on the Snodgrass farm was what he and his wife wanted to do.
“We never thought of doing anything else,” Bill said. “I guess I was just free labor for my dad, but I enjoyed it.”
Standing behind one of the homes on the property, Bill noted how he spent a lot of time in the woods to the west of the property as a young boy, hunting and learning about wildlife.
“From the time I was 10 years old and allowed to carry a rile, I was in those woods,” Bill said. “I’ve hunted all over these woods here.”
One of Bill and Pat’s children, Becky Robinson, grew up on the Snodgrass farm and now as an adult recognizes the fact the Snodgrass Farm was and still is a special place.
“When you’re a kid, you just don’t recognize those kinds of things, but now that I’m older I really do appreciate it so much more,” she said. “This is special because not everyone gets to grow up on a place like this.”
The fifth generation of Snodgrass children, which included Bill, were fortunate, he said, to grow up with their parents and grandparents living on the same property.
While much has changed since those days, the family land contains some of the original structures, although some have been remodeled, and the farm still has some of the many barns first built in the late 1800s.
“They used to dairy and milk out of this barn,” Robinson said, pointing to the original barn on the south side of the property. “They also ran some pigs and they’ve have had some horses, but it’s been a green farm and is still an active green farm.”
An old basketball rim, bending down from far too many games, still hangs from one of the barns along the gravel driveway.
“We used to play basketball every evening after we got home from school for a little bit before the cows got in the barn, then we had to go milk,” Bill said, before noting it wasn’t all good times. “We used to clean off hog floors on Saturday mornings with a scoop shovel and a manure spreader, so there was that.”
He also noted there is a great deal of hard work associated with farming, and nowadays most people just don’t want to deal with it like those early generations of Snodgrass members did.
“I don’t know that we (my generation) accomplished much, but the family members before us did,” Bill said. “There was four old men before me that killed it out here and my dad was one of them. He was an extremely hard worker.”
He noted the last corn corp the family planted with horses was when Bill was a senior in 1961.
“Dad had a team of horses back then and an old corn planter and he said, ‘I’m going to wear that team out or the corner planter out this year,’” Bill said.
State officials acknowledged the current Snodgrass family and all the Snodgrass generations since 1864 as well as the other Hoosier farms to earn the Hoosier Homestead Award.
“These Hoosiers have displayed a commitment to their craft not often seen, and it’s an honor to be able to recognize them for their achievements,” Cherry said.
In honor of Indiana’s rich agricultural heritage, the Hoosier Homestead Award Program recognizes families with farms that have been owned by the same family for 100 years or more. The program was instituted in 1976 and recognizes the contributions these family farms have made to the economic, cultural and social advancements of Indiana. In the past 45 years, more than 6,000 farms have received the honor.
“Family-owned farms across the state work very hard each year to support our local communities and cement Indiana as a leader in the agricultural industry,” Crider said. “I admire the dedication these Hoosier farmers have put into their craft and congratulate them on this well-deserved award.”
Hoosier Homestead award ceremonies are conducted yearly in the spring and summer to commemorate farm families for their legacies and contributions to Indiana’s agriculture industry. Since the program started in 1976, the state has honored more than 6,000 farms with this designation.
