Knox Farm Historic District

Knox Farm is a working farm of about 890 acres in western Rowan County, North Carolina, with some thirty-three buildings. Its oldest structure, a log spring house, dates from the late eighteenth century. Log cribs, a smokehouse and barns follow, along with a Greek Revival farmhouse built in 1854-1856 by James Graham for Robert Knox. The mule barn of 1916 and the dairy buildings of 1936 onward show how farming changed over time. The farm was reportedly built largely from logs and sawn timber grown on the family's own land. Knox Chapel Methodist Church, on land deeded in 1888, is also part of the district. The district was listed because the same family has farmed here since immigrant John Knox acquired the core of the land in the mid-eighteenth century. The buildings record a move from subsistence farming to self-sufficiency and then to a prominent modern dairy. The farm was also the birthplace of Jane Knox, mother of President James K. Polk.