The Clermont Farm Story
A Working Landscape Rooted in Time.
Agriculture has shaped Clermont for thousands of years—from Native American land stewardship to colonial grain production, from enslaved labor to modern conservation farming. This land tells the story of changing climates, cultures, and economies, and today it remains a working farm committed to sustainable practices and hands-on agricultural education. At Clermont, history and farming are inextricably linked, and both continue to evolve in tandem.
The story of agriculture at Clermont begins long before human hands turned the soil. The dramatic geological forces that formed the Appalachian Mountains and the collision with Africa 300 million years ago left behind the folded ridges and valleys that define the Shenandoah landscape today. These ancient shifts created the rock ribs still visible in Clermont’s fields, while glacial meltwaters shaped the region’s rivers and soils. Although farming began in the Valley only 3,000 years ago, today’s farmers still contend with the terrain and erosion shaped by both deep history and more recent centuries of intensive cultivation.
The Land and Climate: A Landscape Millions of Years in the Making
First Peoples and the Foundation of Valley Agriculture
People have lived in the Valley for over 16,000 years, with Native Americans managing the land long before European settlement. Through practices like controlled burning, they created combinations of grasslands and oak forests that supported agriculture, game, and travel. By the Woodland Period (1100 BC–1650 AD), when the climate had evolved into its current patterns/temperatures about 1,000 years ago, settled villages and slash-and-burn agriculture supported crops like maize, squash, and beans. When George Washington surveyed Clermont in 1750, he noted areas of “rich barrens”—open grasslands created by Native fire stewardship, evidence of a sophisticated land management tradition.
European Settlement and Agricultural Expansion
European settlers introduced farming methods influenced by their cultural and economic backgrounds, adapting to the Valley’s soils, climate, and the booming global demand for wheat. The eastern northern Shenandoah Valley, including the area around Clermont, was settled by large landholders—often from Tidewater Virginia—who used enslaved labor and intensive grain production to build agricultural fortunes. Yet Clermont’s farmers were never monoculturists. From the mid-1700s through the Civil War and through the 1940’s, the farm followed a the traditional model of “general mixed farming.” This combined not only the simultaneous production of multiple species of grain (wheat, corn, oats, barley, rye), of livestock (milk and beef cattle, horses, sheep, pigs, goats, rabbits), and of poultry (chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, guineas) but also, depending on the owner, additional cash ventures such as milling, storekeeping, breeding thoroughbreds, operating ferries, taverns, and blacksmithies, money-lending, and land speculation.
The Age of Grain & the Peak of Production
Clermont reached its peak under Edward McCormick, who expanded its land and slaveholdings between 1845 and 1861, continuing after Emancipation until 1870. By the 1860 Census, Clermont listed 28 enslaved individuals and showed high productivity in the Census’ Agricultural Schedules—hallmarks of success in what scholars call the “Age of Grain.” But with Edward’s death and postwar economic challenges, the family’s ability to maintain production declined. Sons left the farm after the Civil War and to maintain their economic status took up professions (law, medicine, U.S career military officers, or business in large cities). White tenant farmers (of the entire farm who farmed on shares with the owner family) replaced direct family operation, and laborers hired by these tenants—often Black men—often worked seasonally or for specific projects (harvesting, threshing). The surviving slave quarter was repurposed to house these workers, whose pay included room, board, and some cash.
Nationally and at Clermont, agriculture transformed dramatically after the Civil War and especially after World War II. The share of Americans working on farms dropped from 90% in 1862 to 30% by 1940, and currently 3% or less. Larger farms, rising costs, and market pressures led to the decline of general mixed farming in favor of larger quantities of one or two specific crops or types of livestock.
Postwar Decline and the Transformation of American Agriculture
At Clermont, the old model had a remarkably productive sunset, having been rejuvenated by Edward McCormick’s son, Admiral A.M.D. McCormick, USN, who before WWI hired the first of four strong tenants, John Rufus Bell, adding new buildings and fixing old ones. Two adult children of the last tenant farmer on the traditional model, Gilbert Royston, who retired in 1948, wrote fascinating memoirs of a very productive, diversified farm in the 1940s. Royston’s retirement auction poster closely echoed the one from the death of Edward McCormick in 1870, marking the end of an era. By the late 20th century, Clermont's farm infrastructure had declined, and its fields had remained in pasture for decades with a limited cow-calf operation.
Elizabeth Williams' Vision: Protecting Agriculture & Landscape
At her death in 2004, Elizabeth Williams gifted Clermont’s land to the Virginia Department of Historic Resources and endowed the Clermont Foundation, with a requirement: the farm must remain in active agricultural use. She understood that farms left idle become subdivisions or forests. Her gift was a strategic act of preservation—to protect the land, bolster the local farming economy, and create a platform for agricultural education.
Agriculture Meets Education: Growing the Next Generation
Clermont’s agricultural mission includes both production and education. To make the farm a good platform for education, The Foundation haspartnered with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (Farm Services Agency, Natural Resources Conservation Service), the Lord Fairfax Soil and Water Conservation District, Virginia Tech, and non-profits such as the Piedmont Environmental Council and the Shenandoah Valley Alliance, and added its own funds, to bring new investment to the farm as well as best management practices. The major barn, which burned in 2008, is being replaced with new 21st-century ones by the Commonwealth, which owns the property. Once again, one hundred years after the 20th-century rejuvenation, Clermont Farm is again being renewed for the 21st century.
On the basis of these continuing improvements over the last twenty years, The Foundation has partnered with Clarke County Public Schools and the Clarke Farm Bureau to give students hands-on experience. Programs with 4-H and Virginia Cooperative Extension bring field schools, classes, and on-farm demonstrations to farmers and learners of all ages. Beekeeping classes, wool co-ops, native plant fairs, and public events make agriculture and conservation accessible and engaging. These efforts help address a pressing national need: with the average U.S. farmer nearing 60, young people must be inspired to enter food and farm careers.