Photo credit: Nathan Lambrecht

If we rewind time back to 1807 and the Revolutionary War, we will find the start of Robert Elliott and Sons. Gen. John Nichols was awarded the original land grant for his service in the war and thought so much of the Elliotts’ ancestors that he gave the family 640 acres in what is now Robertson County. The family chose to settle in that section of land because it had a natural spring – the spring, in fact, where the family still receives their water from today.

Robert Elliott was the second oldest of six children to grow up on the family farm in the heart of the Great Depression. The family raised chickens, hogs and cattle, and in 1935, with his entire savings, Robert started a registered Angus cattle herd. Two of his children, Joe and William, inherited the farm from him and carry on the family name as the sixth generation.

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“My daddy [Robert] was one of the first to keep records and identify bulls with the University of Tennessee,” William says. “We’ve kept his process up, but are more specialized now. We do embryo transfer, and we try to breed and select bulls to improve our herd.”

Joe and William, along with Joe’s oldest son, Lake –the seventh generation – continue to specialize their Angus herd where they sell calves and bulls to the public through their on-farm sale every year.

See more: Meet East Tennessee Farmer Terry Snyder

“We sell breeding stock to roughly eight states now,” Joe says. “That’s what keeps us going. We use ultrasound equipment and have a DNA profile for every animal we have, which ensures we have a good selection of breeding stock for our customers.”

In the 1970s and ’80s, the family focused on growing row crops. In the 1990s, they started with greenhouses and now grow more than 2 million tobacco plants for customers.

The family built the original homeplace on the farm in 1827 as a modified saltbox home with a dog-trot in the middle and chimneys on both ends of the house. The homeplace still exists and is where William lives today. It’s also the place he and Joe have fond memories growing up.

“We grew up packing coal in the kitchen and that’s what we used to heat the house with, but we also had an electric stove and oven and so forth,” William says. “I consider myself very lucky that my ancestors kept the farm, and I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to live and raise a family here.”

It’s a more than 200-year-old strong farm that has no doubt stood the test of time. And for Joe and William, along with their children and grandchildren, they have faith in the foundation their ancestors created so long ago and hope the farm will continue to last for many, many more years.

“I’ve always loved communing with mother nature. And I carry close the old Indian proverb that says ‘leave the land better than you found it, for you did not inherit it from your forefathers, you borrowed it from your grandchildren.’” Joe says. “I’ll be gone from this earth someday and the whole world may change, but people still have to eat, so I’m hopeful what we have here today will remain.”