Same family has owned farm for six generations
Six generations of the same family have called Old Home Farm — home
EAST COVENTRY » A 35-acre farm in East Coventry in Chester County is moving closer to a major milestone — its 250th anniversary.
The anniversary isn’t the only milestone for the Historic Old Home Farm on Old Schuylkill Road, however. Dating back to 1769, the house and farm property have been home to six generations of the same family.
“This is something — especially in the United States — that’s very rare,” said Kurt Elliott, who, along with his sister Nancy, is the current owner of the property. “There are only a couple of farms in Pennsylvania that have been in the same family for as long or longer than this farm … And I think that’s worth something.”
There have been changes over the years as the property’s use has evolved. What hasn’t changed, however is the family’s love of the property and desire to keep it in the family.
Kurt Elliott’s great-greatgreat-great-great-great grandfather Henry Brower originally purchased the farm, and upon Brower’s death in 1784 the property was passed down to his son, Abraham Brower.
Abraham’s son-in-law, Abraham Rinehart took over next. The property continued to be passed down in the Rinehart family until Ronald Elliott — Kurt’s father — took over for his maternal grandfather, B. Curtis Rinehart in 1953.
The Mercury wrote a profile on the farm and family in 1969 — as the farm turned 200. According to that article, the farm was 101 acres at the time. The Historic Old Home Farm, at 583 Old Schuylkill Road, Pottstown, now consists of 35 acres.
“Twenty-five of 35 acres are now preserved with the county,” Kurt Elliott said. “It has to stay as agricultural, open land.” He added that the family no longer farms the land. “But my dad, he’s a retired dairy farmer and he farmed here for a number of years,” he said.
“It’s historically been a dairy farm,” said Ronald Elliott, Kurt’s father. “They’d ship milk and other goods to Pottstown.”
According to that previous article in The Mercury, the Elliotts kept “50 cows and 40 heifers in the 112-year-old barn.”
The farm includes the house, which Kurt and his four siblings grew up in. Ronald Elliott said he assumes the house was built in 1769 as well.
“I love it here. This is home … I wouldn’t want to leave here ever,” Kurt Elliott’s mother Shirley Elliott said, adding that she was a “city girl” from Norristown and originally didn’t know what she was getting herself into.
Even though half of the house was added on some time
in the early 1800s, features like original double-layered floors for the cold cellar, shorter doorframes, and a grandfather clock from 1817 are still prominent. The farm also has a smoke house, once used to smoke meats; a spring house, which stays a constant cold temperature during the summer and winter and was used a refrigerator; and a carriage house.
The barn on the property is no longer used as a farm barn. Instead, it houses a store called the Milkhouse Shop at Old Home Farm.
Kurt Elliott’s sister Nancy makes vintage items, and Kurt makes soaps, that he sells under the name Scentual Gardens.
“He’s got a real factory out there,” Shirley Elliott said.
Kurt Elliott makes the soaps himself, as well as other items, such as detergent, lip balm and beard balm. The wrappers are all recyclable and biodegradable.
The Milkhouse Shop also carries a variety of craft items.
“Some local crafters have items here and we also have things from Africa,” Nancy Elliott said. “We also have jams and jellies that are made for us.”
A lot of items have also been repurposed from the old barn or other items around the farm, according to Nancy Elliott.
Kurt Elliott makes his soap in the back of the shop, at the same place where he would milk cows growing up.
“‘Springhouse’ is probably the most popular,” Nancy Elliott said. “It’s made with spearmint that grows on the farm … And one of his most popular soaps are the pine tars, which are dark because they have pine tar and are good for eczema and psoriasis.”
Like many old properties, Old Home Farm has a legend —about a secret room in the attic. Kurt Elliott believes the room is connected to the reason the original barn burned down in 1857.
“There was an article in
the paper when the barn burned down in 1857,” Kurt Elliott said. According to the story, when the owner came home, there was a horse out of the barn.
“He tried to get it back in, couldn’t seem to get it in, came in to get the kids … By the time they got back out there, all the horses were out of the barn and the barn was on fire,” he said.
The article also stated that someone had started the fire, according to Kurt Elliott.
“I had an epiphany about
this whole thing last year,” he said. Kurt Elliott believes the barn was burned down because it is known that his family was abolitionists.
“Our family was almost undoubtedly on the Underground Railroad,” he said.
Kurt Elliott thinks it all adds up that the secret room — which only locks from the inside — hid runaway slaves.
Kurt Elliott was adamant on the farm staying in the family.
“It’s no longer a farm, per se — a working farm — but we want to keep it for the next generation,” he said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future, but we want to preserve the barn as best we can ... We just know that we don’t want to see it go away. We want to maintain it — 250 years is almost unheard of in this country.”
The Milkhouse Shop is open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Fridays and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays.
Kurt Elliott also sells his soaps at Pottstown FARM every other Thursday, as well as at craft shows. The farm also hosts events.
The family also hosts two family reunions each year, according to Kurt Elliott, one of which dates back to the 1930s.
For more information about the Milkhouse Shop at Old Home Farm visit www. facebook.com/OldHomeFarmMilkhouseShop/. For more information about Scentual Gardens soaps visit www.scentualgardens.com/