Almost Heaven West Virginia, Oak Grove Farm

Hello, welcome to my blog. I’m new to the blogging world and thrilled to be here. I thought a good place to start is with my beloved farm in West Virginia called "Oak Grove". My husband and I purchased this farm in 1988, we were the third family to own the property. We did some research on the property and found that the ground was purchased first by Thomas Ellis in 1833. At that time WV was still a part of Virginia. Thomas Ellis was born July 4, 1776. He moved to WV after purchasing the property and marrying. WV became it’s own state in 1863. In 1916 the farm was purchased from the Ellis family by the Linger family. Over the years the Linger family purchased other land tracts to make the farm a total of 250 acres. When we purchased the farm in 1988 in was in very bad shape but we loved the ground and decided we would take on the challenge of the pre-civil war house. The house had no electric or plumbing. The outhouse still existed and was in use when we purchased the farm. Below are some before and after pics of the farm, we still have a lot of work to do, I still want to gingerbread it up and turn it into a Country Victorian Farmhouse!

The two pics above were taken around the turn of the century. You can't see it in the pic but the front has two doors, it seems it was a custom brought over from the old country.

The next 4 pics are before and after, 1988 when we purchased it and 1993 after we did some of the renovations.

This cemetery is on the property, the first owner Thomas Ellis is buried in this cemetery.

Deeds to the property that were given to us by the Linger Family.

This pic of Alex Haley’s house was our inspiration while restoring our home. His home looked just like ours before and after the restoration. The built ins on the inside of his home were also like ours.
This is one of the barns on the property, our son turned the loft into a bachelor pad.

This pic was taken from the farm over the hill from us, our friends have since purchased that property. You can see our house in the lower right of the pic.

This is a mountain on our property called Pine Knob. One of the highest mountains in the area. I haven't walked up to the top of it yet but my husband and son have. It gets very thick with brush so I have not braved it yet.

The only things we found on the property were a trunk and an iron bed. They were both found in the barn and we believe they were owned by the Ellis Family. The trunk below had a broken leg and we had a new on made then refinished it. The antique tapestry was something I added to it.

You can see a corner of the iron bed in the bottom left of this pic. I am refinishing the bed now for a cottage chic guest bedroom. I hope you will stop back in to see the adorable bedroom! I have alot of cute ideas in the making for this room.

The out house was still in use when we purchased the property. It was a two seater!!! Can you imagine!!! We moved it and now it’s a garden shed.
This old one room school house was on our property. The clipping below the school house is from a book published on the history of Lewis County in 1992 we were named as the owners but when we moved in the school house was not here, rumor was it was moved by one of the gas companies to use for storage.

History states that on our property was, Oak Grove School, Oak Grove Cemetary, and Oak Grove Church, so when it came time to name the farm we thought Oak Grove Farm would suit it just perfectly. Two years ago the 911 emergency services wanted to give street addresses to all rural areas so of course we picked Oak Grove Lane. Thank you for taking the time to look at my blog and I hope you will come back, I have so much planned and would love to share it with you!!! Shirl