A Virginia-Century farm proud of its Covington family heritage

Howard Julian Covington and Edwina Miles Covington own and operate Sleepy Hollow Acres, a Virginia Century Farm, near Elam in Prince Edward County, Virginia. The farm has been actively engaged in tobacco agriculture in the Covington/Carter family since the early 1800’s until 2004, with the infamous federal tobacco buy out. The front portion of the family home was built in 1808 and the rear was added in 1923 with modern improvements being made in 1993.
Julian and Edwina raised both dark-fired and burley tobacco. They maintain a herd of beef cattle with a black Angus bull. Many birds, such as chickens, guineas, and peacocks stroll around the yard.

The Covington farm, a Virginia-Century five-generation farm, came to the Covington family from George and Eliza A. Carter, Howard Julian Covington’s great-great grandparents.

The front portion of the house was built in 1808 by George Carter, a prominent farmer of Prince Edward. It is a timber-and-brick story-and-a-half structure consisting of a dirt floor cellar, a main floor and a second floor. Two large fireplace chimneys are on the east and west side of the house. A dated brick (1808) is near the top of the eastern chimney. The timber was harvested from the land and the bricks were made on location. Bricks were layered between the hand-hewn studs. In fact, the hand-hewn floor joists can still be seen in the cellar today.

In 1872 when Julian’s great grandfather, Martin H. Covington, married George Carter’s daughter, Martha E. (Patti) Carter (born 1853), she was deeded the house, some acreage and one milk cow as her dowry. Martin was born in 1849, son of Henry and Mary Carwile Covington in Charlotte County. He and other brothers came to the Elam-Hixsburg area of Prince Edward County soon after the end of the Civil War.
Martin H. and Martha E. (Patti) Covington had five children: Izana, Rebecca, Cora (born 1875), George Henry, and Mary E.

Martha E. (Patti) Covington died October 10, 1887. Martin H. Covington died January 15, 1928. They are both buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery (Covington family cemetery) located just west of the house. In his younger years, Martin found an unusually shaped rock that he stored in the corn house to be his grave marker.

When George Henry Covington married Susie Payne Abbitt of Appomattox County, he told Martin that he wanted to make some changes to the house, or he and his bride would move to another house on the farm (known as the Old House). Martin agreed to the changes. George Henry added weatherboarding to the outside of the house and ceiling boards to the interior. He added a wall on the first floor, creating an entrance hall. In 1923, he added two rooms — a dining room and kitchen — to the rear of the house. The timber was again harvested from the farm and cut and planed at a sawmill set up on location.

Meals were originally cooked in the cellar fireplace. The hooks are still in its walls. Then an old kitchen (still standing and used as a storage and work shed) was built about 100 feet from the original structure. The smoke house is 20 feet further west from the old kitchen.

Water was brought to the house from a cement-incased spring on the south fork of Falling Creek (a hundred yards below the house). Then a thirteen-foot hand-dug well was dug next to the 1923 addition and a hand pump was used. In-house plumbing came in 1967.

When the lightning-rod salesman came through the country telling how the rods would attract the electricity and save the house, George Henry wanted a set of rods but told them that they should be put in the pasture next to the house to attract the lightning there and not to the house. The rods are on the house today.

Electricity came to the farm in 1939. The modernistic George Henry was not in favor of it and his daughter-in-law, Hilda Abbitt Covington, had to convince him of its value. Then he only allowed one overhead light and one socket per room.

Susie Abbbitt Covington was born January 4, 1880 and died March 8, 1945, from a goiter. For a few months before her death, she would sit and rock her enfant grandson, Howard Julian Covington. George Henry Covington died February 5, 1954, from complications associated with diabetes. They are both buried in the family cemetery. They had three children–Patti F., Lula Payne, (both died in infancy) and George Abbitt Covington.

George Abbitt Covington married Hilda Frances Abbitt of Appomattox County on May 18, 1935. Hilda Frances was the daughter of George Raleigh Abbitt and Geneva Turns [Torrence] Abbitt.

Hilda died from a stroke. George Abbitt died from complications associated with a series of mini strokes. Both are buried in the family cemetery.

George Abbitt brought the farming operation into the modern age by replacing the mules with a Massey-Harris tractor in 1946. Soon after he added a combine and he would work long days and into the nights harvesting grain on many of the farms of the Elam area.

George Abbitt and Hilda had three children: George Abbitt Covington, Jr. (died at birth), Howard Julian Covington, and Hilda Eugenia Covington.

Julian Covington attended Prospect Elementary School, Prince Edward High School, and graduated from Prince Edward Academy.  He married Edwina Ann Miles of Northampton County, Virignia, at Bethpeor Baptist Church at Five Forks.

As a young man, Julian worked in Farmville as a carpenter’s helper, a tractor parts man, and a taxi driver, but he soon returned to the Covington farm to be a full-time farmer. Following the family tradition, George Abbitt and he raised acres of both dark-fired and burley tobacco and beef cattle. Two American chestnut log tobacco barns, built before George Abbitt was born, are still in use on the farm today.
In 1992, the house underwent some changes with the addition of another room to the rear and a remodeling of the back porch.

Julian and Edwina Covington currently operate the family farm, which they call Sleepy Hollow Acres. She is a retired teacher from the Appomattox County Public Schools (41 years). With the tobacco buyout of 2004, Julian has been economically-forced to retire from tobacco farming, a four-generation occupation for the Covington family. They have recently published Tobacco Rows in Prince Edward County, memoirs of their years in tobacco farming.

Julian’s sister Hilda Eugenia (Jeannie) Covington Barr lives in Farmville, Virginia. She has a daughter, Joette Renee Barr, also of Farmville. She has one daughter, Sabrina Ann Besceglia.