The Stafford Farm - In History
Passing Through History
Though very little of the history immediately surrounding the Battle of Guilford Courthouse, a
pivotal date in the Southern Campaign of the Revolutionary War, can be stated with certainty,
it is quite likely that the simple wooden structure sitting close to a curve in the road that
remains today played a part. It was 1781; the Patriot troops had passed through the area and
headed east. Lord Cornwallis and his troops followed close behind, trying to cause American
General Greene to stop and fight.
Historical records suggest that the British troops passed right through this area on their way
from Dobson's Crossroads (today, Kernersville) -- and Stafford family oral history suggests
that Cornwallis, or at least troops under his command, took advantage of foodstuffs and other
goods on this piece of property. It lies not far west of the Guilford courthouse and small
settlement -- later the site of a British victory which, however, weakened the British army and
helped end the War.
Since 1781, though later expanded and supported by a number of outbuildings that still dot the
land, that structure has been home to generations, and chiefly the centerpiece of a farming
family. Today, it is the site of a festival that not only celebrates the persimmon trees on the
ancestral land, but the traditions of the American rural past.
These photos from Gene Stafford's archives represent the farm and family earlier in the 20th
century, when farming was more the rule than the exception in central North Carolina.
Gene Stafford's grandfather, Charlie
Stafford (left) and Ernest Tilley pose in
this 1935 photo (see license plate on
Gene's Grandmother Lelur and Grandfather Charlie Stafford
beside the porch of the historic Stafford house.
Gene's mother, Frances
Stafford (left) and first
cousin Mary Stafford
on the property.
In front of the grainery/wood shed: Aunt Dallas Stafford Duncan (left,
2012 Persimmon Queen), Gene's mother Frances Stafford, and Marjorie
Uncle Ray Stafford (right) and an unidentified man pose in style in front
of the Granary, circa 1930s.
Willard Stafford (left, with guitar) and Gene's grandfather
Charlie E. Stafford (with tater bug mandolin).