If you want to understand today,
you have to search yesterday. 
~ Pearl S. Buck

Hillyrock Farm exemplifies through its  previous owners, architecture and continued farm operation the most notable attributes of the Greenbrier Valley of West Virginia.  The early settlements in the Valley spurred trans-Allegheny settlements and became the gateway to the Ohio River and the start of the westward expansion.  Many of the homesteads were built using the Midland American log construction, techniques with Old World roots, but with a distinct American interpretation. The region had a history of struggle between land speculators and yeoman farmers for control of the land, and it was in the center of the sectional disputes in Virginia before the Civil War.  During the Civil War, the Valley was the site of some significant battles, and after this War, it went through a wrenching Reconstruction period.  Through it all, the Valley yielded an abundant harvest to its productive farmers because of the excellent soil and lay of the land.  Hillyrock Farm’s development followed this history: it was settled by a pioneer family who build the original log home using the prevalent building techniques; it was bought by a farmer-businessman who speculated on land. Then, during its most significant period, a locally important Civil War captain expanded the farm and the farmhouse and played a vital role in promoting agriculture and civic life in the region.  The farm has been in continued operation since the early 1800’s and is an exceptional example of American homesteaders pioneering, prospering and then preserving.

The Samuel Price family settled the “savannah” area north of Lewisburg and south of Frankford in the late 1700’s.  The family is attributed with building the original log dwelling at Hillyrock Farm.  It has the same dimensions and rooms as the original log home still standing on the adjoining farm that was also part of the Price farm. As the Price family grew, they added homes built using trees harvested on the property and with family labor.  Hillyrock’s location was likely chosen because of the strong spring on the property and it is believed the cut limestone Spring House was constructed even before the log home.

William McClung (b. Jan 1785, d. June 1855), known as Major McClung and son of early Greenbrier pioneer Captain Samuel McClung, bought three tracts of the Price farm from children of Samuel Price Jr., as recorded in a deed dated September 7, 1836.  Major McClung “owned a number of farms in the Levels north of Lewisburg, including “Clifton”, which had a large columned brick house.  He also acted as a sort of commercial bank, lending money to farmers and store owners.  He married Elizabeth Wilson Rader McClanahan shortly after her first husband died, and had three children.  His children each inherited large tracts of his land—and this farm, known as William McClung’s Price Place was given to his oldest daughter, Laura J., who married H.Frazier Dickson, whose family owned the notable Greenbrier home, “Mountain Home”. 

In 1880, Laura and her half brother Charles (a son from Major McClung’s first marriage) sold the farm to Alpheus Paris (A.P.) McClung, known as a “favorite cousin”.  McClung was well known in the region as the Captain of the 14th Virginia Calvary, Company K, known as “Greenbrier Swifts”, and who were highly regarded for their horsemanship. After the war, he farmed and was a founding member of the Greenbrier Farmers Club, formed in 1874, a farming organization that predated the Granges in the region. He was also a general agent for Deere & Company, a company that later became known as the John Deere. (An interesting note: a new John Deere dealership recently opened a few miles from the farm.)

It is during A.P.’s and his family’s occupancy of the farm that the home and barns were expanded.  The house went from a four room utilitarian log cabin to a large eight room house.  Two large cut-limestone chimneys and many fine artisan features, such as grain painted woodwork and a front door wrapped in handsome transom windows, were added.  More barns were built, including the addition of a barn referred to as “the horse barn”. A.P. and his wife Elizabeth (Betty) sold the farm to the McLaughlin family in 1892 after the deaths of their son Dennis in 1891 and Walter in 1892.  They moved to Lewisburg, and A.P. was elected County Sheriff in 1904 and served until 1908. 

In 1892 the McLaughlins moved their family to Hillyrock Farm from Monterey Virginia after the family home burned in a fire.

In 1947, Jane and William (Bill) McNeel Browning purchased the farm from the McLaughlin family. Bill was raised on his family farm in Hillsboro, Pocahontas County and was an ancestor of the first settler, John McNeel, of “Little Levels” as Hillsboro was known.  His mother was the only daughter of Isaac McNeel, a prominent farmer who owned the mill at Mill Point, West Virginia.  His father, William Augustus Browning, had come from Washington, D.C. to oversee the family’s timber interest in Pocahontas County and he fell in love with the land and the farmer’s daughter.  The family farm was deeded to the Browning’s oldest son, William McNeel Browning, a physician in Hillsboro, who continues to manage that farm.

The Brownings’ operated a diary, raised lambs, chickens, pigs and Hereford cattle.  Their most important contribution to the farm was a careful restoration of the farm house that involved removing dropped ceilings and stripping paint, revealing the outstanding native hardwood and hand wrought iron fixtures used in constructing the home.  They furnished the home they named Hillyrock with handmade antique pieces, mostly from the surrounding area.  The Brownings had an exceptional appreciation for the early American families that settled and farmed in this Alleghany mountain valley and spent most of their lives preserving this farm as a representation of this history for future generation.  In 1992, they deeded the farm to their son and daughter-in-law, Robert and Diane Browning, with the understanding that the work of enhancing and preserving the farm and farmhouse would continue and this ethic would be passed on the future generations.

“If it were only still-With far away the shrill crying of a cock; Or the shaken bell from a cow’s throat moving through the bushes; or the soft shock of wizened apples falling from an old tree in a forgotten orchard upon the hilly rock!” Edna St. Vincent Millay

Present Day