William Reed bought the land that was to become the Reed Farmstead in 1803, when John Adams was President, and six years before Abraham Lincoln was born. At the time, this part of western Virginia (now West Virginia) had been settled by the European Americans for only about 50 years, and Native Americans still occasionally traveled through the area. The region was made up of wide valleys and mountains that were still covered in thick forest.  As you might guess, lands that were more easily farmed were the first to be settled.  These plots were usually located along the rivers and river valleys.  This explains why William Reed purchased his new property in the mountainous, rocky lands of eastern Hardy County.  Unfortunately, these rocky lands were not as easy to farm as lands along the rivers. William Reed married Hannah Musgrove in 1807, and over the next 40 years they developed their property into a farm upon which they grew hay, oats, rye, corn, flax (for making linen cloth), and doubtless various fruits and vegetables for use by the family. They also raised cows, sheep, pigs, honey bees, and horses. The Reeds lived in a small log cabin that measured about 16 by 20 feet (smaller than many modern bedrooms!), with a stone fireplace used for heating the house and cooking their food. They also raised six children: Sarah, William, Thomas, David, Elizabeth, and Isaac. Even though William Reed was unable to read or write, one of his sons, Isaac, was to become a local school teacher. William Reed died in 1848, leaving the farm to his wife Hannah and their children. In 1854, the property was sold to Andrew and Fannie Garrett. The Garretts continued to earn their living from the farm much like the Reeds before them. Andrew and Fannie also had six children: John, Simon, Benjamin, Abraham, Julia Ann, and Catherine. The family lived in a second log house on the property (possibly built by the Reeds), which was the same size as the older house, but included a 13 by 16 foot addition. By this time, the farm also included a barn and fenced barnyard, a cold storage building (not unlike our modern "refrigerators"), a very small house (10 x 15 feet) that may have been lived in by one of the grown children, and a shed. Andrew Garrett died unexpectedly in 1857. During the Civil War (1861-1865), the Garretts, like most of their neighbors, supported the Confederacy, with at least one of the sons (Simon) serving in the Confederate Army. However, during much of the war, the Union army controlled Hardy County, now part of the new state of West Virginia (1863). During the later years of the war, the Union cavalry would often visit farms in the area looking for Confederate soldiers. These Union soldiers, without a doubt, visited the Garrett's farm on several occasions. The Civil War period Union artifacts archaeologists have found at the site may be from one or more of these visits. Because of the early death of her husband, along with economic problems caused by the Civil War, Fannie Garrett was unable to pay her debts. Over the next years, she survived on the farm by leasing out most of her property. However, following her death in 1882, the Garrett children were forced to sell the property at auction to pay off those debts. Use of the old farm buildings ended, and the farm gradually deteriorated into piles of stones and mounds of dirt covered with woods and pasture, and only visible to the trained eyes of archaeologists.