ARTICLE FROM THE BOOK, located on Page 102
"NORTH CAROLINA CENTURY FARMS"
100 Years of Continuous Agricultural Heritage
NCDA
North Carolina Dept of Agriculture

The Stallings Farm

The William and Martha Eason Stallings farm is located in Gates and Perquimans Counties in the Sandy Cross Community and includes some of the Dismal Swamp. The farm was purchased in 1850. Following the deaths of William and Martha a division was made and farm ownership was passed to their son, William Thomas Stallings, and their daughter, Martha Jane Stallings Nixon. During their ownership several acres were sold to the Farmers Manufacturing Company which operated a barrel stave mill known as Gum Mill. The Norfolk and Southern Railroad built a train track through the farm. The main track ran from Suffolk, Virginia to Edenton, North Carolina, and the line through the farm was a branch from Beckford to Elizabeth City. The train stop at Gum Mill was known as Peach Siding.

Thomas Judson Stallings (Tommie), the second oldest son of William Thomas and Mary Baker Stallings, served in France during World War I. In 1919 he married Eva Ward and at the death of his father purchased the farm from his family. During his farming years he purchased the portions of the original farm that belonged to his aunt, Martha Jane Nixon, the Farmers Manufacturing Company, and the Norfolk Southern Railroad.

Tommie and Eva Stallings willed the farm to their three children, Lester W. Stallings, Ruth S. Sovelius, and Maxine S. Wiggins. In 1986 Maxine and her husband, Marvin S. Wiggins, purchased entire ownership. (Article has a picture of the Stallings family in early 1940s - Eva Ward, Lester, Ruth, Maxine, and Thomas J.)