McPhail Angus Farm

About this property

The McPhail Angus Farm is a farm at 320 Coyote Trail near Seneca, South Carolina in Oconee County. It is also known as the Tokena Angus Farm. It was named to the National Register of Historic Places as a historic district on November 7, 2007. It was named because of its significance to the transition from a nineteenth-century cotton farm to a twentieth-century, Upstate, cattle farm. John Augustus McPhail (1876–1961) purchased the original 150 acres (61 ha) farm in 1902. The property is believed to be a portion of the Revolutionary War patriot Samuel Earle's Beaverdam Plantation. Additional parcels were acquired to give the farm 468 acres (189 ha) by 1931. Walter Hoolu McPail (1901–1979), the eldest son, was born in Sandy Springs, South Carolina and moved to the farm in 1902. He went to elementary school at Tokeena School No. 1, which is now on the farm property. He attended Townville High School. Walter McPhail's purchase of a heifer when he was eight years old began his lifelong interest in cattle. Although he started at nearby Clemson College, he came home in the spring for cotton planting. In the late 1920s, the price of cotton dropped significantly due to overproduction and the Wall Street Crash of 1929. Many left the farm for textile mill villages and temporary work with the Works Progress Administration or other New Deal public works projects. Many farms dependent on cotton were in financial trouble. In 1936, W.H. McPhail purchased his first registered Angus cows. This led to the development of one of the first black Angus herds in South Carolina. In 1939, he planted fescue grass using seed from an Anderson County test plot to provide cool weather pastures for his cattle. Eventually fescue was grown for both cattle feed and as a seed crop. Thus, in the course of generation, the farm made the transition from being a cotton farm to a cattle and seed production farm. The farm has been named a South Carolina Century Farm by the Pendleton District Commission. Its Angus herd has been named a National Historic Herd by the American Angus Association. In 2007, the farm had 249 acres (101 ha) including 194 acres (79 ha) in the historic district. There are eight contributing properties that define the historic and architectural nature of the McPhail Angus Farm. Since this is a working farm, there are additional non-contributing structures that are more recent additions and changes to the farm. The John A. McPhail House was constructed about 1943. It is a one-story brick house on a poured concrete foundation. The door and window casings are unfinished pine boards sawn from trees harvested on the farm. The house was modified in the 1950s with a new entrance door for a beauty shop. This door was replaced in the 1990s with a French door. Another front entrance was added around 1962 and replaced in 2000. In 2007, the house was still occupied.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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