Woodlawn Farm is a historic farm located at 1463 Gerkie Lane east of

Jacksonville Jacksonville ( ) is the most populous city proper in the U.S. state of Florida, located on the Atlantic coast of North Florida, northeastern Florida. It is the county seat of Duval County, Florida, Duval County, with which the City of Jacksonv ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...

. Michael Huffaker, one of Morgan County's first settlers, established the farm in the 1824 after purchasing a 160-acre plot to the south of Jacksonville, Illinois. Due to the many agricultural innovations of the 1830s, Huffaker earned a significant amount of money from his farm and became one of the county's wealthiest residents. Huffaker mainly raised livestock, particularly cattle and pigs, on his farm; while he also grew crops, the grain mainly served as feed. In 1840, Huffaker built the farmhouse, an

I-house The I-house is a vernacular architecture, vernacular house type, popular in the United States from the colonial period onward. The I-house was so named in the 1930s by Fred Kniffen, a cultural geographer at Louisiana State University who was a sp ...

with a

Greek Revival Greek Revival architecture is a architectural style, style that began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe, the United States, and Canada, ...

entrance and

frieze In classical architecture, the frieze is the wide central section of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic order, Ionic or Corinthian order, Corinthian orders, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Patera (architecture), Paterae are also ...

, that still stands on the property. According to local tradition, the house was a stop on the

Underground Railroad The Underground Railroad was an organized network of secret routes and safe houses used by freedom seekers to escape to the abolitionist Northern United States and Eastern Canada. Enslaved Africans and African Americans escaped from slavery ...

; as Huffaker employed many free black farmhands, he could conceal escaped slaves among his workers. The farm was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

on June 6, 2007. Currently, Woodlawn Farm Museum is funded by a volunteer committee, the Underground Railroad (UGRR) Committee founded by Art Wilson and Abbie Templin Smith. The committee purchased Woodlawn farm with the assistance of the Morgan County Historical Society. The UGRR Committee serves as a not-for-profit agency to provide education to individuals interested in learning about the underground railroad movement in Morgan County.

References

External links

Woodlawn Farm
Farms on the National Register of Historic Places in Illinois I-houses in Illinois Greek Revival houses in Illinois Houses completed in 1840 Houses in Morgan County, Illinois Museums in Morgan County, Illinois Historic house museums in Illinois National Register of Historic Places in Morgan County, Illinois {{MorganCountyIL-NRHP-stub