In the early 1740s, John Knox and his family were drawn to what is now west Rowan County because of its fertile soils and central piedmont location. After receiving a land grant for farmland, the first generation of children was born on the land. One of those children was a girl named Jane Knox. Jane Knox lived on the farm until she was maried and then moved a bit south to Mecklenburg County. It was there that she gave birth to ten children. One of those children was James Knox Polk, born in 1795 and who later became the 11th President of the United States in 1843.
The Knox Farm is the first property to have been protected by a collaborative effort between The LandTrust and Rowan County. Rowan’s Farmland Preservation Program and the USDA’s Farm and Ranch Lands Protection Program helped finance the purchase of a conservation easement on 400 acres of this fertile farmland.
