Access road by Bowen Ridge
The Upper Place was purchased on January 20th, 1973 from the heirs of Demarcus Bunn. Demarcus had in turn purchased the land, 35 ¾ acres, from J. G. Ross on February 26th, 1906 for the sum of $300. The intent was to have additional farm land relatively adjacent to his own farm on Camp Branch Rd. At some point during Demarcus’ ownership in the 1920’s, a small house was built that was occupied by his daughter Orma and her husband, most likely on the north side adjacent to Long Branch Rd, where a spring exists. In this area there lies on the ground a ring of stone which may be the remnants of a ground well. They only lived there for a few years. There was also to have been a barn on the property. No known artifacts of these structures have been found.
The Upper Place is purported to have produced corn, hay and have had orchards of Ben Davis and Rome Beauty apples. The Bunn boys would have surely toiled as there is very little flat land at the Upper Place.
In true hillbilly fashion, a man would need one leg about a foot shorter than the other to cultivate and traverse the Upper Place. The easiest way to get from the ridge to the bottom of the valley for a cool sip from the stream would to have tripped over a rock and hastily tumbled down. Of course, by the time you got back to the ridge to tend to work, you would have been thirsty again. Dang it!
Over time, as the Bunn boys got better jobs, then with the death of Demarcus in 1936, the Upper Place eventually became unproductive as a farm. It most likely became a place for men folk to hang out and reminisce.
Today, the Upper Place sits as still as it did in a time past, filled with dense trees and wildlife.
An oddity about the Upper Place and most likely other land parcels in rural areas is how boundries are described in the deed. In the 1906 transaction from J. G. Ross to Demarcus Bunn the deed describes part of the property line as follows:
“Beginning at a chestnut oak and hickory corner to a tract of land…thence, S. 4 ½ E. 19 poles to a pine S. 15 E. 11 ½ poles to a chestnut oak…" Now that’s technical.
