Originally known as the Torreyson Farm, the land was purchased in 1863 by William H. Torreyson, who built a house around 1865 and used it as a tenant house.
On August 29, 1900: Nelson Elwood Reeves, is born at his parent’s home at what is now 400 N. Manchester Street. His farm will be the last dairy farm in the county and he will work it from 1924 to 1955. After World War II Arlington grows, Reeves will sell much of his 160 acre farmland. It will become Ashlawn Elementary School, baseball and football fields, a picnic pavilion, two churches, and a Sunrise retirement home.
The farm was in the same family for three generations. Originally known as the Torreyson Farm, the land was purchased in 1863 by William H. Torreyson, who built a house around 1865 and used it as a tenant house. In 1898, it became the home of Torreyson’s daughter, Lucy, and her husband, George Reeves. Their son, and last owner of the original property and farmhouse was Nelson Reeves. Nelson Reeves started school in the one-room schoolhouse in Glencarlyn.
In 1932, Reeves began using milking machines—a sign of modernization. Nelson and his father continued to operate the farm during the Depression and World War II. The family continued to raise dairy cattle and crops until 1955, about the time that tank trucks replaced milk cans. In addition to his life on the dairy farm, he played a significant role in the community. He worked for 46 years with the Election Board, beginning as a clerk in the Glencarlyn Precinct in 1924 and continuing as a registrar, election judge and commissioner at the courthouse. After farming operations ceased, most of the land was subdivided and sold. Only two acres containing the farmhouse remain. Nelson Reeves died in 2000 at the age of 99.
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