William Sidney & Margaret Davis Abernathy House
(ca. 1914)
The Abernethy House was once the centerpiece of the farm that supported the operations of Sundale Dairies.
215 W Eastway Dr, Charlotte, NC 28213
Born in the Hopewell community of western Mecklenburg County, William Sidney “W.S.” Abernethy (1863-1942) was a longtime prominent farmer in that community. In 1902, he married Margaret “Maggie” Davis (1862-1971), who was reared on the Sugar Creek farm her Alexander ancestors received as a land grant from the king of England. With the help of two hired men, W.S. raised a wide range of agricultural products, including corn, apples, pumpkins, oranges, sunflowers, tobacco, cotton, and a variety of grains and feed grasses. But the nine-mile distance between his farm and Charlotte made selling his crops extremely difficult.
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Following the 1913 death of her mother, Maggie and W.S. inherited 450 acres of Alexander land in the Sugar Creek community. Located less than five miles from Charlotte near the Southern Railway tracks, the land was ideal for the cultivation and sale of cash crops. The railroad was easily accessible, thanks to the nearby Newell community. The Abernethy family moved to a new farmhouse they constructed on the property along the Salisbury road. With the move, W.S. was poised to make a transition to a new type of agriculture that was sweeping the county and state: dairying.
Dairying – keeping cows for milk – had long existed in North Carolina, but its scale was typically limited to one or two cows for home use. Dairying in North Carolina and many southern states would not develop into large-scale production until the early twentieth century. Improved breeding practices resulted in dairy cattle capable of sizable milk production. Technological advances, such as milking by compressed air and sterilization machines, advanced the industry, as did state government support for research and education about dairying. In the 1910s, dairy farming found its niche as an emerging cash crop in Mecklenburg County. By 1920, the county led the state in total number of dairy cattle.
W.S. branded his operation Sundale Dairies. But as a small dairy farmer, usually keeping some 25 cows at any given time, W.S. struggled to compete with the dominance of larger commercial dairies, especially after dairy cattle ownership peaked in the 1920s. Because of the continued need for sustenance farming, W.S. could devote only a portion of his 450-acre Sugar Creek farm to dairying. The trend toward mechanization also proved problematic, as new dairy technologies were costly. By the time W.S. died in 1942, his son W.S. Jr. (1904-2000) had already taken over the dairy operations. W.S. Jr. and his wife Dorothy Bloodworth Abernethy (1907-1988) continued the Sundale Dairy, with the help of their three children, but joined the Farmers’ Dairy cooperative by the late 1940s, thus ending their direct sale of milk to the public. W.S. Jr. exited dairy farming around 1957 to pursue chicken farming. A large portion of the farm was sold and developed into the Hidden Valley neighborhood. W.S. Jr. also used the land to run a golf driving range and miniature golf course before selling the property to a car dealership and moving the farmhouse to its current location on adjacent family property.