Planting Season Begins At Yarnell's - Westerville Jazz Orchestra Photos
Yarnell Farm Readied For Soybean Planting As Development Nears Completion
A McNamara Farms tractor quietly pulled into the Yarnell Farm field, extending its 60-foot sprayer arms to apply pre-emergent herbicide, preparing the land for planting.
Earlier, the McNamaras and Duane Yarnell worked the ground, leveling the field after winter rains and melting snow cut deep furrows through the bare soil.
Early this week, the McNamaras will plant soybeans on the land, beginning another growing season on one of Westerville’s last remaining active farm fields.
By the time the crops are harvested later this year, the adjacent 88-acre East of Africa development project is expected to be finished, completing a commercial and residential barrier around the farm.
The field sits off Africa Road in Delaware County, part of the remaining Yarnell Farm property that stretches between Cleveland Avenue and the Berkshire Commons condominiums. For decades, the land has stood as a reminder of Westerville’s rural past, even as office buildings, roads, housing, and commercial projects have grown around it.
Its history reaches back well before the Yarnell family.
The nearby property was once the home of Joseph Sharp, an abolitionist whose house, built around 1843, was part of the Underground Railroad. The Sharp family helped shelter enslaved people traveling north toward a Quaker settlement in Morrow County, placing the farm within a larger network of homes used by freedom seekers.
The Yarnell family later became stewards of the land, continuing its agricultural use as the surrounding area changed.
Many longtime residents remember the Yarnell farm market that operated from a metal pole barn on the property. In the 1970s, cattle crossing Africa Road to graze was still a familiar sight, a reminder of the rural character that once defined the area.
That setting began to change sharply in 1995, when the City of Westerville acquired 941 acres of Yarnell and other farm property through eminent domain for the Westar development and the extension of Cleveland Avenue to Polaris Parkway.
The Yarnells retained the remaining parcels, and Duane Yarnell has continued to resist pressure to develop, at times using signs along the property to make the family’s objections clear.
Today, grain crops are still grown on the farm, keeping the land in agricultural use while development closes in from every side. The East of Africa project marks last step in that transformation, adding to the commercial and residential growth that now frames the historic property.
For now, the work continues.
The field is leveled. The herbicide is down. Soybeans are next.
And when they are harvested later this year, they will come from a piece of land whose story stretches from the Underground Railroad to the edge of modern Westerville.
Westerville Jazz Orchestra Summer Concerts Begin
The Westerville Jazz Orchestra opened its summer concert series Sunday at the American Legion Hall on East College, where it performed an eclectic collection of big-band jazz and music composed and arranged by members of the group.
While one young fan took issue with the exuberance of the strong brass, she listened carefully as Dawn Eller performed with the group.
The orchestra’s next performance is June 14 at the Alum Creek Amphitheater as part of the Summer Concert Series sponsored by the city.
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