Russ Behner Farm Rt 301S LaGrange,O
Today the Plas Farm

The farm at 18615 State Route 301 was likely constructed circa 1870 by Dorastus Waite. The property had been owned as early as 1850 by Dorastus and/or his brother James Waite. James enlisted in the military during the Civil War, but is recorded as having deserted. James Waite disappears from all records and censes after the Civil War, and his wife remarried in 1868.

Anyway, Dorastus is shown on the 1874 atlas as owning a 174-acre parcel with two dwellings; the dwelling at the north end of the property is this property. Dorastus likely lived at one of the houses with his wife Diantha and their daughter Carry, while their son (also named) James Waite resided at the other with his wife Elisa and their daughter Lodema. By 1896, the property was owned by Charles Kelner, a former liveryman who had previously lived in the city of Lagrange. Kelner lived on the property with his wife Hellen and their four children until April 1901, when he sold the farm to Hiram L. Johnson and moved back to the city.

Hiram L. Johnson lived at the property with his wife Jennie and their daughters Mabel and Mildred. After Jennie's death in 1905, Hiram married widow Hattie Burr, who likely lived with the family on the farm with her son Morris/Maurice Burr. Hiram died three years later in 1908, after which Hattie moved the children into a house in the city on Church Street, but retained ownership of the farm; she moved back to the farm at 18615 in 1912. Mabel Johnson ended up marrying her stepbrother Morris Burr in 1916, and after Hattie's death in 1919, they acquired the farm. Morris and Mabel lived on the property with their children, Carl and Dallas, along with Mabel's sister Mildred and Morris' Uncle Dumas. By 1940, the Burr family had moved to Maryland, and by 1947, Russell Behner had purchased the property, which he operated as a dairy farm until circa 1969.