My grandmother was Mary Edna Motley. Her grandfather, John Henry Motley, was the original owner of the Motley Farm of Moneta, Virginia. Motley lands covered a large area. Some was cleared and used for farming. The majority of the land was wooded. There was a working grinding mill on a stream leading into the Staunton (Roanoke) river; corn and wheat were ground there. The former mill and its land is now under water due to the forming of Lake Smith. The farm had corn, wheat, vegetables; horses, mules, cows, chickens. Before the Civil War, the slaves did most of the work, which included caring for the children. Directions: Go south on route 22 out of the city of Bedford thru Moneta. Make a right onto route 655. Go about two miles on route 655 and then make a right onto route 749. The farm site is the land to your left beginning at route 655 and going up route 749 about 3/4 mile. The farm stayed in the family (John Henry Motley ----> James Daniel Motley ----> John Henry "Brud" Motley) until November 10, 1964. The last Motley family owner of the farm was my grandmother's brother Brud. She and her sisters sold their share of the land to him. The land was then sold at auction for $14,700 to D. C. Meador and P. F. Meador. This land is now part of Smith Mountain Lake Resort. The following was taken from The Progress-Index, Petersburg, Virginia, Saturday, August 15, 1998: Agnes Turner remembers the summer evenings, decades ago, when men would come sit on her front porch and talk about "the lake" that was coming to their community. "They'd chew tobacco, spit and talk," said the 88-year-old widow who still lives on her family's farm near Smith Mountain Lake. "They were so upset about it." And there was cause for concern by some -- their farm land was about to be covered in water. It's been over 30 years since Appalachian Power started filling the low section around the Roanoke River with water from the new Smith Mountain Dam. With the creation of Smith Mountain Lake -- covering 22,000 acres with 500 miles of shoreline -- came major changes to the rural farming communities in Bedford, Franklin and Pittsylvania counties. Many farmers sold their property and left the area. Others have died. Retirees and tourists flocked to the lake. Developers built subdivisions, golf courses, shopping centers and restaurants. Ms. Turner says there's so many "lake people" at her church now, she "might as well be at a church somewhere else." Scruggs, Wirtz, Hardy and Moneta were simply farming communities untio the 1960's. People grew tobacco, wheat, corn and other crops. They raised dairy cows and lived a quiet, rural life. James Dinwiddie remembers when Virginia 122 wasn't paved and was full of potholes. His family has lived in the area for more than 100 years. "It's so affluent now," the 73-year-old said. It was the kind of place where everybody knew everybody else, where bootleggers made whiskey, and where barn raisings and corn shuckings were big entertainment. Ron Willard remembers corn shcukings where a farmer would put a jug of liquor at the end of a corn row for incentive. "They'd shcuk fast to get to the liquor," said the man who has made millions as the developer for posh areas at the lake, including Water's Edge and the Waterfront. The 52-year-old grew up in Scruggs and his father, Walter, still lives on the family farm. Herman DeLong doesn't remember when people started talking about a lake coming into the community -- he's 64 and thinks it was probably when he was a baby in the 1930's. His family owned a store at the Hales Ford bridge for about 50 years, and they've seen the bridge change three times. The first was a covered bridge, the second was a little higher and the third is the one that's there now. In the late 1920s, Appalachian Power Co. began buying land and planning a hydroelectric dam at the Smith Mountain gorge on the Roanoke River. Before the waters came, the old buildings were torn down or burned. Tobacco barns, livestock pens, small outdoor buildings and residences -- all met the ax or match. About 55 families were displaced. The 2 dams were completed in 1963 and Smith Mountain Lake reached its normal water level in 1966. C. W. Toney's family lost 170 acres of farm land when the lake was filled. "My father had worked hard his whole life," the 71-year-old Toney said. "It was hard on him." But the Toney's kept their remaining land and kept on farming. They didn't know it at the time, but that farmland was going to be valuable some day. Wanda in Virginia