The Daily News-Journal from Murfreesboro, Tennessee • Page B1

THE DAILY NEWS JOURNAL SUNDAY 07 3 16 Young and serving life In Tennessee, eens who get life must wait 5 1years before their sentences are reviewed. One young story is i nspiring a push to change the law. hen she was just 16, Cyntoia Brown climbed into a pickup truck on Murfreesboro Pike with a stranger, drove to his home, got into his bed then shot him in the back of the head with a handgun as he ay naked beside her. Brown, now 28, is serving a life sentence at the Tenn essee Prison for Women for the murder of Johnny Mitchell Allen, a 43-year-old Nashville real estate agent. She will be eligible for parole sometime after her 69th birthday.

Brown has never denied her crime. She has said that she was forced i nto prostitution by a violent boyfriend. She believed the man who picked her up was reaching for his gun when she killed him. I shot she said shortly after the crime. executed But life sentence and the practice of sentencing young people to a lifetime behind bars for even the most heinous of crimes has drawn increased scrutiny in Tennessee and nationwide as a wave of scientific studies shows that adolescents lag behind adults in development of the parts of the brain that regulate aggression, abstract ANITA WADHWANI At the time of the crime, Cyntoia Brown, a bove, was 16 years old and living in a rinity Lane motel room with her oyfriend, who profited from prostitution.

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION; ILE PHOTO SeeSentence, Page4B Farmington, a Rutherford County em and Century Farm, is on Manchester Pike and exudes a fascinating histo- of discovery. The Greek Revival house, also known as the Logan Henderson estate and the Fly House, is a mid-19th century home added to the National Register on Sept. 25, 2003. The home was built along an ancient Indian path, and artifacts have een excavated on the property. Logan Henderson was born in 1785 in North Carolina to James and Violet Lawson Henderson.

James died in orth Carolina in 1795 due to an acci- ental discharge of a gun. brothers include Maj. Lawson Henderson and Col. James Henderson, who as killed in 1814 at the Battle of New Orleans. Logan married Margaret Ewart Johnston, daughter of Col.

James Johnston of North Carolina. The colonel equeathed his Rutherford County land rant (1771) of 3,000 acres to Margaret, and a storied chapter began. Logan and Margaret had four child ren: Frank, Violet, James and Jane. Violet (1809-1834) married William Franklin Lytle, son of famed Capt. William Lytle.

Logan arrived to our county in 1816 and built Farmington the same ear of yellow poplar and cedar logs. The long house of eight rooms was constructed with wooden pegs. In 1842, he house was expanded into a Greek Revival, I-house. The addition included atwo-story classical portico with the facing the newly constructed Murfreesboro-Manchester Turnpike. ogan Henderson was a Rutherford County judge from 1828-1830 and highly respected.

He died on Dec. 8, 1846, after a brief illness at age 62. Violet lived another 17 years. The original Henderson burying ground lay beside the clapboard home. Son James Frankl in Henderson inherited and expanded the home, adding a wing of four rooms, Greek Revival porch and central hallways on both floors.

1880, Josiah Butler owned the roperty and dwelled at Farmington with wife Martha and his seven children. Josiah raised crops on 26 acres a nd purchased additional land for a family cemetery. Their oldest son Perry, along with wife Alice and 10 children, were the next important propri- tors. A lice Henderson Butler was the daughter of Isaac and Lavenia Henderson, who were both slaves traced to udge Logan Henderson of the 1820s. Alice was born in 1857 and wed Perry utler and lived on Woodbury Pike.

During Perry and ownership of Farmington, they founded a school and hurch on the property and were successful farmers. daughter Cordelia was an early educator of Cemetery School in Rutherford County. Os- ar Alfonzo Butler and wife Annie Bell ere the third generation owners of the farm. Oscar dealt in moonshine while owning the home. orty-five years after the Logan Henderson home was built, the Civil War stampeded through the majestic property with a vengeance.

A number of skirmishes were exacted in the yard hat included soldiers throwing bricks as weaponry. Blood stains are visible in the home to this day. A shot was lodged i the large columns, and a cannon ball was buried on the grounds. The house was utilized as a hospital for both Fede rals and Confederates over the course of the Civil War. he most interesting Civil War story on these grounds was the tale of two wives.

The house was occupied by the wives of Union Gen. William Rosecrans and Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg, who were guests in the same room within a few days of each other. ollowing the war, James Franklin Henderson was devastated financially. In 1897, the home and 115 acres of the Henderson farm were sold to Henry feil, who farmed the land.

His daugh- er Lillie Pfeil and husband William Snell inherited the property and were dairy producers in 1916. he cemetery near Farmington is on Road and remains an important landmark. Farmington has a deep-set history that is fascinating and uite remarkable. Strong and enduring amilies pressed onward to establish a formidable existence in an era of very good and very hard times. ontact Susan Harber at susanhar- Henderson estate now Century Farm Susan Harber HISTORY LESSON SUBMITTED The Logan Henderson home, called armington, was built in 1816..