Faraway Cattle Company

10/13/2026

Here’s an ad for XXI Century in a 1976 Charolais Banner. I guess by now a huge chunk of cattle in North America and a significant chunk in Australia and New Zealand would trace back to this guy at least once, as he’s back in the earlier Wienk cows and a lot of the base of the LT herd. And a lot of other western US cows. Useful.

He was a son of FR31, “King of the Cow Country”. FR31 was an Avignon bull, notably today out of a daughter of the Char 386 cow who was the very foundation of the Germaine cow family.

21st Century was polled, through his dam, a cow that had 13 registered calves, one at a time, by the time she was 15. She was a Michaelis/ Yates kind of cow.

And oh yeah.. the folks who made the ad apparently thought the 21st century was 100 years away. It was not, and the year 2000 coming along in 24 short years must’ve been quite a shock.

Sometimes the days are long, but the years are short.

10/12/2026

10/12/2026

The story of Carolina Freight. Grier Beam had a farm, Sunbeam Farm, near Cherryville, and bred very good Jersey cattle and sold milk for many years. They got out of the dairy business and, from about 1968 until 1981, they had a good Charolais herd- John Mitchell was their manager for awhile, between Nutmeg and Wesson.

The foundation of the Pearl family that came through Martin Charolais and then Rogers HR and then Morven, and then the world- came from Sunbeam. That’d be your Fink Lady, Vanessa, Ruby, etc cows. Probably among the most important few cow families in the breed.

Sunbeam sold out of Charolais in 1981, and they had a Simmental herd for a while after that. Probably a pretty good one, though I don’t remember. I think that existed until Beam’s demise in 1992. The farm still exists, and I think it’s owned by the family still, and there are probably a few cows around.

Carolina Freight left Cherryville mostly, and Cherryville became a pretty different place. Faraway is not very far from Cherryville.

C. Grier Beam lost his poultry job in the Depression and started a trucking company with a 1.5-ton Chevrolet that cost $500. 🚚

Sources disagree on whether he began in 1931 or 1932. What is clear is that the first headquarters sat in a corner of Guy Beam's Shell station in Cherryville, and that early loads included cotton yarn bound for New England. After the Motor Carrier Act of 1935, Beam bought Mauney Transfer to obtain operating authority from the Interstate Commerce Commission, and in 1937 the firm took the name Carolina Freight Carriers Corporation.

By 1939 the company had 53 trucks and terminals in New York, Jersey City and Providence. It grew into one of the ten largest motor carriers in the country and once employed more than 2,000 Cherryville residents. The company was sold in the mid-1990s, and the C. Grier Beam Truck Museum on North Mountain Street keeps the story in town. 🛣️

What is the smallest start you know of that turned into something big?

10/10/2026

This is Cowcroft Colossus. He was imported from Great Britain in the late 60s. Don’t have his pedigree, but he’s a son of Angola. Angola’s British pedigree is down there - he was a son of Ultra, who was Bonaparte’s sire. Angola is out of a Newton daughter. That Newton daughter is by a bull named Lascar, same as Newton's sire, but the numbers are different, so I think different Lascar bulls. Anyway, Newton is the sire of Bingo (Belphegor). Bonaparte and Bingo were two of the most important French bulls in North America.

Colossus didn’t do a lot.

A few Cowcroft-bred sons of Angola were imported into the US. Probably the most important current connection to any of them is through the “Miss” family that came from Wienk and is very prominent in the Fink herd. Those cows trace back to a Jambo cow that is sired by a son of Cowcroft Dandy.

Cowcroft was an early herd in southern England, operated by the Harmon family. Ben Harmon is still in the Charolais business there.

I need to find a picture of Dandy, but here Colossus.

10/09/2026

This one was a cool one back in the 80s. Flying M Sarah. She sold in a Colonial Sale as an open heifer in summer of 1984- I wanted to say as a split off pair, but that seems wrong based on the AICA record. She was sort of an outcross pedigree, that being the time when almost everyone was using Riverwood Elevation and his sons, and she was by a Poker King Jr son who didn’t sire but a couple handfuls of calves. Her dam was an Alfalfa John x Sam mostly, though she did have a cross to a polled Riverwood Elevation bull, Headliner. The breeder was a small herd in Pennsylvania, and the buyer was John Giles in NC. They showed her very well, and she’d go on to be an important donor cow for those days.

Pretty girl. Pretty big.

10/08/2026

This one is a Germaine cow from the 1970s. Sans Souci Farms in Ocala, Florida bought two Germaine cows in 1972 from Nutmeg Farms, the herd where that family was developed. Both were Avignon daughters out of Sandrellan Joel cows. Both made nice big families at Sans Souci.

The pictured cow is a daughter of GCR Supreme 141. The third dam of the pictured cow was a full sister to the fifth dam of the SR Lady Ease 914 cow that started the Germaine family at M6.

10/05/2026

This one is Faraway Germaine 106K, a September 2022 cow by LT Blue Value out of Faraway Mary 106X. She’s got her third calf at side, a little bull by Silverstream Padra that might have a fair chance of hanging around here for awhile. 106K has been a really good young cow so far.

We had the Appalachian Classic Sale in Knoxville over the weekend. Good to catch up with a lot of people we don’t see often enough. The sale was strong, averaging over $7200 on 53 live lots. As cattle are being fed longer to heavier weights, the value of the leanness and extra muscle in Charolais is causing a bit of commotion which we are all glad to see.

Thanks to all the folks that looked at our cattle and said nice things, and to all the bidders. Of course, special thanks to the folks who took them home- Tom Greco at Aristo Farms in Topeka, Kansas, Dion Varner in Williamsburg, Kentucky, and Clayton Armstrong at Claystrong Genetics in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania.