By Kevin Delaney with excerpts from Anne Shaughnessy’s 1974 History of Sherborn. Sourced from the Sherborn History Center and Museum.
On Farming
By Kevin Delaney with excerpts from Anne Shaughnessy’s 1974 History of Sherborn. Sourced from the Sherborn History Center and Museum.
Dating back at least as far as the mid-17th century, when the first English colonists moved into Nipmuck tribal land intending to “subdue the land”, farming has been a Sherborn mainstay. Indeed, lasting well into the 20th century, agriculture was a primary means of local existence, and remains an important element of the community’s economy of the 21st, as celebrated by our 350th Farm Day.
Reading the multiple Sherborn histories is instructive, as agriculture was so embedded in every aspect of life that rarely makes an appearance as a segregated entity. Gunsmithing? Yep. Cider? Sure. Whips and willow baskets? You better believe it. But farming? It was simply woven into the fabric of being, so it hardly gets a focus but is nevertheless everywhere in the texts, as though readers would just know implicitly that it's so.
Here’s one exception, an excerpt from Anne Shaughnessy’s 1974 History of Sherborn :
“Sherborn’s swales and bogs provided ideal conditions for growing cranberries and
several farmers accumulated good sums of money from harvesting them. A man could
rake from one to two barrels a day. The wagonloads were dumped on the floors of the
‘cranberry houses,’ subsequently barreled and sold for $28.00 per barrel. The farmers
in town averaged about a hundred barrels a season and these were shipped throughout
New England. As early as 1870 there were eight farmers in town who were taxed on
their ‘cranberry meadows’ and ‘cranberry houses.’ Albert P. Ware, the last of his family
to reside in the old homestead at 102 South Main Street, which included the eastern
part of the Sewell meadow, teamed up with the Grouts, whose homestead lands at 42
Washington Street covered the western half of Sewell’s meadow. In 1830, the historian
Biglow had written of the very palatable sauce converted from the cranberries of that
particular meadow. Albert’s family had constructed a special building for storing the
cranberries, but the Grouts at the time owned the Captain Sam Sanger House (60
Washington Street) and, as it was vacant, they used this to spread their berries in all
the rooms. Here the sorting was done, quite generally by the women and children. The
cranberry harvest was an important crop for the successful Sherborn farmer, and
freight cars passing through the center of town made shipment expedient and
reasonable.
“Good Sherborn milk was shipped from town in the same way. The farmers carted
their huge cans by wagon to one of the three stations in town, some making use of the
Holliston station just over the town line on Washington Street. Cans that didn’t make
the early morning milk train were refrigerated by being hung deep in the large
spring-fed wells, such as the one still in use at 27 Hollis Street. Two hundred cans
arrived daily at the station in the center of town and the railroad hired a gang of men
to prepare a new building to be used as a milk shed.
“Sherborn’s orchards are unsurpassed in beauty in their spring flowering and in the
fruit which they produce. From the time that the first Sherborn fruit trees were
planted by Thomas Holbrook on his grant near the Charles River, every farm had its
orchard and many had large ones, so that it was common practice to couple ‘orchard
and tillage’ when listing a man’s holdings. In 1750, the Porter Apple was produced on
the farm belonging to Rev. Samuel Porter, a minister of the First Church, who lived in a
small house where 8 Washington was later built. The Porter was described by William
Kenrick in his book, American Orchardist , printed in 1846, as a “fruit above medium
size, light yellow with a pale blush next to the sun, its flavor sprightly and pleasant. A
popular fruit in the Boston Market and very beautiful.” In 1973, the Porter Apple Tree
would be one of those planted at the Old Sturbridge Village orchard which would
include only varieties originating in this area.
“Many families were well established in raising and selling fruit, so that after the first
engine had steamed through town on Thanksgiving Day in 1869, the freight cars were
soon to be loaded with fruit. A few years later the Framingham Tribune noted that
“Joseph Perkins has an enormous crop of peaches to gather. If he is successful in
chartering a peach train to run daily to Chicago, he will be able to supply that city with
delicious fruit the coming season.
”Apples, however, were the choice of most of these Yankee farmers, for they kept better
and there was such a ready market at hand for bruised or orchard-run fruit —
Sherborn’s cider mills. And in 1870 there were 20 such mills (which were by now even
importing carloads of apples from the south) listed on the Assessors’ books!
“It was so successful a production that G. F. Clement, whose cider mill was at the
center of town, rented it to a large Boston concern, Hard and Wilkinson, who made
cider and did an extensive business in pickling and relishes for the markets. Other
Sherbornites preferred to run their own mills; James Salisbury was situated next to
where the Memory Statue now stands, and here along with his paint shop he had his
cider and vinegar mill — his vinegar was said to be superior. The Holbrook Brothers
Cider Mill, later owned and operated by P. McCarthy & Son, was situated on Forest
Street, near the railroad crossing. In 1892 the Framingham paper noted “Holbrook
Bros, recently shipped 1 ,000 barrels of refined cider to Europe. It required a powerful
locomotive to draw the train over the Old Colony Railroad.”That year they shipped
19 carloads to England, and they were reputed to be the largest cider mill in the world!
“With Sherbom’s orchards so well known, it was quite proper that in 1893, the town
would establish an “Award for the apprehension and conviction of a thief of fruits,” so
think twice were you pick in another man’s orchard!”
Our Start: In 1927, James D. Geoghegan started Sunshine Dairy on Union Ave in Framingham. In March 1937 he purchased the farm in Sherborn with a cow barn that milked 45 Holsteins. A retail store and bottling plant was built that summer at the farm. Milk was iced and home delivered by horse and wagon in the 30’s and trucks in the 40’s. In the 1950’s an ice cream manufacturing plant was added to the dairy. Sunshine Dairy Ice Cream was a premium 14% butterfat ice cream, “made on the farm.” “The Dairy” was THE PLACE to hang out in the 40’s and 50’s before the days of shopping malls and convenience stores. Eventually boarding horses replaced cows and strawberries and sweet corn replaced hay. A family style restaurant also flourished on the farm through the 80’s. 1996 marked the end of an era and the old building was sold and demolished.
New Beginning: New stand built in 2003 now houses produce and CSA pickup area, 3 Ice Cream windows with 50 flavors during the summer and a bakery making fresh baked cookies, breads and pies. Over the last 10 years we have added PYO fruit for each season including strawberries,blueberries, raspberries, peaches and apples! We recently completed full farm irrigation systems to deliver water to all our crops. More reliable harvests for PYO fruits and full CSA box shares! We also just completed a new high tunnel for early vegetable crops!
Source: www.sunshinefarmma.com
For more than 200 years the Dowse family has farmed the gently rolling land in Sherborn, offering the results of our hard work at the Farm Stand since 1919. Our Farm Stand offers fresh fruits and vegetables, flowers and sweet cider produced here on the farm from our fields and greenhouses from May until January every year.
Our Christmas tree fields were started in the 1950’s, and we have harvested our trees every year since. We have developed growing techniques that enable us to produce several trees from the same root system without replanting. Ask one of our field associates to point out the process.
Since 1853 the Dowse family has operated a cider mill, an activity for which Sherborn has been noted. The current apple presses have been in operation since 1947, and each year they turn our pure, fresh apple cider with no additives or preservatives. Several apple varieties are carefully blended in the cider presses for the best tasting cider in the area.
The Dowse family was recently honored with a prestigious Silver Medal from the Massachusetts Horticultural Society for Service to Agriculture. We are pleased to be recognized for our 200 year commitment in production agriculture and open space preservation.
Source: www.dowseorchards.com/history.htm
Course Brook Farm’s original name was Fairfield Farm, which was established in 1927 by our grandfather Donald Rogers Mayo, the year our father John (Jack) M. Mayo was born. It was a 300-acre dairy farm that produced milk through 1956 from as many as seventy cows. The milk was processed, bottled and delivered to residential and commercial customers in Sherborn and bordering towns into the late 1970s.
The severe challenges of the Depression, World War II, our grandfather’s sudden death (in 1956), and a buyout (in 1966) led to necessary land sales shrinking the property to its current size of sixty acres. The home delivery milk business industry saw its peak in the mid-1960s and then declined with the emergence of convenience stores, along with the rise of grocery store chains. The oil embargo in 1973 was the “stake in the heart” of the industry where droves of customers immediately had to save money to pay for increases in gasoline. The result was nearly fatal for the farm.
Our family elected to construct ten horse stalls in what is now known as the “main aisle” and leased the barn to one tenant, and Course Brook Farm was born. By the end of the decade, we went from processing and bottling to just redistributing milk – and doubled the capacity of the barn to twenty stalls. At that time, Nancy Mayo was running the stable.
In the early 80s, the milk business was closed entirely. Ten additional stalls were added. In the 1990s, the indoor arena was constructed and initial steps taken in moving forward to cater to the needs of the eventing and dressage community. By mid 80’s the first baby steps were being made to create the cross country course.
With Jim Gornall’s guidance, we had our first practice event in a freezing snowstorm in October of 1998. Our event consisted of fourteen horses and riders for novice and beginner novice levels. In 2010, we added training level and hosted our first USEA-recognized Course Brook Farm Horse Trials. In October 2017 we will be adding the preliminary level to our now-annual recognized event.
Our family has owned this property for eighty-three years. In the first forty, the property was reduced by 80 percent. Since 1966, we have worked so hard to preserve and develop the sixty-acre property we’ve all called home for the last forty-six years in our continued commitment to serving the needs of the eventing and dressage community.
Source: www.coursebrookfarm.com/about-cbf