Who was the Morgan stallion who lived at the end of Patch Road in the very early 60s? Owned by Helen Jarvis, and he was pictured on a postcard one used to see frequently.
Archive for the ‘Farming’ Category
Morgan and other horses
Sunday, October 18th, 2009Tobacco farming in Westminster c.1920-1955
Thursday, October 15th, 2009Westminster had the northernmost tobacco farms in the Connecticut River Valley. The 1941 Town History doesn’t mention tobacco at all. Like the current tobacco farms in the Amherst, Massachusetts area, the leaves were high quality and used only for cigar wrappers and binders.
The 1884 Child’s Windham County Gazetteer lists only 4 tobacco farms in the county, all in Vernon, although tobacco was likely grown as a sideline on other farms. The summer 1955 Vermont Life had an article, “Cigar Valley Outpost,” that described the last tobacco farm in the county, the Charles Holton farm run with sons William and James in the village. They were down to 4-6 acres from a high of 30-40. George Aiken recalled, “Vernon and Putney were the largest producing towns until around 1920 when Westminster came into the picture with larger fields, including shade grown.”
A newspaper article on the 1927 flood noted that the C.J. Decker Co. had about 75 acres in tobacco at that time. Much earlier, the Aug. 16, 1873 Boston Evening Transcript reported 80 acres of tobacco in Westminster.
Highlights of the Vermont Life article:
- Train #54, now the northbound weekend Vermonter, was called the Cigar Valley.
- In the early 1900′s, Vermont ranked #1 among states in tobacco yield per acre.
- At its peak, Vermont had about 500 acres in tobacco, almost all in Windham County.
- With luck, lots of work, and lots of spraying, tobacco could bring in $2000 an acre on a $500 investment.