History on the Land – Part Three

Editor’s Note: Read Parts One and Two of this series, focusing on the Nye and Calkins families and their time on this land in the 1700s and 1800s, on our blog.

When George and Laura Boyce purchased the Calkins farm in Montpelier in 1884, they inherited almost a century of land use from its previous owners. The Nye family had cleared the land, built the farmhouse, and constructed a small barn in the 1790s. Successive owners operated small subsistence farms, generating only enough output to support the family. In the 1860s, Susan Calkins expanded to a market farm model, which sold surplus. She expanded the dairy operations, enlarged the barns, and increased the land holdings to its peak of 206 acres. During the 1880s, the Boyces worked to modernize their new property and expand the farm output beyond dairy products.

The Boyces established the Fairvale Stock Farm, and ran a horse breeding program. The Fairvale Stock Farm soon gained a reputation for the valuable genes of their horses. They primarily dealt with trotters, and the stock at Fairvale became sought after regionally, after favorable newspaper reports on their success at races and in regional fairs. One stud horse, “Abraham” became a New England celebrity, as his offspring regularly won regional races, including one as far away as Philadelphia. Horses were even acquired from Kentucky, including “Pan Carte,” who was hailed as the best-bred stallion in the country.

The Boyce’s Fairvale Stock Farm operated successfully for almost two decades, until the death of the couple’s daughter Alice. She fell ill at home in Montpelier, and died within a few days in April 1903. A year later, in December 1904, the Boyces, now in their 70s, sold the property and retired from the horse -breeding business. Jere and Mary Warren purchased the farm, and kept the Fairvale Farm name, but discontinued the stock business. The Warrens moved to Montpelier with their six daughters, aged 4 through 21 years old, and a 2-year-old son. The young family had high hopes for their new Fairvale Farm, which was larger than their old farm in St. Albans and provided more opportunities for income. They had plans to rebuild the cowbarn and plant a fruit orchard. Mary’s father, Oliver Wait, was a well-known apiarist in northern Vermont with high-quality honey. The Warrens planned to move his operation to their new farm to help pollinate the orchard. These plans were cut short when Jere became ill, having worked throughout the winter to move his family to Montpelier, including riding in a boxcar with the horses on the railroad. Sometime during his journey, he caught the measles. He refused to rest or seek medical help, and was soon bedridden. On March 13, 1905, only three months after their move, he died. Jere’s death was sudden, and the reality of a hard Vermont winter meant that he was interred in the basement’s earthen floor until the family burial plot in Georgia, Vermont, was available in the spring.

Despite the tragedy of losing their husband and father, the Warren family recorded many pleasant memories on their Fairvale Farm. Mary had long wanted a folding bed (today called a Murphy bed) and installed one in the bedroom she had shared with Jere. It was described as being a tiny room, just off from the living room. One morning, the man they had hired for farm labor arrived expecting breakfast and found the house empty. He followed muffled “squeaks” to find Mary, folded up in her prized bed, and immediately released her. The family built a boat to explore the river which “surrounded our meadow in a semi-circle,” and daughter Althea remembered “we had many a good time in the river.” She also remembered the local school being taught outside, where in addition to the regular subjects they made a collection of household items from plant materials they found outside. Acorns made good cups and saucers, burdock burrs were converted into baskets, and maple leaves were made into hats.

The Warren family continued to own the Fairvale Farm until 1943, after the death of Mary Warren in 1941. Her daughter Statira had kept the family farm, but was unable to pay the mortgage. She signed the farm over to the bank, and the property transferred to a series of owners over the course of the 1940s and 1950s. Throughout these land transfers the property was referred to as the “old Warren farm,” demonstrating the connection the Warrens had to the land, and to their neighbors. After the Nye family, who owned the property for 43 years, the Warrens were the second-longest residents, owning the farm for 39 years.

In 1955 Earl and Patricia Alger purchased the old Warren farm. Earl was a deliveryman for Marvin & Cooley Dairy, which eventually became Booth Brothers. The second half of the 20th century saw a major shift on the property both in size and scale of the farming operation. For the first time, the farm was not relied upon as the primary source of income. In 1963, the Algers entered 21.4 acres into the Soil Bank program, aimed at rehabilitating centuries-old farmland. It is unknown which section of the property they leased to the program, given evidence of the meadow still being in cultivation in photographs dating to the 1970s at the end of the Algers’ time on the property.

In 1974, Pat and Ike Brown purchased the property, and raised three children here, Laurie, Jeffrey, and Christopher. Both parents had fulltime jobs as teachers during the week as well as operating their small but diversified farm. The Browns had two large gardens, chickens, pigs, a flock of sheep, a couple of beef cows, and a horse for their daughter. There were two barns on the property when they arrived, one of which was carefully removed and rebuilt in Washington, Vermont. In 1980, friends helped them fell hemlocks on Gallison Hill and build a new sheep barn (now NBNC’s preschool building), after which the other old barn was demolished. They sold fruits, vegetables, and yarn from the roadside, and the boys sold worms to fishermen, but always had to weed a row of vegetables first. Pat regularly brought her students from Union Elementary School to learn about farm life, and neighborhood kids gathered often at the farm for ice skating, swimming, and other activities. Pat remembers baking bread and donuts every Saturday, and said “I never knew how many kids would show up when I hollered ‘lunchtime’ from the kitchen stoop.”

In 1996, the Browns sold the farm to the Vermont Institute of Natural Science (VINS), which established North Branch Nature Center. NBNC became an independent organization in 2006, eventually purchasing the property from VINS in 2013. For the last 30 years, the property has served as a vital hub for outdoor learning and recreation in Vermont.