Agricultural History Of The Northshire Region

by Jon Matthewson, Curator, Dorset Historical Society

The Northshire has a long and varied agricultural history. There have been periods of relative stability punctuated by periods of tumultuous change. This is the first of a three part series covering, briefly, the history of those changes. Prepared by the Dorset Historical Society it was conceived as a free insert for Merck Forest & Farmland Center’s 2020 local food program, Northshire Grown: Direct, which is a community scaled cooperative CSA program that sells over 40 area farms and food businesses’ products to a customer base of over 400 area households.

The Mahican, or Mohican, tribe inhabited this area for well over a thousand years during the Woodland Era. The tribe was centered around the confluence of the Mohawk and Hudson rivers, but their territory stretched to southwestern Vermont and western Massachusetts. This area was used as hunting and fishing grounds. In the 1700s, encroaching European settlement diminished the Mahican use of this area, and members of the Abenaki tribe moved in from the north and the east. Some Abenaki may have planted crops in the area.

“The land included within these limits [Vermont], is of a very fertile nature, fitted for all the purposes and productions of agriculture. The soil is deep, and of a dark colour; rich, moist, warm, and loamy. It bears corn and other kinds of grain, in large quantities, as soon as it is cleared of the wood without any ploughing or preparation: And after the first crops, naturally turns to rich pasture for mowing.”

Area towns were chartered in 1761. The first settlers came to Danby in 1765, Manchester and Rupert in 1766, and Pawlet and Dorset in 1768. These farmers cut down the forests to make way for crops. They burned the trees, which created potash, a valuable commodity used in making pewter. Once the land was cleared, the farmers began to grow grains: mostly wheat, but also oats, barley, buckwheat, rye and hay. Vermont quickly became the “Breadbasket of New England.”

Small apple orchards were common on farms. Benjamin Baldwin is credited with planting the first apple trees in Dorset’s Kirby Hollow in the late 1760s or early 1770s. An 1814 map shows an apple orchard behind Martin Kent’s home at the intersection of the Dorset West Road and Nichols Hill Road. Farm orchards were so common that when Vermont outlawed alcohol in 1850, farm-made hard cider was exempt.

The settlers brought livestock. A russet, hardy breed of cattle, Devon, dotted the hillsides, which still had stumps from felled trees. The most common type of farm animal was swine: pork was the meat of choice for Vermonters. In fact, the first laws in many Vermont towns addressed the problems of pigs running free. Horses were also common, and blacksmith shops were among the first businesses in the area.

Wheat remained the state’s major cash crop until 1828. Wheat crops began to fail for three reasons: depletion of the soil, the Hessian fly (Mayetiola destructor), and the Wheat Midge (Sitodiplosis mosellana). In addition, the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 introduced western New York to wheat growing, and a new tariff law in 1828 made imports much more expensive. After that, while farmers continued to grow wheat in smaller amounts, most decided either to move west, or to raise Merino sheep. The next installment in this series will see sheep becoming the major agricultural staple of Vermont!