Agricultural History of the Preston Family
In 1763, King George III authorized the Province of New Hampshire to settle Northern Territories (Vermont) by establishing communities 6 miles square and 10 miles apart, and Bennington Wentworth, Commander in Chief, issued land grants as a speculative venture in which the Town of Huntington was established (the town of Bolton was originally defined within New Huntington). On May 10, 1770, the first reference of Bolton was recorded in a meeting of land speculators held by Samuel Averill in New Milford, Connecticut at the home of Samuel Canfield. It wasn't until the conclusion of the Revolutionary War that the original speculators seized the opportunity to lay claim to their land. In 1794, John Preston, from Bradford, Vermont, acquired land totaling 40 acres from Jonathan Pinkney and Benjamin Cornell, two of many original grantees from the 1763 land grant. At the turn of the nineteenth century, John Preston and his family embarked on a agricultural venture of taming a land full of abundant resources. It was through their spirit, drive, and raw fortitude, in short their human invention, which helped the family prosper.
As more families began to settle the land, the abundant resources of the forest brought them their first crop - potash. Once the trees had been cleared, the first crop of wheat would help the farmer pay for their initial investment of clearing the land, building fences and planting the first crops. From 1800-1820, it was a "hay day" for farmers who yielded significant profits from wheat since the great wheat fields of the Midwest and Canada had not been settled. By 1813 the value of lands, lots and dwellings in Vermont reached a total of $34,747,290, which was more than double from 15 years earlier. John Preston is often distinguished for building the town's first grist mill, c.1802, at Huntington Gorge along the Huntington River, which operated continuously for a century until the Richmond Light and Power Company converted the mill to generate electricity. It was also during the early decades of the nineteenth century that the Preston Family built their farm house, and the first English barn. Since the family grew in numbers, it can be inferred that the farm prospered to sustain the needs and demands of a large family. The growth of the family is evident in the 1800 Bolton Census. John Preston and wife were over 45 years of age; 1 male was under the age of 10, 1 male was of the age of 10-15, 2 females were of the age of 15-20; John Preston Jr. had a family of 1 male and 1 female age 15-20. The total population of the town of Bolton tallied 219 residents. As the family grew, larger quantities of wheat, potatoes, corn, oats, and alfalfa and clover hays were harvested, yielding an increase in profits and land values.
During the first two decades of the 19th century, Mother Nature began to unravel the prosperity of the family farm with floods, droughts, and insect blight plaguing the northeast and forestalling the cultivation of wheat. As communities and farmers in the mid-west stabilized their settlements, farming operations cultivated a boundless supply of wheat in which...
western competition brought an end to large-scale wheat raising in Vermont, and farmers began to look for alternative operations. While wheat, corn, and oats continued to be raised on a small scale, it was evident that a fundamental shift in land use from crop raising to pasturage for animal husbandry was a necessary step if farming in Vermont was to continue to be economically viable.
After the War of 1812, the establishment of textile industries in New England and other Eastern States led to another period of agricultural prosperity for Vermonters. Sheep farming became a natural outgrowth for farmers to utilize the vast open spaces of grass land for grazing sheep while supplying woolen mills with an abundant inventory of fine wools. Further, with the building of the Vermont Central Railroad along the northern edge of the Winooski River in 1847, the time to bring crops and other animal by-products to market was reduced considerably, enhancing and diversifying the diets of New Englanders, and increasing the profit margins for Vermont farmers. In 1840, 1,681,819 sheep were on Vermont farms with a wool cut totaling 3,699,235 pounds ranking Vermont as second among states in the production of wool while being fourth in the number of sheep.
By mid century, the notion of regenerating the land with nutrients was far from the needs and minds of farmers who based their husbandry techniques on raping the land of most of its natural nutrients. Because of the short sighted practices of the timber and sheep industries, soil erosion and nutrient depletion was paramount. Thus, to counter this naive and destructive trend of farming, Vermont farmers began to see the benefits of dairy farming. If the vast amount of open land was used for grazing, then the manure could help regenerate nutrients to the depleted soil. Although this wise practice of regeneration was needed, the process was long in taking a firm hold on the conservative ways of Vermont farmers.
A comparison of the tallies recorded between the agricultural census from 1850 and 1880 on the Preston farm quantifies this slow change in Vermont agriculture from sheep to dairy farming. In 1850, Noah Preston (John Preston Jr.'s younger brother), the second generation of Prestons farming the land, owned 2 cows producing 200 lbs. of butter, 110 head of sheep generating 330 lbs. of wool, and 200 acres of land yielding 125 bushels of potatoes, and 18 tons of hay. In 1880, Noah Preston Jr., the third generation of Prestons to farm the land, owned 13 cows which produced 1950 lbs. of butter and 1800 lbs. of cheese, 20 head of sheep which generated 40 lbs. of wool, and the land of 278 acres yielded 200 bushels of potatoes, and 35 tons of hay. There is a correlation to the rise in the number of cows to the increased production of butter and cheese. Cheese, as a farm product, was nascent to the Preston Farm and to the town of Bolton since the Prestons were the first and only farm to have cheese recorded in 1880. Hay production increased with the number of dairy cows, as the emphasis on sheep declined. It was during this transitional period from sheep to dairy cows that the shed with the wooden stanchions and wooden manure gutter was added to the west English barn. This transitional period to a dairy farming also relates to the completion of the Vermont Central Railroad and the utilization of iced box cars for the safe transportation of butter and cheese to southern markets. The railroad was instrumental to the promotion of tourism and the building of two Bolton hotels: a 30 room hotel built across from the train station in Bolton; and the Couching Lion Hotel constructed on top of Camel's Hump Mountain. Both hotels were destroyed by fire.
In 1850, Vermont had 29,763 farms comprising of 2,601,409 acres of improved land with an average value per acre of $19.09. Thirty years later in 1880, Vermont was working 3.25 million acres of land by a record number of established farms of 35,522 with an average value per acre of $26.69. Steadily the Vermont farmer was able to sustain an increasingly profitable yield even throughout the nation-wide agricultural depressions which waxed and waned from 1870 thru 1890, the years when the Farmer's Alliance, the Grange and the Populists party set its roots in agricultural centers across the country.
It wasn't until the turn of century when the dairy industry and the railroads began to work together to form a strong vertical enterprise to quickly, and efficiently move a large quantity of milk to market. Further, stricter legal regulations to improve the sanitary conditions of dairy farms forced farmers to build ground level stable barns which utilized a diversified array of farming machinery that helped make dairy operations cleaner and more time efficient. Manure trolleys were changed over to motorized gutter and conveyor belt system, metal stanchions and feeders were more durable, and milking machines offered efficient and reputable methods of milking. As the time to milk cows decreased, the herd size increased manifesting a higher production of dairy products. By 1910, Vermont, as recorded in the census, led New England in dairy production and gained ardent momentum during the war years as a leader in the dairy industry nation-wide.
It was Bertha Maria Preston, daughter of William Preston (fourth generation), and her husband, Leo Lafreniere, who brought the fifth generation of Prestons farming the land into the modern era of the 20th century. With the building of the gambrel roofed, ground level stable barn, and its attached milk house, circa 1940, Leo Lafreniere, like all other Vermont farmers, helped transfigure the Preston farm into a larger agricultural enterprise. The Preston-Lafreniere farm had transformed itself from the c. 1820 post and beams of the English style barns into a modern American machine not by circumstance, but by the ingenuity, industry, and convention of the five generations of Prestons leading a sustainable existence upon a land full of natural resources and sublime beauty.
As the farmstead was brought into the 20th century, modern problems with the encroachment of development soon surfaced. Educated locally at Jonesville Academy, Bertha Preston Lafreniere represented the Town of Bolton from 1961-1966 in the Vermont Legislature when representation was one town one vote. She was a strong advocate for the preservation of Camel's Hump State Park and its protection against development, and in 1984 Bertha died with the wish that the farm property would never be developed. From 1984 -1996 Leo Lafreniere took up the challenge to preserve the historic integrity of the property. In 1991 Leo successfully negotiated a contract with between the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board to purchase the 426 acres, more or less, with the following easement for the use of the property.
no residential, commercial, industrial, or mining, activities shall be permitted, and no building or structure shall be constructed, created, erected, or moved onto the property, unless the activity furthers the public use of the property as part of Camel's Hump State Park or protects environmental systems, encourages sound utilization and conservation of agricultural and forest resources, and preserves the scenic beauty of the property.
Finally, on October 21, 1996 a cooperation lease agreement between the town of Bolton (Town) and the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources Department of Forests, Parks, and Recreation (Department) was confirmed where the Department would acquire 412 acres of the farm and annex the property to the adjoining Camel's Hump State Park, while the Town, through its Conservation Commission, would enhance and protect the farmstead according to the above deed restrictions. Based on a 1993 Architectural Conservation Assessment of the barns by Thomas T. Visser, the Interim Director of the University of Vermont Historic Preservation Program (UVM HP), modest funding was raised including a barn grant from the Vermont State Historic Preservation Office, which helped to stabilize the two English style barns. Subsequent work by graduate students at the UVM HP provided assessment reports for the continued use of the farmstead as an agricultural resource center to promote the history of the Preston-Lafreniere Farm and its relationship to the agricultural history of the Town of Bolton and the State of Vermont.