Dorset, Vermont is a town located within Bennington County in the southwest corner of the State of Vermont. The town was chartered in 1761 as part of Governor Benning Wentworth’s New Hampshire grants. A mountainous topography characterizes the landscape of the town, with the Taconic Range running south to north along the Dorset’s western border and the Green Mountains running parallel along the eastern border. Rising prominently in the middle is Dorset Mountain or Mount Aeolus, a formidable peak that breaks up the three villages of the town.  The head waters for the Otter Creek and Battenkill rise in the eastern part of the town, while the Mettawee River originates on the west side of Dorset Mountain. Dorset’s mountains are the keepers of the town’s most valuable resource marble; however the mountains also make suitable soil for growing crops hard to come by. The town is described in the 1880’s as being well suited for grazing, soil of a mostly gravelly loam and only “tolerably fertile”[1]

                  Rocky soil and marble aside, agriculture has existed in Dorset throughout its history. Sources of information on agriculture in the early years of the town’s history are not easy to come by. One can imagine the difficult task of clearing Dorset’s hills and tilling the soil for the first time like the town’s first settlers did, just to farm on a subsistence basis. The first major commercial agriculture industry in the town was wool production.  Sheep were well suited for grazing on Dorset’s hillsides and favorable tariffs and high wool prices made raising sheep a profitable undertaking in Dorset as well as the rest of the state in the early half of the 19^th century. The 1840 State Agriculture Census numbers Dorset’s sheep population at 7,802 producing 16,080 pounds of wool.[2]  In the same year Dorset’s human population numbered just 1,432, leaving more than five sheep for every person in town.[3] The sheep boom would not last forever, as the repeal of protective tariffs and subsequence competition from foreign markets drove the price of wool down. The collapse of the wool prices is evident in a count of sheep from the 1850 State Agriculture Census, which lists the total number of sheep in Dorset at 4,740, nearly a forty percent decline from the decade earlier.[4] 

                  As the century progressed, sheep were on their way out and dairy was on its way in. The 1840 State Agriculture Census did not list a specific category for dairy cows; this had changed for the 1850 census. Of the 137 farms listed in the 1850 census, only four farms were listed as having ten or more dairy cows and 100 or more sheep. This suggests that Dorset farmers faced the choice of either dairy or wool. Indeed the four farms in 1850 that had substantial numbers of both were also large enough in terms of acreage to support both, ranging from 350 to 600 acres.  Perhaps the most striking example of the shift from wool to dairy is the case of the Ames farm. In 1850, the Ames farm had thirteen dairy cows but still retained 400 sheep. By 1880, thirty two dairy cows occupied the farm and all 400 sheep were gone.[5]  William Ames, proprietor of the farm was active in Dorset; he is listed in Child’s Gazetteer as a town selectman, overseer of the poor and town agent along with his occupation as a farmer.[6] Successfully transitioning from wool to dairy, Ames produced 7,200 pounds of cheese and 800 pounds of butter on his farm in 1880. Ames had a massive double high drive barn built to accommodate his dairy herd (see figure 1.); the size of barn reflects his success in the dairy business. Marble slabs make up the ramp leading to the covered drives of the barn, an example of how abundant the resource was in the area. Barns of this style were commonly built in Vermont in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, they accommodated large dairy herds, while minimizing labor associated with moving feed and manure.[7] Such innovations to save on time and labor reflect the fact that dairying was more labor intensive than raising other livestock such as sheep. The 1880 Vermont State Agriculture Census includes a category for wages paid for farm labor indicating the importance of hired labor and farm managers. An examination of the 1880 census reveals that of the sixteen farms that paid $200 or more in labor costs, only three were not dairy farms. The thirteen that were dairy farms averaged nineteen milking cows and paid an average of $288 dollars for farm labor.[8]

                  The vast majority of dairy farmers sold their milk to creameries in the late 1800’s. Only five farms in the 1880 reported making cheese on their farm, these farms were large, the smallest milking sixteen dairy cows.[9] There were two creameries in Dorset in the late 19^th century. One was started around 1870 by Augustin B. Armstrong, on the way into Dorset Hollow; the other was that of the Dorset Dairy Association, a stock company whose officers included several prominent dairy farmers.[10] These creameries would have played a key role in converting farmer’s perishable raw milk into longer lasting products such as butter and cheese. In his town history, Tyler Resch attributes the Dorset Dairy Association creamery with handling over twelve thousand pounds of milk a day.[11]

                  While dairy dominated by the end of the 19^th century, a select few farmers in Dorset still kept sheep, these were most likely profitable as breeding stock rather than their wool production. William H. Beebe, proprietor of the farm just to the north of William Ames, is such an example keeping a flock of forty four sheep in addition to seventeen dairy cows according to the 1880 census. The Barrows family of Dorset Hollow also retained sheep. The 1880 census credits Philetus Barrows with raising eighty sheep and eight dairy cows. An examination of the 1869 Beers map shows Philetus’ residence on town road eight (present day Upper Hollow Road) and owning property on town road seven (present day Lower Hollow Road). The residence shown on the Beers map was built by his father Experience in the early 1800’s and was known as Glen View Farm.[12] Philetus must have inherited the farm from his father. Child’s Gazetteer also list Philetus’ brothers Experience W. Barrows, and George Barrows as also owning farms in Dorset Hollow.[13]

 

A circa 1925 post card shows the Glen Farm and its surrounding fields in the valley of Dorset Hollow (see figure 3). Warren Howe purchased the then 1,200 acre Glen View Farm in 1915 and it continued to operate as a dairy farm until the 1950’s.[14] Howe had a water wheel installed to provide power directly to the farm in the 1920’s, this building is the first on the left of the post card (Figure 3.) and provides a rational for the date. The Glen View Farm was run as a summer camp for children by the Wieneke family from 1953 until 1965 when it was sold to the Tetzlaff family. When rumors were confirmed that the Tetzlaff were planning to develop the hollow and surrounding mountains into a 3,000 acre ski resort, residents of the hollow successfully organized and the plan collapsed under heavy public opposition.[15] The Glen View Farm survives today, although not used for agriculture anymore it still looks much as it did in the 1920’s post card.

The number of farms in Dorset remained fairly constant through the mid 20^th century. The 1945 Agricultural Census reported 137 farms operating in town, just six less than the 143 reported in the 1880 census.[16]  The 1945 census indicates that only forty two percent of Dorset’s farms were milking dairy cows.[17] The 1945 census does not provide nearly the level of detail as the ones conducted in the 19^th century, so it is difficult to ascertain what Dorset farms were producing instead of dairy. The 1945 census does show a significant increase in the acreage of orchards, with sixteen farms reporting 492 acres of orchards (most likely apple trees), this is compared with seventy three farms reporting a total of 124.5 acres of orchard in 1880. [18] It seems most of the 19^th century farms kept an acre or two of land in apples probably for their own consumption and use, by 1945 commercial apple production became the primary focus of a small number of farms. Today there is still one commercially operating in East Dorset, Mad Tom Orchard.

Today Dorset does not retain much of its agricultural industry. This is the trend for many Vermont towns today. In 2002, the United States Department of Agriculture listed the total number of farms in Bennington County at 228.[19] On a recent trip to Dorset to conduct a survey of existing farm buildings in the town, I did not notice very many working farms left in the town.  Dorset is known more for being the ideal, picturesque Vermont town rather than its agricultural heritage. A careful drive through town with a discerning eye will reveal a large number of agricultural buildings, some have been adapted for new uses, others stand in disrepair, but they serve as a reminder of the history of farming in Dorset nonetheless.