North Danville Village Farm Receives Vermont Century Farm Award

By Pat­ty Con­ly, Direc­tor of the Danville His­tor­i­cal Society
Image Above: For-Clifs barn in the mid­dle of North Danville vil­lage. PHOTO COURTESY OF SUSAN (LANGMAID) LYNAUGH

There is a unique charm about the quaint and pic­turesque vil­lage of North Danville, nes­tled in the north­east­ern cor­ner of Ver­mont.   It has remained essen­tial­ly unchanged in many ways for the past cen­tu­ry.   Just ask any­one who lives there present­ly or has lived there at any time in the past.  Some of the faces and names have changed, but their mem­o­ries and lega­cy remain through friends and rel­a­tives still liv­ing in the com­mu­ni­ty. There is a strong sense of will­ing­ness to help one anoth­er that has endured gen­er­a­tions of fam­i­lies liv­ing in the vil­lage, as well as those liv­ing in hous­es or on farms on the out­skirts of town. North Danville was once bustling with mills and busi­ness­es cen­tered around its prime loca­tion on the Sleep­ers Riv­er, which runs par­al­lel to the low­er part of the vil­lage.  Today most of those busi­ness­es are no longer in exis­tence; how­ev­er, sev­er­al long-stand­ing fam­i­ly owned farms are still thriving.

The name Lang­maid has been asso­ci­at­ed with farm­ing in this area for many gen­er­a­tions, and their fam­i­ly farms con­tin­ue to dot the land­scape in and around Danville. But, there is a unique char­ac­ter about the Cliff Lang­maid farm, now known as the For-Clifs farm in the heart of North Danville.  It was renamed to reflect cur­rent own­er Cliff Lang­maid and his father and for­mer own­er, For­rest Lang­maid.  The unique­ness lies in the fact that it is a work­ing farm sit­u­at­ed right in the cen­ter of the vil­lage. You sim­ply can­not pass through the North Danville with­out notic­ing the big red barn.

In the sum­mer months, as you approach from Danville and make the turn head­ing into the vil­lage, you will like­ly see the emer­ald green hill­side pas­ture dot­ted with black and white Hol­steins graz­ing in the field amid yel­low dan­de­lions. If you hap­pen to dri­ve through around milk­ing time, you may have to wait patient­ly as Plynn Beat­tie or Lee Lang­maid Beat­tie act as tem­po­rary “traf­fic con­trol cops” to stop cars and direct a parade of cows saun­ter­ing across the road mak­ing their way to the barn.  This is a less famil­iar sce­nario now in many small towns across Ver­mont and the North­east King­dom. How­ev­er, it is still a rare find in the epi­cen­ter of North Danville! 

A cen­tu­ry farm award is tru­ly some­thing to be cel­e­brat­ed. It means that a farm has been rec­og­nized as a con­tin­u­ous­ly active and work­ing oper­a­tion on prop­er­ty owned and worked by mem­bers of the same fam­i­ly for gen­er­a­tions, span­ning at least one hun­dred years. The Ver­mont Farm Bureau and the Ver­mont State Grange work in tan­dem to iden­ti­fy and rec­og­nize farms that meet these cri­te­ria.  Once iden­ti­fied, an appli­ca­tion is sub­mit­ted to these orga­ni­za­tions with the prop­er doc­u­men­ta­tion by the own­er of the farm.  Usu­al­ly one award is pre­sent­ed annu­al­ly in Ver­mont that cer­ti­fies that the prop­er­ty has been owned and worked by the same fam­i­ly for one hun­dred years, an increas­ing­ly rare dis­tinc­tion in these days of van­ish­ing fam­i­ly farms.  Nan­cy Perkins, a rep­re­sen­ta­tive from the Ver­mont State Grange and long- time friend of the Lang­maid fam­i­ly,  approached Lin­da Lang­maid Vance about the his­to­ry of the North Danville vil­lage farm. An appli­ca­tion was sub­mit­ted and on Octo­ber 20, 2012 a Cen­tu­ry Farm Award was pre­sent­ed to the For-Clifs Farm.  The prop­er­ty, includ­ing the work­ing farm, has been in the same fam­i­ly for five gen­er­a­tions.  In a recent phone con­ver­sa­tion with Nan­cy Perkins, she laments that this par­tic­u­lar award “was long overdue.”

The orig­i­nal 1850 farm­house and barn on the cor­ner of McReynolds Road in the vil­lage was owned by Asa Ran­dall and his wife Almi­ra Drew,  daugh­ter of Theophilus Drew, Jr.,  whose fam­i­ly was one of the ear­li­est farm own­ers in North Danville on what is now known as the McFar­land farm.  Theophilus came to Danville in his youth from Gilman­ton, NH, with his father Theophilus Sr. in about 1791, and as a young man ran a still. At that time, a still was a legit­i­mate enter­prise. He invest­ed most of his mon­ey from his busi­ness in his agri­cul­tur­al interests.

At one point in his life, Theophilus had what was described as a “deep per­son­al Chris­t­ian expe­ri­ence” that would set the tone and have a pro­found impact on his activ­i­ties in the future as well as the lives of many of the ear­ly descen­dants of his fam­i­ly.  He made the deci­sion to dis­con­tin­ue his still, which focused on the sell­ing and con­sump­tion of alco­hol, and it is said that nei­ther he nor any mem­ber of his fam­i­ly ever used tobac­co or alco­hol again.  Con­se­quent­ly, he became affil­i­at­ed with the grow­ing Tem­per­ance Move­ment that was pop­u­lar at the time. Local chap­ters sprang up in many Ver­mont towns. Theophilus made gen­er­ous dona­tions of mon­ey to the town, and these funds, togeth­er with those from Mr. John Stan­ton, who was anoth­er well-known North Danville res­i­dent and rel­a­tive, enabled the build­ing of the Old North Church in 1832.

In 1858, Asa Ran­dall sold the prop­er­ty to his broth­er-in-law ‚George Riley Drew, and his wife, Jayne Ayer Drew. George R. Drew was an avid read­er and, like his father, was also inter­est­ed in the Tem­per­ance Move­ment.  He took part in the estab­lish­ment of the local chap­ter of the Ver­mont Grange, orga­nized in Novem­ber of 1871, and around that time 40 farm­ers assem­bled in North Danville to found a farm­ers co-op buy­ing club.  He also stud­ied and prac­ticed home­o­path­ic med­i­cine and respond­ed to all calls, regard­less of rich or poor.  It was dur­ing this peri­od that the vil­lage prop­er­ty, includ­ing the house and adja­cent barn, became known as “the vil­lage farm” and would be inher­it­ed by son George M. Drew and his wife Mil­lie Han­non Drew, who raised two chil­dren, daugh­ter Ethel and son Har­ry. George M. also car­ried on the fam­i­ly inter­est in Tem­per­ance and the Grange while run­ning the farm and was involved in many school and church activities.

Barn rais­ings were very pop­u­lar in the mid to late 1800s, and local not­ed pho­tog­ra­ph­er, Elgin Gates, cap­tured sev­er­al of these events on his glass plate neg­a­tives. Dur­ing this era, many barns were built by large groups of com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers to show sup­port for one anoth­er and share in the spir­it of what can be done when peo­ple work togeth­er.   Of inter­est­ing note in the book Vil­lage in the Hills by Susan­nah Clif­ford, she writes that “Per­haps the great­est barn build­ing feat of all dur­ing this peri­od occurred in 1882, when George Drew held the first barn-rais­ing with­out serv­ing alco­hol of any kind, not even hard cider.”

Ethel Drew mar­ried Burl Lang­maid, who would inher­it and oper­ate the farm owned by Burl’s father, Solomon.  The cou­ple raised sev­en chil­dren:  For­rest, Arnold, Phil, Jean, Beat­rice (Bet­ty), Joyce and Hugh.   Hugh, the youngest of the boys, togeth­er with his son Scott and wife, still cur­rent­ly own and oper­ate the farm orig­i­nal­ly owned by his father.

Ethel’s broth­er, Har­ry, nev­er mar­ried but chose to fur­ther pur­sue his quest for high­er edu­ca­tion and went on to grad­u­ate from Mid­dle­bury Col­lege.  He was flu­ent in sev­er­al for­eign lan­guages and served in the mil­i­tary as an offi­cer both state­side and abroad. Even­tu­al­ly, the farm­house in the vil­lage would be deed­ed to Har­ry and the barn across the road to Ethel around 1909. George M. Drew con­tin­ued to oper­ate the vil­lage farm with the help of his grand­sons: For­rest, Arnold and Phil. The orig­i­nal Drew barn adja­cent to the farm­house was torn down in or around 1939 at about the same time that George M. Drew died.  Iron­i­cal­ly, he passed away while work­ing in his barn.

Upon his return from enlist­ment in the Army in April of 1942, Burl and Ethel Drew Langmaid’s son, For­rest, was to take over oper­a­tion and inher­it the farm from his grand­fa­ther.  He served only a short peri­od due to a med­ical dis­charge for an asth­mat­ic con­di­tion.  Dur­ing the peri­od of time that For­rest and Arnold were away, younger broth­er, Phil Lang­maid, was instru­men­tal in con­tin­u­ing the oper­a­tion of the vil­lage farm. After Forrest’s return, Phil went on to own and man­age a suc­cess­ful dairy farm in Goss Hol­low for many years. For­rest mar­ried Clara McGill on July 24, 1943. They lived in the orig­i­nal farm­house owned by Forrest’s Uncle Har­ry Drew, and it was here that For­rest and Clara began to raise their fam­i­ly of four daugh­ters and one son.

At that time, the farm con­sist­ed of reg­is­tered Gurnseys with 40 – 45 head of milk­ing cows.  In the ear­li­er days, the small­er herd of his grand­fa­ther includ­ed cows, pigs and some chick­ens. Milk­ing was done by hand, the old-fash­ioned way.  The milk was then brought a short dis­tance to the near­by North Danville Cream­ery to be processed.  Folks, such as the late Bill Stan­ton, could remem­ber see­ing bug­gies lined up from one end of the vil­lage to the oth­er to drop off their milk.  As elec­tric­i­ty became avail­able to the vil­lage, milk­ing machines grad­u­al­ly replaced the old-fash­ioned method, mak­ing it more effi­cient and allow­ing farms to increase the num­ber of cat­tle in their herds.

Con­se­quent­ly, more milk was pro­duced and when the North Danville Cream­ery went  out of busi­ness,  it became nec­es­sary to store the milk until it could be trans­port­ed for pro­cess­ing.  Susan Lang­maid Lynaugh remem­bers the milk being stored in tall met­al cans and kept cold in a large tank filled with ice.  “Each can had a num­ber; ours was #222. This iden­ti­fied the spe­cif­ic farm from where the milk came as well as the farmer to whom it belonged.” The milk then had to be trans­port­ed by truck to St. Johns­bury near the foot of what is now Bon­sai Bridge, a drop-off point for the Cabot Cream­ery. From there, it was trans­port­ed by tanker truck to the pro­cess­ing plant in Cabot.

In the ear­ly days of the Lang­maid farm, the pri­ma­ry crop was hay.  After cut­ting, the hay was lift­ed onto the wag­on with pitch­forks and brought to the barn where it was stored loose.  Around 1957, they began to bale the hay using a bal­ing machine, and the square bales were rolled to the edges of the field in a straight line. This made it eas­i­er for the younger kids to lift the heavy hay bales onto the wag­on as the trac­tor slow­ly pulled it along.  Many kids from in and around the vil­lage helped out dur­ing the sum­mer, espe­cial­ly dur­ing hay season.

Cliff Lang­maid worked side by side with his dad, For­rest, fol­low­ing his grad­u­a­tion from Ver­mont Tech­ni­cal Col­lege in 1976 with a degree in Dairy Farm Man­age­ment.  Cliff cur­rent­ly owns and has been oper­at­ing and man­ag­ing the farm since his father passed.  In 1979, a new sta­ble was added to the orig­i­nal barn on land that was once known as the town square. The old square had a flag­pole and band­stand where “back in the day” the North Danville band enter­tained for reg­u­lar concerts.

In a recent vis­it to the Cur­tis Vance Memo­r­i­al Orchard in North Danville, sev­er­al mem­bers of the Lang­maid fam­i­ly shared infor­ma­tion for this arti­cle.  The late Mary Lang­maid Pri­or, daugh­ter of For­rest and Clara Lang­maid, was known as the fam­i­ly his­to­ri­an and under­stand­ably so as she was the for­mer pres­i­dent of the Danville His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety. After her pass­ing, this impor­tant job of keep­er of the fam­i­ly his­to­ry was then inher­it­ed by her sis­ter Susan Lang­maid Lynaugh, who cur­rent­ly lives with her hus­band, Dwayne, in a vil­lage house just down the street from the fam­i­ly home where she was raised.  Lin­da Vance Lang­maid, eldest daugh­ter of For­rest and Clara, is well known in Danville and beyond for her fundrais­ing efforts for the ALS Foun­da­tion. All fam­i­ly mem­bers take part in cham­pi­oning these efforts to defeat the dis­ease that has affect­ed sev­er­al mem­bers of their fam­i­ly.  Jane Lang­maid, youngest daugh­ter, is also inter­est­ed in the fam­i­ly his­to­ry and con­tin­ues to research their her­itage.  She cur­rent­ly lives in Exeter, New Hampshire.

Cliff Lang­maid, the only son, inher­it­ed the fam­i­ly farm and con­tin­ues to car­ry on the tra­di­tion of oper­at­ing and man­ag­ing the fam­i­ly busi­ness.  Cur­rent­ly, the dairy farm con­sists of 150 head of reg­is­tered Hol­steins (75 milk cows, 75 head young stock), 120 acres of tillage grass and 30 acres of corn silage. Work­ing close­ly with him over the years has been his cousin, Lee Beat­tie, daugh­ter of Cliff’s uncle, Phil Lang­maid, and her son, Plynn Beat­tie.  Plynn, the son of Lee Beat­tie and Mar­ty Beat­tie of Danville, is from one of Danville’s cen­tu­ry farm fam­i­lies, the McDon­ald farm that locat­ed on Route 2 just east of Danville Green.

In describ­ing their ear­ly life on the vil­lage farm, Lin­da and Susan remem­ber while grow­ing up that they were giv­en the choice by their moth­er, Clara, as to whether they would bring the cows in from the field at milk­ing time or cook sup­per. They shared that they always chose to cook sup­per, which is prob­a­bly the rea­son that to this day they are both known as two of Danville and North Danville’s finest cooks, respec­tive­ly!  They claim that “lit­tle broth­er” Cliff was nev­er too eager to help out with chores in his ear­ly years.  It would appear that he is cer­tain­ly mak­ing up for any per­ceived short­fall by his sis­ters in the past and is now deter­mined and dili­gent in shar­ing his expe­ri­ence and exper­tise to teach oth­ers his knowl­edge of the fam­i­ly farm.    Many oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers and friends have been instru­men­tal in help­ing out dur­ing busy times to help keep the farm run­ning smoothly.

Cliff is very proud of the achieve­ments of his fam­i­ly and their farm­ing her­itage and the recent recog­ni­tion and dis­tinc­tion of being des­ig­nat­ed a cen­tu­ry farm. He works hard to insure that the long tra­di­tion of this active farm remains a vibrant busi­ness in the heart of North Danville vil­lage, one that will hope­ful­ly con­tin­ue to thrive for gen­er­a­tions to come.

A note from the author:

I am very pleased to con­tribute this arti­cle on the For-Clifs farm cel­e­brat­ing its des­ig­na­tion as a cen­tu­ry farm. Giv­en my own fam­i­ly con­nec­tions, I have a fond­ness for the North Danville com­mu­ni­ty.  I have known and attend­ed school with sev­er­al mem­bers of the Lang­maid fam­i­ly over the years and my mater­nal grand­par­ents, Ernest and Mil­dred Devenger, stood up with Burl and Ethel Drew Lang­maid when they were mar­ried. They were also present with them for the cel­e­bra­tion of their 40th wed­ding anniversary.