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What is the project?

The purpose of this project is to record and transcribe oral narratives to capture the story of farming in Belmont, Massachusetts. The narratives are part of a larger project to record and communicate Belmont’s farming history. Residents of other towns with a farming history are beginning to express an interest also (see Letters of Support).

The Farm Where You Live’s first activity was a two-part slide presentation to the community on June 7 and November 29, 2005, based on two oral narratives, interviews with members of two farm families, and archival research. Heard selections from these narratives will continue to be an important part of their use (see Schedule Of Grant-Related Activities).

Issues, Concepts, Questions, Or Themes:

By capturing oral history narratives of Belmont’s agricultural past we can help to accomplish the following:

• Document the experience of farm life and the sense of life in a community where open space and farm activity was central

• Document small farm and market garden management by innovative, entrepreneurial men and women

• Capture the experience of farm laborers, many of whom were European immigrants, distinct in origin and life experience from many of the descendants of early English settlers

It is worth noting that Belmont’s farming history is part of the larger history of farming in the towns around it. Materials from oral histories of Arlington farms have already proven useful to The Farm Where You Live. Residents of Lexington and Newton have recently expressed an interest in learning more about the project (see Letters of Support).

The Transition From Agriculture To Suburbia

Between 1900 and 1950 Belmont’s farmers and market gardeners faced increasing competition from the South and West, made possible by refrigerated rail cars, intense demand for real estate in the Boston area, and a changing labor market. Land had, of course, been bought and sold for many years before 1900, and the area, even before incorporation, saw the construction of numerous homes for wealthy merchants and lawyers desiring country estates.

However, the change from farmland to real estate appears to have been most intense during the first half of the twentieth century. Rather than being simply a “local history” project, Belmont’s farming history can help to document the process of rapid change from agricultural to suburban community and the loss of farming as a way of life.

Oral history narratives about Belmont farms will also be of interest because, rather than being a town upon its incorporation in 1859, Belmont was a collection of farms and market gardens, created by combining lands from other towns (West Cambridge, Waltham, Watertown). Residents living on the outskirts of these towns felt neglected by their town governments. The taxes they paid did not appear to bring them the services they expected in schools, roads, and similar affairs. So, they went to work to obtain incorporation. This was a task that called for multiple petitions to the General Court of the Commonwealth, given the reluctance of these towns to relinquish territory and tax revenue. Many of the new town’s farmers were among the leaders who persisted between 1854 and 1859 until, after the fifth petition, they at last succeeded.

Agriculture was central to the new town’s identity, therefore rendering the shift to suburban housing a more acute experience, perhaps, than was the case with neighboring Boston-area towns. One historian described, in lyrical fashion, the nature of this new town:

“Though Belmont had become a town in name, in fact it was scarcely a village. Rather it was a wide-spread collection of profitable fruit farms and market-gardens, whose owners spent long sun-up to sun-down days cultivating the rich black earth and reaping the harvests thereof. Between Mr. Marsh’s hill-top farm at the northern end of town and Mr. Cushing’s elegant estate in the southern Payson Park area, there stretched as beautiful an expanse of orchards, gardens and shimmering greenhouses, as could be found anywhere in New England.” (Baldwin, Frances B., From Pequossette Plantation to the Town of Belmont Massachusetts 1630-1953, 1953, reprinted 1992)

In less than 100 years the farms that were the town were sold, with one exception, for suburban housing. Much open space remains, most significantly the Richardson (Sergi) Farm, the last working farm in Belmont, permanently protected from development by the descendants of the original, colonial owners.

Small-scale market gardening

Preserving Belmont’s farming history is also a means to preserve our knowledge and understanding of a particular kind of farming, small-scale (10-50 acres) intensive market gardening with the use of greenhouses as well as open fields. Because the majority of this farming activity occurred before 1950, it was largely free of chemical fertilizer and pesticides. There are current efforts in the Boston area to encourage small-scale farms and to support sustainable agriculture. In Belmont, for example, nine acres of open farmland has been placed in irrevocable agricultural trust, the town of Newton has just purchased the 2.5 acre Angino farm, and the Busa farm in Lexington and the Waltham Fields Community Farm continue to thrive with community support.

As Belmont farming evolved into market gardening, farmers became known for their innovation and their entrepreneurial spirit. They introduced new breeds of pigs and cattle from Europe and acquired, or even developed, new varieties of produce. They won awards from the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. They were active in local and state organizations such as the state farm bureau, the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, and the Boston Market Gardeners’ Association. Several were in the wholesale food business, with stalls at Faneuil Hall Market.

Produce was delivered each day to Boston, where buyers at Faneuil Hall Market used the word ‘Belmont’ in the same way ‘Paris’ was used by the fashion industry. One horticulturist, Walter Lenk, received an early United States plant patent (no.93) for a hybrid gardenia that remains a popular variety today in both Europe and America. At the height of his prosperity, he shipped 8,000 flowers daily.

Farm Labor and Immigration

Interviews conducted to date begin to reveal the importance of immigrant labor to Belmont as a farming community. The initial European settlers, beginning in 1630, were English or Scots, and these families settled and in some cases remained in the area, as farmers, right through the first part of the twentieth century. In the latter part of the 19th century increasing numbers of families from Ireland, Italy, and other European countries provided the essential work force for planting and harvesting of Belmont’s market garden produce.

One narrator has described how, as a boy, he worked on the Shaw farm with “the Italian ladies, in their shawls and long skirts, singing as they worked in the fields.” Another provided information on working conditions and housing, describing the long walk over the hill each day to the fields, sickness and hygiene. Yet another, now 99 years old, talked about working for 10 cents an hour, ten hours a day in a 6-day work week, and collecting his pay envelope every Monday night.

Many of these immigrant families, or their descendants, settled in Belmont, creating their own gardens and orchards. One task of the project is to identify some of them, and their descendants, for interviewing. The 1930 U.S. Census may prove useful in this respect, along with publicity about the project in the local paper, in town list servers, and PTO newsletters, inviting people to contact the project leader/scholar.

What is the role of the humanities in the project?

The humanities enable us to present the richness of this experience not as a nostalgic look back at something lost, but as a history of innovation, energy, and creativity. The farms and market gardens and greenhouses offer a continuity between the early settlements, Belmont’s incorporation as a town, and the present.

The oral history narratives contribute to a shared sense of the past, and a better understanding of who we are as a community. They allow us to reach individuals not as well known, especially immigrant labor, to capture stories of life and work day to day, but also to capture the stories of inheritance and continuity, in which these laborers became part of the community, whether as land owners or in some other capacity. This is the work of the humanities, of course, to convey a sense of the past that illuminates the present, through a shared knowledge of a remarkable farming history.

Who is your audience?

This collection of oral history narratives is intended to engage and inform school children, residents and former residents of Belmont of all ages, and residents of surrounding towns with similar agricultural and land development history. The oral histories would also be of interest to scholars in the field of agricultural history.

The response to the first (June 5, 2005) presentation on Belmont farming, an illustrated lecture by the proposed humanist/scholar, was enthusiastic. At least 103 people attended, for a standing-room-only audience. One member of the historical society who attended was pleased to note the presence of “all kinds of people he’d never seen at a history event before”. Several people gave their names as sources of farming history, or property owners with orchards or other artifacts of Belmont’s farming life. The second presentation, sponsored by the Belmont Historical Society, also drew a large crowd, more volunteers, and several potential interviewees. The presentations were repeated in January, 2006, at the Belmont senior center.