Our Town In History

Our town was incorporated in the late 1700's and used to be full of people. It had seven school districts and quite a few churches and cemeteries. There were mills, factories made chair backs and brush backs, Herd had a large country store just below the Methodist Church (the Congregationalists used to have a church but the Methodists outlasted them), there were at least two dance halls, etc. Today, the population is about 350 and not all of that is full-time. The low point was in the 1950s when our family first bought part of the Ford Farm. Land was about $50 an acre at that time.

Norman Rockwell used to live here until the early 1950s. He painted Floyd Bentley ("Breaking Home Ties") — I worked for Floyd — as well as Carl Hess ("Town Meeting"). Carl used to run the local gas station. Marie Briggs, the woman who taught me to bake, also cooked for Rockwell for many years.