Running an Historic Herb Farm

The Story of How We Built our 1782Farm.com Brand

Running a working farm is a very tough business. Add to that, the major environmental changes and weather-related issues which farmers and ranchers need to contend with, and you start to get an understanding of why we all need to support our local farms. In addition to the base agricultural challenges, there’s the issue of dealing with field irrigation, pesky pests, marauding bears, and the never-stop weeds! How’s a farmer to cope?

I have had a chance to deal with these types of challenges over the past 20+ years. I also have been able to extend this business scope into the realm of heritage farm sites. In fact, my story is a bit unique in that my wife and I have had a chance to act as the proverbial “stewards in time”. The reason is that we’ve been managing an historic Colonial New England farm site, circa 1780’s, which is connected with a three notable owners as well as a number of documented historical events.

The original owner was a Massachusetts Patriot who fought the British in the American Revolution. Another owner was one of the first scientific farmers in the mid 1800’s. A third owner was a scientist / inventor who patented an X-ray signaling device in 1900 and subsequently sold it to the US Army.

One of the historic events that got our attention was the revelation that Capt. Pollard, who built our farm, was witness to Shay’s Rebellion which took place from 1786–1787. This event, basically a farmer uprising, is significant in that it resulted in the rewriting of America’s Constitution. Pollard’s death happened just prior to the launch of the Lewis & Clark expedition in 1804. This is another historic event that lends further credence to our heritage farm’s context.

I have grown to love the many “living history museums” which can be visited in our Commonwealth of Massachusetts and surrounding New England states. For instance, if you visit Plimoth Patuxet Museums, Sturbridge Village, and Strawberry Banke, you learn of the rich historic aspects of herbal plants and their medicinal and wellness connections taking place in North America and worldwide when the English arrived on the shores of what would become the Massachusetts Bay Colony..

Our farm has a unique history and that when you couple this pedigree with that of raising herbal plants and shrubs, you have quite a farm story that’s been our own since the mid 1990’s.

Add to this life experience the educational orientation, which I have been so passionate about. I have concentrated efforts in helping to educate farms and ranches on a variety of best agricultural practices and processes. This educational mission is now taking a new form in our recently launched Simples & Worts Herbal Magazine website on Substack.com which can be found at Blog.1782Farm.com. I am using this resource to build a number of educational programs. I will tell you about these in my next article.