NORTHFIELD — Residents and visitors to Northfield can now take a driving tour of 17 historic barns.
In an effort to highlight Northfield’s rich agricultural heritage, the Northfield Agricultural Commission has crafted a brochure featuring the town’s most historic barns.
“We just have so many historic barns in Northfield, we wanted to preserve our heritage and just let people know where they are, what they look like and what they were used for,” said Alan Stone, a member of the Agricultural Commission.
The 20-page booklet describes the history and structure of 17 barns, including their current owner, original owner, address, year built and GPS coordinates. The oldest barn in the booklet, owned by William Daniels of 164 Upper Farms Road, dates back to the late 1700s.
Many of the barns are located off of Route 63, as is illustrated by maps on the front and back covers of the brochure.
“Some of them are out of the way,” Stone said. “If you didn’t have the map, you probably wouldn’t even know they were there.”
Perhaps one of the more well-known barns is located on the former Northfield Mount Hermon School campus. Built in 1886, the barn housed the school’s prize-winning herd of sheep, cows and chickens until 1961, when it closed for financial reasons, according to the brochure. The back of the barn was painted with the words “The Good Apple Cider Co.” as part of the set for the 1999 film “In Dreams.”
Stone said he and fellow Agricultural Commission member Jerry Wagener came up with the idea for the brochure using a similar booklet that was crafted in Connecticut as an example.
Stone said farming used to be a big part of the Northfield community. The town had around 25 active dairy farms in 1975, a number which has since dwindled to just one.
“This is what happened throughout the whole country,” Stone said. “It hit Northfield, and we just thought it would be nice to look back.”
“We kind of wanted an inventory of some sort of old barns in Northfield,” said Agricultural Commission Chair William Llewelyn. “We’ve lost many, many of them.”
The project began over a year ago.
“It kind of started as a driving map so people could drive around and just look at the barns from the road,” Llewelyn said. It later expanded to include photos and information about each barn’s history and style.
Stone said the commission started with a list of more than 35 potential barns to include, narrowing it down to the final 17.
The Northfield Historical Commission assisted.
“They had a lot of information on the places themselves already, just not all put together,” Llewelyn said, adding that the Historical Commission had considered the idea in the past.
But about 60 percent of the information in the brochure came through in-person interviews with the barns’ current owners.
At least five drafts were created before the final draft was produced this summer, Llewelyn said. A copy was delivered to every mailbox in town.
Llewelyn and Stone said residents and visitors to Northfield can pick up additional copies of the brochure at various locations in town such as Town Hall, Dickinson Memorial Library and Mim’s Market.