[MassHistPres] Gov. Stoughton Land Trust

[Ttorwig at aol.com]

The historical aspect here is  very important. The Milton Town Farm is an 
amazing survival. I wrote  my MA thesis in the Preservation Studies program at 
Boston University on  almshouses and poor farms in Massachusetts, and used this 
Milton site as  the exemplar for the early poor farm.
 
Founded in 1805,  the Farm preserves its second generation of buildings: the  
main  almshouse (1854), the men’s almshouse (1871), a stable (1882), and the 
pest  house (1888), a small structure built for the isolation of smallpox 
patients and  known in the first decades of the twentieth century as the “
detention hospital."  It also contains the original cartpath, Fields  surround the 
buildings, each bounded by wide stone walls that indicate the  farm’s nineteenth 
century agricultural plan.  These include two fields (2.5 and 4  acres), a 
one-acre stable pasture, and a one-acre former orchard. Most of  the property is 
a low woodland; the cart path ends at two stone platforms which  may have been 
used to load firewood.
 
The  town's animal shelter was plopped down in the middle of the site in 
1980, where  the carriage house was, but otherwise the poor farm is intact. The 
buildings are  rented out. The 34 acres are mostly swampy lowland, which I 
assume has its own  biological value. The poor farm is clustered on the developable 
 upland. Honestly, I wish the town wouldn't redevelop this amazing  
landscape. 
 
Tim  Orwig



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