Growing up in Minnesota, dairy farms were everywhere I looked. At the age of 15, I was hired to be a full time farmhand for a neighbor who only had young girls. I milked 13 cows by myself and usually had the ladies back out to pasture before 6 a.m.
Forty-five years later, I live in Connecticut and it appears that the family farm is all but a part of history. In 1975 there were 817 dairy farms producing milk in Connecticut, today there are just 157. In the past two years alone we have lost 16 farms in this state.
Because milk prices are set by the government, in New England the rising costs of production including feed, fuel and electricity is making it increasingly difficult for farmers to make ends meet. When I first moved to Granby, I came across Creamery Hill Road and of course, I had to investigate where the creamery was.
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Both of the Granbys opened creameries in the summer of 1882. Creameries were new to Connecticut in the 1870s. Local farmers became stockholders and would pledge the milk from their herds to these newly formed co-operatives.
In Granby, a directors’ report dated July 3, 1882, gives the beginning of the Granby Co-Operative Creamery Company. The directors included names like Loomis, Latham, Dibble & Cornwall. The total cost of the building was $4,154.65. The building was located across the street from 70 Creamery Hill Road, near the entrance of Farmview Lane.
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The land owner, Levi Rice, agreed to allow his land to be used if the property would revert back to him upon the discontinuance of the operation, should that time come. A giant churn was driven by a coal fired steam engine that could produce more than 1,000 lbs of butter a day.
Coal was brought to Granby at that time by the railroad and was carted to the site from the Granby Station located today on Route 189. Annually the company manufactured more than 200,000 pounds of butter, which produced more than $40,000 per year to be distributed to the farmers of Granby. The Granby Creamery closed in 1923.
East Granby opened its creamery just two months earlier. The factory was located south of 19 North Main Street on what is now called “Creamery Brook”. A description was found in the Windsor Locks Journal in June of 1882, describing the building and the type of “modern” equipment that was soon to be installed. The Connecticut Farmer magazine described the opening this way:
The creamery in East Granby commenced operations on Monday the 22nd. Austin Stowell, a local farmer not often found napping in the morning, was the first to deliver milk and the whistle is expected to sound the time of day before long. Peddlers will make the attempt to sell the skim milk (the residue from the process) in Thompsonville, Windsor Locks, Rainbow and perhaps other places.
By 1886, rather than deliver the whole milk, local farmers used the newly invented De Laval cream separator and delivered only the cream. The skim milk was often fed to the pigs! These creameries found a ready sale for their product in Hartford, Springfield, New York, New Haven, Waterbury and thoughout Connecticut.
Today, only four dairy farms remain in Granby; the Hayes’ Sweet Pea Farm, Dr. Davis’ Maplewood Farm, the Miller's Millborne Farm, and the Thibedeau Farm. East Granby no longer has any dairy farms that produce cow milk. Please support your local farm dairy today.
For more information on local dairies and Connecticut Agriculture, try these links:
