Cedar Hill Farm

Photos and clippings above sent by Larry Pearson.

Photos below taken in July 2020

Other farm pages on this site:

Byrne Family Farm - Hopedale and Mendon             Henry Farm - Dutcher Street   

Esty Farm - Mendon     Mendon agricultural stats, 1865   

Mendon cranberries, etc     Milk wagons   

Lyn Lovell - growing up on a farm in Vermont   

Julius Firmin - dairy farming in southern New Hampshire

And more local farm pages.

Cedar Hill Farm Facebook page   

Vandervalk Farm and Winery   

Daniels Farmstead  

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Mendon Menu   

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Below - Google Earth views of the Cedar Hill Farm vicinity.

Larry Pearson with his favorite cow.

Load of hay being delivered to the farm.
Right to left - Walter Wright, trucker, Larry Pearson. ?

    Erland Pearson; harvesting Red Cedar fence posts from the
    Cedar Hill- note the red core on the posts in the foreground

Mother cow with her suckling calf

Below - Quissett Hill Farm - Google Earth view

Byrne Family Farm - Hopedale and Mendon             Henry Farm - Dutcher Street   

Esty Farm - Mendon     Mendon agricultural stats, 1865   

Mendon cranberries, etc     Milk wagons   

Lyn Lovell - growing up on a farm in Vermont   

Julius Firmin - dairy farming in southern New Hampshire

Cedar Hill Farm Facebook page   

Quissett Hill Farm  Facebook page   

Vandervalk Farm and Winery   

Daniels Farmstead  

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Mendon Menu   

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    Waiting to Load the 40 qt milk cans - Note the cellar
    hole to the right. (original barn had burned).

Sonja and Larry Pearson with relatives visiting from Sweden.

Larry

    Truck backed up to milk house to be loaded
    with "40 Qt" cans of milk for Lowell's Dairy.

Sonja Pearson and Larry.

Erland Pearson and Larry

Erland Pearson with his record-setting cow, Gloria.

Erland and Larry Pearson

Erland and Larry Pearson.

Erland Pearson.

Erland Pearson reviewing his prize cow, Gloria.

Erland Pearson

Larry

    Family friend Jack Pearson tending
    to the garden, circa 1956

    Blizzard of '78.  Note the snow is as
    high as the top of the fence posts.

Winter Scene

Sonja and Erland Pearson, circa 1980

    50 Years Ago: Note lower right-hand corner:
    "Gloria" set a milk production record! (That's  8
    gals PER DAY for a year!)
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                                                                                    The History of Cedar Hill Farm

    The history of the property now known as the Pearson Farm began with the early settlement of Mendon when it was part of a holding of
    hundreds of acres belonging to one of Mendon founders.

    The first recorded deed was in 1832 when "one hundred acres more or less" was transferred to a non-family member, who held it for 25 years.

    It was during this period, it is believed that the farm concentrated on sheep raising, as did most farms in southern New England, to accommodate
    the demands from the mills along the Blackstone River, and so, to contain these sheep and clear the land, the stone walls were built, which still
    stand magnificently today.

    In the early 1940's the original barn was destroyed by fire, and in 1943 the original farm house, a 3 story, all-chestnut wood built structure, and a
    stop along the Underground Railroad, was also destroyed by fire.

    In 1947, a Swedish immigrant, Erland Pearson. after working two decades in a Worcester factory, sought to fulfill his lifetime dream to own a farm.
    He called it Cedar Hill Farm, referring to the knoll of abundant red cedar on the southwest corner of the property. He would go on to cut
    hundreds·of red cedar posts from this grove to be used for fencing, most of which still stand today.

    He and his wife worked tirelessly on the farm, and he would be seen daily trucking his daily milk production, in "40 quart jugs" (each weighing
    approximately 85 lbs) to Lowell's Dairy in Mendon (at the present site of Willow Brook Resturant) where it was processed and delivered to homes
    throughout the area. He would go on to develop an outstanding herd of Holstein cattle, with one cow, in 1956, setting a milk production record.
    His animals were frequent show winners at the East Blackstone Fair, and his stock was in high demand.

    Health issues forced him to sell the herd in the 1960's and he then boarded cattle for Garelick Farms and others and made and sold excess hay.
    The farm was leased to several others for dairy production during the 1970's and 1980's.

    In 1985, Erland and Sonja's son, Larry and his wife Sandra established a beef herd, purchasing foundation stock from Powisset Farm In Dover,
    MA, selling freezer beef and excess cattle for nearly two decades.

    As age and health issues required them to discontinue the farming operation, the farm is now, through the co-operative effort of the Town of
    Mendon and the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, being re-activated by another young farm family, so it can remain a working
    farm as it has for the past 350 years.

Larry Pearson