March 6, 2006

• A few days back I posted about finding some family information about my Great Grandmother who had a farm out in Medford, Long Island. I also posted a picture of the LIRR Experimental farm that was near my great grandparents farm. Sunday I just felt the urge to go and look around. Mike drove me and I took my trusty cameras and off we went. Perhaps some background information would be nice ....

  
  

  The Long Island Railroad or LIRR had in its employ a man named Hal Fullerton although not Long Island born he was a photographer and was hired by the LIRR to promote the railroad and also  Long Island.. one of these promotions was two create a farm, and successfuly grow an abundance of crops on what was deemed to be the worst farm land they could find .. the first farm was situated in Wading River. Hal and his wife Edith were amateur agriculturalists. Hi wife Edith ( by the way 19 years his junior )  was what he called his junior partner, although all decisions and responsibilities were made 50/50. The Wading River farm, which Edith had named Peace and Plenty, was utlimately a success and the Fullertons had a dinner for the press to exhibit all the crops they had raised.They garnered much good publicity from this event. The decision was made to start a second Experimental Farm in Medford. They named it Prosperity Farm.  Again a location with what was deemed poor soil was chosen and the farming began. This is the farm where my grandfather worked when he was young. At that time My great grandparents starting farming in Medford also on 10 acres of the same kind of land the Fullertons were farming. I wish I could travel back to that time to hear the discussions they no doubt had about farming that type of land. My grandfather passed when I was only 2 .I never got the chance to ask him about it. My grandmother said very little, she did talk about it, but I was young and sadly not aware of the importance of paying good attention . I do know that my great grandfather was Amish and he was from Pennsylvania near the Delaware Water Gap. I also know that Edith Fullerton was also from Pennsylvania . I have always toyed with the idea that perhaps they knew each other somehow - and that is how My Great Grandparents wound up out in Medford.. which was, at the time, as rural and desolate as you could get on the island. Through the years it grew.

  
  

  Prosperity farm ran from 1910- 1927, when the railroad closed it down .. That  may not seem like much time -but looking at that span of years from afar now .. that's almost half a lifetime of work and love and creating, planning, tending and overall devotion to that plot of land. If I could ask Edith was she happy it closed I would venture to say - she might say no -from what I have heard and what I have seen in pictures, it was a truly lovely spot that she had created with her husband and her children from next to nothing but the soil they stepped on. I have seen pictures of their house it was beautiful and very comfortable looking. There are several books published about the farm and their lives, two are:

  
  

    My Long Island Growing Up on Hal Fullerton's Blessed Isle 
    by Eleanor F. Fergueson.... and another is named ..

  
  

   The Junior Partner, Edith Loring Fullerton, Long Island Pioneer  by Anne Nauman

  
  

  From what I understand the books are kind of rare and may be available at the Suffolk County Historical Society Library. Anyhow thats the background. That farm as it was back then has been gone close to 100 years. I do not know if someone else took up farming on that land after the LIRR decided to close it down. I would be surprised if no one did ..I remember as a child in the 60's going past it as my parents took my brother and I to where my Great Grandparents farmed which was across the railroad tracks from the Prosperity farm. I have very little recollection as I was young and soon thereafter the properties were sold and the area became an industrial area and businesses that deal with car parts.. it is to say the least .. terribly ugly and it really saddens me to no end that a place that I have heard described as paradise is now so polluted and wasted ...

  
  

  A few years back -probably more than a few - my Aunt Dottie came up from florida to visit my mother and we all drove out to the spot where this farm was . It was so nice to watch them talk about it. My Aunt stood and pointed - over there is where the water tower was .. and that is the road we used to get here to get the milk.. They laughed and they reminisced.. to my mom its her favorite memory .. to my Aunt .. not so much .. but she made the best of it....

  
  

   

  
  

  SO as I said in the beginning of this lengthy diatribe LOL .. Sunday I had the urge to go to the location of where the Prosperity farm used to be. There is a road through it now but much of it is findable. They planted bamboo at that farm and I have read that it was the first bamboo planted on the Island. 

  
  

  We got there about 3:30 pm and I ignored the no tresspassing signs and went in with my trusty camera. I walked around and took many pictures, that no doubt mean nothing to anyone but me and my mom. I am so glad I went because the entire area that I walked was marked off as house plots to be divided up and houses built. Thats my take on it. It looked like half acre plots. I am amazed really that the land lasted so long with all the ridiculous building they are doing on the island. I guess someone prompted me to go and take pictures before the bamboo is gone and the wildness is gone. I was very saddened by the whole episode, yet grateful that I was led to the spot.

  
  

  On the way out the nieghbor who lived next door came out of his house ( LOL I am not surprised I was tresspassing next to his house ) I told him my story and he was really happy to hear it. He told me his mother had a collection of articles and pictures of the farm and she would probably love talking to my mother. I told him about the pink lot markers. He said he had seen men in their surveying, but when he went to the town there was nothing at the planning board. I told him to go to the county center and see who bought the propery .. its no doubt in the preplanning stages. Soon there will be nothing left of that wonderful piece of Long Island History.  I took lots of pictures like I said of whats left .. for reference's sake here is a picture of what it looked around 1920 after they cleared the land for farming vegetables ...

  
  

   

  
  

  

  
  

   

  
  

  When I was exploring the area I was hoping to come across something from one of the buildings .. anything that was left is probably long gone .. it was overgrown and there were raspberry brambles and since there was snow on the ground I did not want to misstep and slip or fall.. So it was slow going. I got into the center and there was a little more clearing and I came upon a tree that had been there for a while.

  
  

   

  
  

  

  
  

   

  
  

  This next picture looks to me like an old cement fence post . I have seen in other pictures a fence running in front of one of the farm buildings and it looked like posts like these and some sort of wire cable running through them all to form a fence . I know in front of that fence is where the crops were grown .. I was fascinated that one thing that could have been on the farm was still there

  
  

   

  
  

  

  
  

   

  
  

  A big chunk of cement and an old steering wheel.. I surmised that there was probably a well somewhere on the grounds and with the snow and the big dip near that cement, I was not getting too close to that !

  
  

   

  
  

  

  
  

   

  
  

  towards the middle of the land beyond that marker I saw many different kinds of very overgrown evergreens of different types. These are not from this area .. they were most likely planted at one time and have obviously been growing. Scrub Pines are what mostly grow in this area of the island and it is in or near part of the Pine Barrens that people have fought so hard to preserve..

  
  

   

  
  

  

  
  

   

  
  

  View looking to the north where the expressway is now, I have no idea how far back this farm ran and what year the expressway was built...but you could hear it in where I was and it was quite loud. You can see that this was at one time probably mostly cleared and maybe a lawn of some kind .. this part was mostly clear except for some undergrowth and trees here and there. It was not as much of a thicket as the front part.. the front was loaded near the bamboo with overgrown raspberry vines .. that at one time were no doubt not so unruly and were harvested.

  
  

   

  
  

  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  There was sort of a clearning here also and an over grown ornamental bush or shrub of some sort that I cannot identify .. but again it looks as if its been there some years.

  
  

   

  
  

  

  
  

   

  
  

  One of the things that really struck me was that while I was in there taking pictures all around me there was such peace, except for the sound of the expressway .. the only thing I heard were birds going from tree to tree singing and it was so beautiful to watch. If houses are built I am sure they are not the only creatures who will have to move on. ...

  
  

   

  
  

  

  
  

   

  
  

  I would love to be able to go back when its warm and just sit on the ground and commune with the nature and history of this spot and let it tell me its' story but I am not so sure thats going to be possible...

  
  

   

  
  

  

  
  

   

  
  

  I wish I Could travel back the hundred years so I could sit amongst the peace and tranquility of not many trains .. hardly any cars .. and no planes.. no electricity.. no televisions and cars with horrible booming stereos interupting my thoughts.. hundreds of acres of farm land surrounding me ... Gods' beauty all around .. I get all choked up inside when I think about how it must have been really like paradise on earth

  
  

  

  
  

   

  
  

  

  
  

   

  
  

  

  
  

   

  
  

  

  
  

   

  
  

  The trip would not have been complete without exploring  the field of bamboo - which stunned me with its beauty and majesty. I know many people dislike bamboo because it spreads so quickly and its hard to stop it .. but there is a certain beauty to the wildness in the way it grows that I love and the color green in the pale of winter is wonderful ...I wandered amongst this bamboo for about 15 minutes wishing I could lay down next to it and really revel in its magnificance and absorb its energy ...

  
  

   

  
  

  

  
  

   

  
  

  

  
  

   

  
  

  

  
  

   

  
  

  

  
  

   

  
  

  

  
  

   

  
  

  I could have wandered for hours, but the sun was getting ready to set and it's really private propery. I wish that they would have preserved that Experimental Farm as a monument to the people who tended this land that many thought was worthless for growing anything. They changed a little of the face of the island and brought beauty where there wasn't  much and they enriched the soil with their love for farming in the old fashioned way. I suppose I do take a lot of pride in the fact that somewhere in the jumble of my genetic makeup is a piece of this farm. Handed down to me by my grandfather who worked it All those years ago. Also my great grandparents who knew these pioneers and were themselves pioneers right along side them. I honor their memory for all the hard work they did... and taking the pictures is my memory of re-visiting an era that has all but gone on this Isle.. It is sad to me .. but important to me to take many pictures of places like this so that in the future they may see just how bad it had to get - before it got better again .... Peace and thanks for reading and looking xoxoxoxoxxooo

  
  

   

  
  

   

  
  

   

  • 4:26 pm
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