A Land of Unusual Yield
— A Southwick Time Machine Original
Farmers in Southwick, Massachusetts, and the surrounding hill towns didn’t speak of “agricultural science” in the modern sense, but their records tell a story of extremes: outsized harvests, enormous livestock, and seasons that refused to follow the rules.
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| (Image inspired by the story) |
About 1756, a farmer in Granville, Massachusetts, believed to be Luke Hitchcock, rode horseback all the way to New York and returned with just four potatoes, then still a novelty. Two froze on the journey home. From what remained, he planted fourteen small hills, and by season's end, harvested four full bushels. From almost nothing came abundance.
Decades later, the pattern continued.
In 1822, a single apple grown in Granville weighed one pound, seven ounces. That same year, a cabbage grown in Granville measured more than three feet, five inches in circumference after all of the loose leaves were trimmed away. Not long after, in 1827, workers cutting a tree in Southwick discovered a hollow filled with nearly one hundred gallons of honey.
Even individual plants defied expectation. In Suffield, Connecticut, in 1839, a farmer named Washburn harvested 600 pounds of squash from a single seed. A few years later, in 1844, I. N. Fowler of Southwick grew fifteen pumpkins from a single seed, weighing a total of 264 pounds, many between twenty and thirty pounds each. Nine of them were ripe.
Some growth endured across generations.
In 1872, an apple tree more than one hundred years old stood on the farm of S. A. Lambson in Southwick. Measuring 15 feet 2 inches in circumference at the butt and extending 11 rods around the outer edge of its limbs, the tree remained healthy and productive, yielding enough apples the year prior to produce more than seven barrels of cider.
Livestock, too, seemed to exceed ordinary limits.
Southwick was once described as a “paradise of porkers,” and the name was not given lightly. Throughout the 1850s and 1860s, hogs raised in the area routinely reached remarkable weights—400, 500, even over 550 pounds.
On January 31, 1854, William Bacon of Granville slaughtered a 19-month-old Black Suffolk pig weighing 644 pounds. On February 8, 1856, Seth Gillett of Southwick killed a pig only nine months old that weighed 422 pounds. In February 1857, Orrin Moore of Southwick slaughtered a hog weighing 583 pounds.
The pattern continued.
In December 1858, Lyman Twining of Tolland, Massachusetts, owned an eight-month-old pig weighing 383 pounds. On December 26, 1860, Dea Horace of Southwick, slaughtered three sixteen-month-old hogs weighing 441, 431, and 405 pounds. The winter of 1860-61 alone saw thirty-eight hogs slaughtered in Southwick, averaging more than 445 pounds.
Yet despite their size, the economics told a different story, as farmers often lost money raising them, as pork sold for less than it cost to produce.
Some of the largest hogs recorded that winter included:
At the time, raising pork cost about 12 cents per pound, and it was selling at 8 cents per pound. (It is unclear how old the hogs were and if the hogs killed were a profit or a loss for the Southwick farmers.)
Even so, remarkable yields continued. In the winter of 1862, forty-five hogs from thirty-five different farmers and feeders in Southwick averaged 454 pounds. In December 1863, Alvin Rising of Southwick, slaughtered two hogs that were thirteen months old, weighing 588 and 568. In December 1867, Dea Horace killed seven fourteen-month-old hogs, averaging 508 pounds each. And in 1869, S. J. Dibble of Southwick owned a pigmy weighing 248 pounds.
Other animals proved just as notable.
In 1853, Edward Holcomb of Granville owned a three-month-old Chittagong rooster whose legs measured fifteen inches from body to toe. At the Fourth National Exhibition of Horses in September 1860, a mare named Doll, owned by H. T. Slocumb of Tolland, where she was raised, stood 17 hands tall and weighed approximately 1,200 pounds. She was exhibited in the "mares with foal by their side" category. A Morgan and English cross, she was nineteen years old and remained active enough to be shown alongside her young.
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| L. Prang & Co., Boston (1868) |
Even small creatures seemed to defy expectations. In 1871, a canary in Southwick was recorded as being 27 years old.
And then there were the seasons themselves.
In January of 1880, during an unusually warm spell, maple sap in Granville began flowing weeks earlier than anyone could remember. One Granville farmer marketed twenty pounds of maple sugar from sap gathered in January. With the flow steady and uninterrupted, other farmers followed suit, making sugar in midwinter—something no one in the area could remember happening before. The trees, it seemed, were keeping their own calendar.
Not every account was one of abundance.
In 1879, Lester B. Dickinson of Granville was raising swine extensively. Forced by crowded pens, he released a male into the yard with his cows. The hog attacked, tearing open a vein and causing one of the cows to bleed to death.
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| Lester B. Dickinson |
Taken together, these accounts suggest more than isolated oddities. For generations, the farms of Southwick and its neighboring towns produced results that were larger, earlier, heavier, and sometimes stranger than expected.
Whether it was the richness of the soil, the peculiarities of the climate, or simply the careful eye of the farmers who recorded it all, one thing is certain:
In this corner of New England, ordinary agriculture often yielded extraordinary results—and by the early 1900s, Southwick, part of the Connecticut River Valley within the Pioneer Valley, was known for producing some of the finest tobacco in the world. It was a notable outcome for a place once known as Poverty Plains.
— Uncovered and preserved by the Southwick Time Machine
This article is based on original primary-source research, including but not limited to official documents and records, census data, and period newspapers. Southwick Time Machine stories are living documents. Research is ongoing, and this account may evolve as new information comes to light.
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otherwise noted. In keeping with historical preservation standards, some
of the images may have been digitally enhanced for clarity and detail,
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