DEVELOPMENT OF THE FARM PROPERTY ~ 1941 – 1948
Newly Acquired Property Defined
The 119.75 acres of land, known as “The Foster Farm”, at the time of purchase was leased to a tenant farmer by the seller Marie Barnes. Dean granted a year-to-year extension to tenant-farmer Kramer’s long-term lease agreement. He lived in the farm house and continued to farm the land until around 1945.
The plot of land was diverse. The front acreage (west side,) entered from Stow Road, contained a three-bedroom farm house, a Yankee [Pennsylvania] bank barn (cira 1850). Behind the barn stretched approximately 10 acres of grazing land for the cattle and horses. To the north of the house the land dropped sharply into a deep ravine through which a creek travelled from west to the eastern reaches of the property. Tillable fields stretched north from the grazing field. The rear acreage (east) was lower land comprised of a grazing meadow; to the eastern (rear) limits of the property was a glacier-formed five-acre swamp; to the southern limits of the property was a 30 acre (approximated) hillside of predominantly sugar maple trees; and to the western slope of this hillside lays a depressed meadow into which a creek flows from adjoining southern properties into the property and into the above-mentioned grazing field.
Dean’s Dream Lake
With his keen eye for land development Dean identified a 2 1/2 acre meadow in the back acreage into which a stream flowed from adjoining southern properties. The meadow was excavated in 1942 by Harry Miller of Suffield creating a fresh-water lake. From that time forward it was referred to within the family as the "Little Lake", and by Hudsonites as "May's Lake". (See photo above.) The following year Dean and Dorothy built a cabin on the hill at the southern end of the lake. Cedar timbers which they dismantled from the vacated barn silo were used to frame the cabin.
Access was needed to the new lake and cabin deep in the woods south of the meadow. There was a well worn path created over many years by the cows as they travelled back and forth between barn and lower meadow. This path became a sandy car lane. The Little Lake’s newly built spillway intersected this lane. Dean and John built a substantial bridge over the spillway’s flow.
Dean planted Lombardy Willow trees and Elderberry bushes on the dam to reinforce the soil with their deep roots.
The berries from bushes made delicious elderberry pies and pancakes. The cabin was lighted with Coleman lanterns until 1947 when electricity was run from the barn to the cabin.
In the summer months the family packed up their belongings and food provisions and lived in the cabin from mid-week through Sunday.
Monday was “wash day” back home in East Moreland so that Dorothy could prepare for yet another week at the cabin. It was there that we learned: to swim – Dorothy would tie a clothes line around our waist and pull us in, until we could swim on our own; to dive off an improvised diving board –“just bend over, touch your toes and roll in" to fish – Dean supplied us with maple saplings for poles. We learned that snakes in water were harmless so we would swim alongside black water snakes.
