History
The Minute Man National Historic Park in Concord, MA estabished Battle Road Farms (BRF) through colaborative partnerships to increase the amount of agricultural activity within the park and expand the agricultural interpretation and education that is offered to the over 1.2 million visitors who spend time at the park each year.
For the past three years, The Farm School, a not-for-profit educational farm, has worked with the Park on the land to graze livestock and grow vegetables and to use a portion of a park structure to house the livestock manager.
In the Fall of 2007 Professor Brian Donahue from Brandeis University met with representatives from The Farm School, the Farm- Based Education Association, the Trustees of Reservations, the Park, and others to discuss the formalization of Battle Road Farms. It is intended that BRF will expand the work of The Farm School in developing a working farm with educational and interpretive programs and activities. The Farm Based Education Association will play an important role in expanding educational and interpretive programs. Professor Donahue has documented the history of the Park’s farmland in his recent book The Great Meadow: Farmers and the Land in Colonial Concord.
This farming program will maintain the open farmscape of the Park, giving visitors a more authentic visual experience of conditions at the time of the battle – April 19, 1775. The farmscape was important to the way the battle unfolded and its characteristics aided or impeded troop movements and deployments. The nature of the colonists’ farm culture was also important to the reasons that New Englanders rebelled against British imperial rule, and to the way they organized their resistance.
Shared Objectives of the Collaboartove Partners
• To create a working landscape that will employ integrated mixed-husbandry to effectively steward a significant portion of the park’s cultural landscape and broadly replicate the look of the 18th century agrarian landscape while not precisely reproducing it. The promotion of sustainable land and energy use would be a central component of the working landscape of BRF.
• To provide public benefit through new educational and interpretive programs offered directly by BRF as well as provide a greatly enhanced resource to the Park for ongoing interpretive programs for visitors and school groups.
Agricultural Activity Currently at the Minute Man National Historic Park
Community Farmers Growing on Leased Park Land
For generations prior to the creation of the park in 1959, Concord farmers cultivated and protected the ancient fields now protected within the national park. More recently, local farmers have continued that tradition as part of the park’s agricultural program. Several farmers now grow corn, hay, and other crops throughout the park.
Maplewood Farm Stand
This farmstand provides visitors and local residents with fresh farm products. In the future, the park may provide visitors and local residents with additional fresh food options through additional farmstands.
The Farm School and the Big Ox Farm
Farmer Peter Merrill (The Big Ox Farm), operating under the auspices of The Farm School of Athol, MA, has been farming at the park since February 2006. Peter is a trained chef who worked at Sel de La Terre in Boston before beginning his farm training at Maggie's Farm at the Farm School. Maggie’s Farm is the practical farm-training program providing a year-long residential training program and support for post-graduate work (at the park for example) for adults in organic agriculture.
The Big Ox Farm is a 30-acre diversified farm within the park. 27 acres are devoted to a small herd of Scotch Highlanders, Irish Dexters, Big Jim, the Gloucester Line back Big Ox, along with Matilda and Sadie, the Tamworth sows, 35 Border Lester & Dorset Ewes. We are also growing a three acre market garden featuring salad greens, garlic, hericot vert, beets, carrots, potatoes and flowers.
The Sheep Grazing Study
As you walk the Battle Road Trail, you may notice sheep grazing at Fiske Hill and Farwell Jones field. Minute Man National Historical Park, in collaboration with the University of Massachusetts, is conducting research to control the spread of invasive plant species. In this pursuit, we have set up experimental plots to test whether grazing sheep throughout the season, grazing them a few times during the season, mowing, or some combination can best control the take-over of our fields by invasive plants.
Farm-Based Education and Interpretation at the Park
Jim Hollister, Ranger and interpreter at the Minute Man National Historical Park and Peter Merrill at The Big Ox Farm have developed a program called OX POWER: FARMS & FARMING IN COLONIAL NEW ENGLAND. This program describes how oxen were used in farming and discusses the use of commons and mixed husbandry. They have incorporated this program into this fall’s program for teachers called "1775 Immersion." This program will inform classroom teachers about ways to incorporate the park lessons into their curriculums.
Recently, 20 members of the farm-based education community met at the park for a tour of the park with Brian Donahue, professor of American Environmental Studies at Brandeis University and author of The Great Meadow: Farmers and the Land in Colonial Concord and Reclaiming the Commons: Community Farming and Forestry in a New England Town.
Last fall , 40 field managers from properties of The Trustees of Reservations visited the park to hear ways that partnerships and collaborative projects can help them with their strategic implementation of programming on their land holdings including 13 farms and 22 properties with working agricultural land.<