Lucille, Kathy and Nate Blake - taken at the Clark farm on Blackberry Hill

Everett Blake and his sisters Evelyn Blake Sanborn (Robert of Orford), Dorothy Blake Nolan (older sister who lived in Arizona), and Cora Blake Sanborn (Richard of Wentworth)

Bernard Sanborn and Flora Sanborn Blake

4 Generations of Franklins/Clarks—Baby Harry Franklin, held by Mother Marion Clark Franklin, maternal grandmother, Gertrude Keyes Clark and maternal great grandmother, Mary Keyes Clark

1913 or 14-Ruth Franklin Sanborn and Harry Franklin pictured under the barn bridge at the Franklin farm

1949-Lewis, Walter Franklin, Nettie Pierson Blake, Priscilla Franklin Harrington, Kippy Pierson Gordon at Franklin sugarhouse

1889-Alice Franklin Baker, age 10, daughter of Lewis and Rebecca Cushman Franklin, mother of Helen Baker Sanborn and Dorothy Baker Pierson, aunt of Harry Franklin

1889-Arthur Franklin, age 8, son of Lewis Franklin and Rebecca Cushman Franklin, father of Harry Franklin

Circa 1919-Helen Baker Sanborn, Ruth Franklin Sanborn, Dorothy Baker Pierson and Harry Franklin

Bailey kids, a family’s pride and joy. Three children, perhaps 3-10, on porch, youngest in chair. There was a Bailey family in Orfordville and the man worked on the church and was killed due to a fall when working on a Morrison barn. This may be that family.

Eugene Cross family (older girl, Lavina Cross Pierson) Cross kids, family. Woman, man, three children sitting on porch. Man is Eugene Cross. Lavina Cross, the older of the children, married Ralph Pierson of Bradford, VT.

Dwyers and Franklins: Five women, five little children in front of mortared stone wall. Mary Tullar seated in center, Alice Franklin on right. In back, Rebecca Cushman Franklin [wife of Lewis] and Marion Clark Franklin [wife of Arthur, mother of Harry]

Wright Family: Young adult man and woman in chairs, each holding a small child. The mother is likely a Belford.

Belford group. Family, likely 4 generations, man, woman, older woman seated, holding two children, two older men in back. Likely George H. and Emma J., 55 and 56 in 1910. George listed as ‘general farming, employee’. George W. is 19 in 1910, so the younger man is likely him. May have lived on Dame Hill.

Group at Harlow A. Childs. Family group sitting outside in front of screen door, older woman, man, and woman, three girls, Edith, Elsie, Ruth

Harold Rutledge Steers. Young boy with yoke of young Holstein steers, in snow, house in background.

Ralph, laughing not big enough yet. Young boy standing in corner holding rifle with butt on floor; long tunic, slack belt.

Three young men sitting on south end of Mall, Academy building on right. Base of large flagpole? The one on the left may be Charles Tullar.

Catherine in chair. Baby sitting in big chair, in corner.

Girl [5-6] kneeling in straight-back chair, arms on back, plant on table to her right

Woman seated in chair with girl standing in chair beside her. Baby Robert Carr

Young steers in yoke standing in yard looking away from each other in a winter setting

Two boys in caps with yoke of Holstein steers in the snowy yard. [Not sure who the boys are – not Morrison, do you recognize any relatives?]

Pat and Mike, Hereford steers about 3 months old. That may be Sam Morrison kneeling and his father Harry in back.

Snow Lee house. Small building in field in winter with large spruce or pine beside it.

West Congregational Church woodpile, perhaps c. 1900

Orford 52 Winter Scene -Willard’s Store, c.1890 [This is looking north along Main Street, where the store was about opposite Bridge St. Burned in December, 1905, never rebuilt.

The first snow at Morrison farm, Oct. 5, 1911. Wall and two-part ‘garden gate’ in winter.

Ice, May 3, 1908. Stone wall with wooden gate, small barn and power lines in winter. Across road from barns and house after an ice storm with lines and trees coated.

E.P. Cross (hired man at Morrison’s) hunting camp with stovepipe and doe hanging outside.

Harvey Washburn’s farm on Dame Hill. Set of extended farm buildings with 2 ½ story house with front dormer, two chimneys and ell with one chimney, corncrib, barn and red barn with dirt ramp.

Harvey Washburn returned from service in WW I and bought the Russell farm in 1919. The building at the end of the shed may be a corn crib, as it is raised above the ground. 

Looking east at the Cushman farm on Dame Hill. Barns burned in early 30’s but the house is still there on the opposite of the road.

These barns burned in late September 1932, following a lightning strike. The barns were full of hay and the silo had just been filled with corn. The cattle were gotten out but not the horses. Clarence Andrews, who rented the farm and lived there, was badly burned but survived. 

Close-up of Cushman’s two barns and shed connected with several people in front.

This image is blurred but is the only one we have which shows a close-up view of the Cushman barns. The one on the left may have been added onto, based on the roof.  

Franklin Farm looking toward David Wilcox. Sunday Mt. in background. The large barn on the left was removed in early 1900s and big cow barn in the rear left.

David Wilcox kept bees for many years, up until 1920 and each year would travel around NH & VT selling honey. The white rows near the buildings on his farm are the beehives. 

Hauling manure the old way at the Franklin Farm. Two pair of horses pulling a dump cart, likely loaded with manure. This would be taken to the field, dumped and then spread by hand. The building to the right in this photo is likely the corn crib, where the husked ears of corn would be stored. Note that it is off the ground, for ventilation and perhaps to help keep rats out. 

From 1852 to around 1900, the Franklin Farm was primarily a sheep farm. After the death of Benjamin in 1898, his sons, Edwin and Lewis, converted the farm to a dairy operation and constructed a new barn in 1902. 

Herefords in barnyard with smaller barn to the left and end of house to the right. Note reflection of the house in the water trough.

Those look like metal caps on the horns of the steer closest to the waterbox. We are not sure why they would add the caps, as they are most often used on working oxen. 

Three men sawing wood into blocks behind shed. Note that the belt powering the saw is coming from an engine in the shed.

That is a pretty good-sized log to lift onto the saw arbor – not sure why they didn’t cut into four-foot lengths. Note two piles of wood – one to the right is stacked, with pieces all about the same size, while the one on the left is just thrown there and has varying sizes of wood. I think that is Harry doing the ‘heavy looking on’ from the shed door. 

Twenty or more Jersey cows in barn with pens behind them. Note rings in boards to pull up and scrape manure below.

The pens are for calves and/or as a place to put a cow who is about to calve. The boards that pull up to scrape manure into the basement are a continuation of the use of gravity in this barn. The hay is pitched down to the cattle and the manure is scraped down not shoveled. 

Boiler room - milk house/creamery interior, separator on right, upturned 40-quart milk cans on left, concrete floor, roll door in background.

It is hard to tell what those photos on the door are: from magazines or actual photos. The one of the hen or rooster must be a magazine but the one on the right could be from the farm. 

Boiler room - milk house/creamery interior with sink and cooler. On the left, boiler in rear center with upturned 40-quart milk cans on right.

Perhaps the closed chest to the right has cold water running through it, to cool milk in 40-quart cans. Anyone have an idea for the use of those two items hanging on the wall under the shelf? Note the wood stacked by the boiler and the broom and dustpan by the door. 

Engine in barn, cutting silage. ‘Waiting for Corn’ Portable steam engine running elevator to silo.

This elevator must be going to an interior silo, not the outside one in the earlier photo. That looks like the rounded sides and openings to a silo on the right but the elevator isn’t aimed correctly and would be unusual to have a right angle on the top. Perhaps there were two silos in the barn and the outside one was added when they decided to grow more corn for sileage. 

A load of loose hay, just pitched on from the field, ready to go into the barn. The barn is set up so that the haymows are above the cattle, so that the hay can be pitched down to them. The stable is also set up with a ‘gravity feed’ system for the other end of the process. (1908)

The separator is likely a De Laval, given the sign on the smaller barn. (October 1906) 

By this time, an exterior silo has been added to the farm, not in the earlier photos. There was also likely a silo inside the barn. (June 1914)

Field of hay piles across road from barns and house. See little girl in foreground. This hay is dry, piled up ready to be pitched onto the hayrack and taken to the barn. There is a later photo of the loaded hayrack on the ramp ready to enter the barn. 

Morrison farmstead from the south looking from across the road with two little girls in left foreground. A broad view of the barns from the field across the road, which shows the main barns and shed in relation to each other. 

Morrison house taken from the cupola of the barn looking east with several ells and sheds. Main road is out of sight to the right with hayfield beyond. Note the birdhouse on the end of the ridge closest to us. Is that a stone patio on the extreme left? 

The Trussell stone house is on Route 25-A east of the Ville just before the Quinttown turn. Note the arbor over the ell steps. This house still stands. The house was owned by Fredrick Becton and his wife, Janet, who was a sister to Bess Cushman who was married to Charles Cushman. An original poem entitled “Our Home” appears in “A Poet to the Orford Community” written by Dorothy Baker Pierson, pages 106-107 and was published by the Orford Historical Society in 2010.  [Don’t know the span of time they lived there]

A big elm tree and wooden bridge just west of the Trussell [stone] house on a part of the road bypassed by Route 25-A. Note the way the sides of the bridge are covered with planks and shingles. This was cheaper than a full covered bridge but did serve to protect the framing to some extent.

This was labeled ‘Mt Cube House.’ These may be two of the five barns across the road which burned on August 18, 1918 [according to Jesse Currier’s Memoir.] If so, the scene is the road in front of the house looking east at the fields on the eastern slope of Mt. Cube.

This was labeled ‘Rex,’ who must be the horse, facing east on the Brook Road. See Ville School in background. Likely Mrs. Florence Pease and baby Edith, c. 1910.  Florence’s husband, John, was Art Pease’s great-uncle.

Looking west along Brook Road toward the bridge and Orfordville. This was the main road at this time.

The view east along Brook Road with Mt. Cube in the distance. This was the main road east of the Ville until the state moved the road to the south of the brook in the mid-1920s. This is the third bridge in these views which are ‘half-covered.’

Looking west at the Orfordville Store, church with horse sheds and Beal house, likely c. 1910 , as the sign says Cheney & Andrews, who owned the store from 1906 to 1910.

The center of Orfordville looking east from Huckins Hill. Note the Grange Hall and store with the Clarence Blodgett house in the center background. This house burned in 1919 and the replacement is now owned by Richard Frey.

This view looks directly down Huckins Hill and up Dame Hill with Sunday Mountain on the left. Just to the right front of the Grange Hall is a set of scales for weighing wagons and their loads. Note that the bridge is partially covered as in the one near the Trussell house.

Front view of the Ville schoolhouse built in 1898 (photo circa 1915). The building was built for $2000 after several failed attempts at previous School Meetings, finally passing when the same amount was appropriated to purchase and fix up the old Academy building at the Street for those pupils.

Primary classroom (grades 1-4) in the Ville schoolhouse, 22 students seated with teacher. It looks like the younger students are on the right side nearer the teacher.  Prints of Washington and Teddy Roosevelt at the left but have not been able to make out the other framed print. Likely between 1910-1920.

Grammar classroom (grades 5-8) in the Ville schoolhouse, 21 students seated and perhaps the teaching front of the window in the middle rear.  The boy in the foreground is almost certainly Sam Morrison, Jr., then living on the Marston Stock Farm (Schwarz 2021).  Photo is circa 1908, and it looks like Cram’s Modern Atlas on the desk.

Old brick schoolhouse at Orfordville, looking northwest from road.

Looking south, corner on new school just visible in the background.

Looking east from the foot of Dame Hill, old brick schoolhouse and waterbox (left), bandstand in the triangle heading up Dame Hill (right).

Fun Fact - Bandstands were built at both the Ville and the Street in 1897. 

Sunset Ranch Camp Founders: Pat & Bud Durham

Archery

Baseball

Horseback Riding

Waterskiing

Go-Carts

Riflery

Saturday Night Social

Camp Reunion in NYC 

Cabins in Winer (2020)

Campers (circa 1949)

Heritage Collage

Waterfront 

Horseback Riding

Stories by the Fire

Tennis 

Boating

Camp Co-Director, 

Mrs. Patricia Ryan 

Camp Location

Katherine Battin, 

Swimming Counselor 

Campers

Art Studio & Music Studio

Expenses & Terms

Season of 1926

Dining & Recreation Hall

A Day's Activities

Posted April 15, 2021

Francis Pease gathering sap on snowshoes

Horses in front of the camp with buckets and covers, ready to go tapping (circa 1970s)

Posted March 31, 2021

Ruby standing in the Franklin Farm Sugarhouse door c.1947

Exterior view of the Franklin Farm Sugarhouse c.1947

Posted March 10, 2021

Looking toward Mt. Cube from the road in front of Morrison's

Orfordville store in winter with three sleighs (c. 1910)

Gale, Pete and Dave Thomson, taken in 1944 before they moved to Orford. 

Christmas Tree in the old brick schoolhouse in Orfordville, on the site of the present library.

Mel, Pete and Dave Thomson, taken in 1944 before they moved to Orford. 

Note the chopping block visible on the left under the canvas! 

Identified as Sam Morrison, Harry Morrison's son - may or may not be deer hunting!