“The Darling Farm”
by Dana Wingate Kelley
My first introduction to the Darling Farm in West Burke, Vermont was back in 1937, when my wife’s uncle Harry Davis took us there. Mr. Davis was a harness maker of the old school and did the harness work for the Darling Farm and former Minnesota governor, Elmer Brown, who purchased one of the Darling homes and barns and raised cattle and Morgans.
A sight I shall never forget was seeing the beautiful chestnut mare, Hepsibeth, first daughter of Ashbrook, running in a lush pasture with a newborn foal along with three of her young geldings, ages one, two, and three – all sired by Sonny Bob, a son of Bob B. and Evelyn.
Hepsibeth’s mane and tail dragged on the ground, no grooming, it was natural, the heavy old Morgan foretop and thick tail. The three geldings were all bays with heavy black manes and tails.
I knew then that I wanted a daughter of Hepsibeth and Sonny Bob, so I made arrangements with Henry Darling to purchase the next foal, and lo and behold, it was a bay filly that I named Justine Morgan, my first mare. As you can see, I added an “E” to the original horse’s name.
Later on, I obtained her full sister, Darleen; her most well-known son sired by Ethan Eldon was Royalton Bob Woodstock.
About twenty-five years ago an auction sale of the Darling Farm and equipment was held and at that time I wrote the following story. (I must add that prices seemed high then, but compared to today’s prices they were nothing. Carriages run into the thousands and weathervanes are going at $1000 up.):
A 20th Century generation stepped back into the late 1880s when a collection of sleighs, buggies, harnesses still sparkling with brass, buffalo robes, horse blankets and dozens of bits, some silver plated, were sold under the auctioneer’s hammer.
For nearly a quarter of a century, the great Darling Farm has been locked tight, its great barn doors closed, the 300 stanchions, which used to hold purebred Jerseys, were laced with cobwebs; the famous Morgan barn was as empty as a church at midnight; and the big, yellow house, lifeless.
A caretaker kept the large lawns neatly mowed and trimmed, the expansive rolling hayfields were cut each summer, but the sagging gates at several unoccupied pastures told the story of an era long gone.
The Darling Farm a half century ago was the showplace of Vermont, if not the entire country. Old-timers, standing around at the auction, remembered walking into the Morgan stable and seeing 40 purebred animals, their coats glistening from the hostler’s brisk brush, standing in roomy , paneled box stalls. These men recalled the twenty or more work horses, animals weighing as much as 1,800 pounds, stepping smartly down the driveway, the brass on their harnesses as bright as gold. When it was haying time, eight teams mowed in tandem. One “old-timer” told me he counted forty men walking the hay fields with pitch forks over their shoulders.
So here you have a brief description of the Darling Farm and its setting. But for those of us who remember ever so slightly the horse-and-carriage era, the auction here was one of nostalgic exuberance.
The younger generation were at a loss to understand such terms as breechen’ (breeching), hames, tugs, eveners, whiffletrees, yokes, or traces. When the auctioneer brought out the “Surrey with the Fringe on Top,” made famous by the song, the “kids” understood.
There were eleven carriages of all descriptions ranging from the surrey to Concords to a unique buckboard with the original rumble seat. On this single rumble passengers lounged in front. There were a dozen sleighs, both for a single horse and a span.
Now if you think for a moment that these carriages and sleighs went for “a song,” you are wrong. The buckboard, for example, sold for $190. One sleigh, with two brass lanterns went for $110.
And listen to this: a horsewhip went for $19! And I used to get one for doing “nothing!”
It was common to overhear an old-timer comment that “I used to go courting in a rig just like that!” And it was surprising how this past way of life still had its romantic appeal.
Another surprising item was a Morgan horse, gold-colored weathervane. It sold for $400!
Harnesses, too, both the carriages type as well as the heavy work kind, sold well.
So, maybe it can be said that the horse-and-buggy days aren’t gone forever. I say this because most of the carriages and sleights did not go to collectors, but to people who said they intended to use them.
Fortunately for me, I bought a sleigh several years ago from this farm and we have used it with much pleasure and great curiosity to the occasional motorist who passed us on our country road.
It is quite true, I am sure, that it will be a long, long time before such a fine collection of horse-drawn vehicles ever will be put up for sale at one time. According to the caretaker, these carriages and sleighs had not been out of the barn in the thirty years he had been on the place. Now they have been taken to all four corners of the state.
The Darling Farm now belongs to Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Pendleton. Into it will go their love and their deep appreciation for it as a home exemplifying serenity, spaciousness, security, and the wholesome satisfaction of restoring the farm, in part, at least, to its once proud past.
(Printed in “Lippitt Lore II, pp. 32-33.)
(Photo of Dana Wingate Kelley and Justine Morgan from John Gillis’ collection.)
