Contributed
by Florence T. Crowell
Through
the years more than thirty milk-producing farms have operated
in Watertown and many of the farmers delivered bottled milk here
and in neighboring towns. Most of the farms have been sold and
where we once saw cattle grazing in the pastures and farm equipment
cutting and bailing hay in the meadows, we now see houses and
condominiums.
From the beginning, Watertown was a farming community and each
farmer had a few head of cattle. Around 1870, Joseph Munson built
a large barn and purchased a number of milking cows. He became
the first dairy farmer in town. After milking the cows by hand
he put the milk in 40-quart cans, loaded them on to a wagon and
took them to J.R.Candee on Candee Hill Road who sold it in Waterbury.
William J. Munson joined his father in the business and soon they
were selling an average of 50 cans of milk a day. The bulk of
Mr. Munson's estate, some of which was left to the town upon his
death, was realized from the sale of milk and cream. At this time
the farmers received 3 - 3 ½ cents per quart in winter
and 2 - 2 ½ cents per quart in summer.
In
1896 about 1.600 quarts of milk left one point in Watertown every
day and the Ball Milk Co. sold about the same amount. Other dairy
farmers sold between 100 and 700 quarts. It was estimated that
between 6,000 and 7,000 quarts of milk were carried to Waterbury
daily.
By
1906, Watertown farmers supplied more than 10,000 quarts of milk
and large quantities of cream to the people in Waterbury. Much
milk was also shipped to other neighboring communities. By this
time William Munson had inherited the 400-acre farm on Litchfield
Road from his father. He had 6 barns, 90 cows and employed nine
men.
At that time, milk was cooled in cans and placed in the aerator
through which cool spring water continually ran. Then the milk
was put in sterilized bottles and capped. The bottles were placed
in a tank of spring water that was filled with chunks of ice.
The bottles remained in this tank, about an inch below the surface,
until the milk was taken to market. Four hundred tons of ice that
was cut from local ponds was needed yearly to accomplish this
process.
Only
one dairy farm, Young's on Woodbury Road remains in Watertown
today. On the modern farms today the cows are milked by machine
and the milk goes directly into a holding tank until the refrigerated
truck arrives. It is then taken to some distant location to be
pasteurized and bottled.
Because
I grew up on a small farm, I was interested to find that when
we were married in 1946 we could have bottled milk delivered to
the door. Arising late one cold Saturday morning I opened the
door and found that the three bottles of milk that had been delivered
at about 4:30 a.m. had frozen. At that time milk bottles had a
small cardboard cap. Instead of breaking the bottles, the liquid
had expanded, pushing up the cardboard cap, and each bottle had
what looked like a two inch white popsicle on the top.
Today's children will never see a horse-drawn milk wagon, have
milk delivered to the door or find a bottle of frozen milk on
the doorstep. They can, however, view a collection of milk bottles,
and other items, from many of the dairy farms that were seen along
the highways and byways in Watertown many years ago. These bottles
are on display at the Watertown Historical Society Museum at 22
DeForest Street.
