Matson Insurance has partnered with Jefferson County History Center to offer exploreJeffersonpa.com readers a look into Jefferson County’s past. Today, 19th century horse farms in Jefferson County is highlighted.
(Pictured above: Nathan Greene Edelblute’s Red Bank Stock Farm was located in the valley where the Memorial Park is now located. His trotters raced throughout the northeast.)
Submitted by Carole Briggs:
HORSE FARMS
A century ago more than two thousand farms dotted the county and the greater percentage of our rolling hills were planted with crops and grazed by dairy cattle. Today that is not so. Much of our land has returned to forest. More significantly, the number of people who claim to be full-time farmers has dwindled. Only half of the 548 farms of today are farmed by full-time farmers.
Kate Scott described the farms of 1888, “Farms that in former years scarce yielded a pittance, have now been brought to a high state of cultivation. The unsightly stumps are all disappearing; good fences have been built, while the best and most approved farming implements and machinery are in general use. On the farms, the log cabin and the rude stable have given place to the large well-appointed dwellings, and commodious barns….Within the last few years a great interest is being taken in the improvement of stock, and now some of the very best grades are to be found in this county until it has become noted abroad for the fine horses and cattle raised and owned by our stockmen….”
Nathan Greene Edelblute, the man who built the building that houses the Jefferson County History Center, was one of the first to turn to raising horses. He’d earned his living in dry goods in the early years of his marriage, then began raising trotters in 1869. His Red Bank Stock Barns held about forty horses in the area that is now the Memorial Park between the rivers. He raced his horses in several states.
Another farmer, W. H. Gray, introduced Guernseys into the county, bringing in two heifers and a bull from Chester County. By 1936 large dairy farms predominated. After World War II, with one cow for every four county citizens, the value of dairy farming in the county was estimated at $1M. In 1958 the local newspaper reported that 8,400 cows were milked each day, yielding more than 60 million pounds of milk for the year. Potatoes and peas were important cash crops, too.
Copyright@Jefferson County Historical Society, Inc.
Submitted by the Jefferson County History Center.
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