I was going through the Syracuse Newspaper and
found an article on Hellava Good Cheese moving to Wisconsin.
Many people would pass that information up but... being that little history
genie that I am, I was very amused since it was a man from right here in
Central New York who made Wisconsin “The Dairy State”…his name is William
Dempster Hoard. Yes the dairyman…from
Munnsville.
So when traveling on Route 46 from Oneida to Hamilton you might pass a beautiful, now deserted stone building on the side of the road. Missing windows and doors… it sits as reminder of Munnsville’s past, a past that included many famous people and famous products. One such man was born in the building and passed his childhood there observing the area and interested in its development, his name was William Dempster Hoard.
Hoard spent many hours observing the growing of hops that was a mainstay
crop during his formative years; a crop that depleted the already thin soil of
this hilly Madison County, NY area. The farmers who lost their fortunes and
farms to this fickle crop, wiped out by blight and the commodity market,
changed to milk production and Holstein–Friesian cattle that were imported from
Holland.
The cows were a needed agricultural addition that
was - with its bi-product of manure - an enhancement of the soil and a new way
of life for this Madison county, NY area. Hoard as a young man moved to
Wisconsin in the westward exodus of the 1800’s and landed in an area that also
had agricultural problems much like his former home. One day siting on a
hillside noting the farmers going out of business or struggling, he came up
with the idea of making the same change to cows, an idea that made Wisconsin
the “Dairy State” for many years.
Hoard also started Hoard’s Dairyman’s Journal that
gave information to farmers on dairy practices. He is considered the father of
the refrigerated railcar that was needed to ship milk to markets at a great
distance and today his drawings of the perfect barn have been copied by Cornell
University. His motto was that happy cows produced more milk and that entering
his dairy you were to treat his cows like “mothers” with kindness and respect.
In his lifetime he became the Governor of Wisconsin
and helped bring abolition to the state, staunchly supporting legislation to
accompany his beliefs.
Today Madison County, NY is still an agricultural county and much of
what was learned by our founding dairy farmer’s came out of Hoard’s Journal!
It is a great pity that riding on today’s Route 46 one cannot be made aware of this piece of Madison County history, instead we are beaten to death with Gerrit Smith, Oz and pass real history right by. And of yes those are “Hop” plants coming back to Munnsville…everything old is new again or as I always say…”History always repeats itself”!
It is a great pity that riding on today’s Route 46 one cannot be made aware of this piece of Madison County history, instead we are beaten to death with Gerrit Smith, Oz and pass real history right by. And of yes those are “Hop” plants coming back to Munnsville…everything old is new again or as I always say…”History always repeats itself”!
(http://www.syracuse.com/food/index.ssf/2015/04/heluva_good_closes_cheese_plant_in_wayner_county.html)
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