The Photo Mission

I confess to having an ulterior motive for flying across the sound to Connecticut.  I flew directly to Guilford.  That is where the Spencer family has had a farm for over a hundred years.  When my three sisters and I were young, each of us would get to spend a week at our grandparent's farm in Guilford.  I LOVED being at the farm and that gave me a feeling for farms and fields and life there, something that has stayed with me all my life.  When I was little, my grandfather had cows and would milk them when he came home from his office job in New Haven.  When I would read Robert Frost, I would think of my experiences on the farm as a young boy.  I think I was perhaps 8 to 10 years old when I stayed there each summer, and I met a friend who lived about two tenths of a mile away.  We would get lunches in brown bags, and take our bicycles and ride down to Indian Cove, a tiny beach that I thought must be at least five miles away, but in reality, when I measured it a couple of weeks ago, it was only two miles!  So I posted a photograph of the beach at Indian Cove, from the ground on October 12.  But I wanted to see it from the air because it is such an unusual geological formation.  Strangely, I had never flown over Guilford and the farm ever before, in all my flying years.  So it was a joy to see how interesting it is, this small beach surrounded by rocks. 

And then I was off to look for "Westside" the name of the farm.  The saltbox house was built around 1700.  It came into the family when Daniel Reeves Spencer bought it at some point.  He was born on April 5, 1855.  No telling when he bought the farm.  He was my great grandfather.  Then my Grandfather inherited the farm and he passed it on to my father and his brother, my uncle Norm.  My father sold his share for one dollar, because my Aunt June and Uncle Norm lived with my grandfather and grandmother, and Norm did all the maintenance work on the house for years.  At some point the farm was sold.  The person who bought it sold the fields that came with the farm, and residential homes were built on the fields.  Before the houses were built, you could sit on the side lawn and look across the field that came up to the house, called "the home lot" and see all the way down to the marshland and almost to Long Island Sound.  When the homes were built a line of trees was put up and you can only see for fifty feet!  What a loss. In this photograph, the farm is in the center of the picture.  The house is light yellow over by the trees with the orange leaves on the ground.  Then to the right there is a garage, and then a thin barn and finally the "street barn" which fortunately is being restored by the present owners, who my cousin tells me love the house and the barns dearly.  And I have finally seen it from the air!  Mission accomplished!

And to complete my story, here is a page from a book published in 1937 titled "Old Guilford."  The text is drawn by hand!  And as you can see the sketch is so beautifully done.  So read what is written about the "The Spencer Place" eighty six years ago!