Founded in 1742 by Robert Emerson, Liberty Hill Farm is nestled in the Route 100 valley south of Rochester, Vermont. Dr. Charles Emerson, the founder of Emerson College in Cambridge, Mass., was born here and returned frequently as an adult. He purchased the farm’s weathervane from a Cambridge manufacturer and brought it to Vermont by train in 1888. The last leg of the journey was made on Rochester’s fabled Peavine Railway (now long gone) which had a stop at the farm.
Beth and Robert Kennett purchased Liberty Hill in March 1979. Their agricultural roots go far deeper than a mere quarter century, however. Beth grew up on the Hall family, Cloverdale Farm in Alfred, Maine. Her ancestors began farming there in 1641! By comparison, the Kennett family’s 1742 farm beginnings in Center Effingham, N.H., seem almost modern.
David, at twenty-six, is fully ready to take Liberty Hill well into the coming century. He is an expert judge of dairy animals and, come county fair time, is in great demand His prize cow, Robeth Mandel Winnie, is a Grand Champion.