Interviewer - Maybe I can start off just asking a few questions.

Brad Emerson - Okay.

Interviewer - Now, your farm in the center here.

Brad Emerson - Yes.

Interviewer - How far back was it in your family? How far back can you...

Brad Emerson - My great-grandfather, James P. Emerson, bought it.

Interviewer - Do you know who he bought it for? Was it a farm when he bought it?

Brad Emerson - Off the top of my head, I can't tell you, but I have that information around here somewhere.

Interviewer - So it came into your family about what year would you say?

Brad Emerson - I'm just guessing again, but late 1800s.

Interviewer - Okay. Did it have a name?

Brad Emerson - Not that I know of. No, not that I know of.

Interviewer - Okay. Just Emerson's farm, right?

Brad Emerson - Right.

Interviewer - Okay. How long was it a dairy farm? The late 1800s right up to like 1960 maybe?

Brad Emerson - Actually, when my great-grandfather ran it, it was known as a livery stable, and he was a trader and horses and cattle. And I don't believe that he was known specifically as a dairy farmer. I think that evolved more with my father, Ted Emerson.

Interviewer - Okay. Now, I talked to you the other day. You said that you didn't believe that there was ever a bottle with the name Emerson on it.

Brad Emerson - No.

Interviewer - You weren't a... What do you call it?

Brad Emerson - He was a dairy farmer, and he sold his milk wholesale for years and years and years to Burbeck and Lowell, and then in later years to Blue Ribbon Dairy out of Bedford.

Interviewer - Okay. That's good because we have some Burbacks bottles, so tie in.

Now, could you make a good living? Was farming, cattle farming, was it... You know, you hear in a paper all the time, there's no farms around anymore.

Brad Emerson - The reason there's fewer farms isn't that you couldn't make a living. It's that there's a lot of work. The farmland was gobbled up by highways and developers, and the temptation to sell the land for big money was a shortcut to early retirement.

I tell people, you know, growing up in this area, they always used to go to catechismaries to cut across your farm and this kind of stuff. Nobody can believe that the center was a farm. At its height, how many acres was that farm?

Well, this farm here in the center probably had about 50 acres. Right here in the center? Well, it ran all the way down to Golden Cove.

Interviewer - Yeah.

Brad Emerson - And the beginning of the end of that farm was when a major land taking for interstate Route 495. And then, of course, pieces were sold off, eventually all of it, for commercial development. So from that farmhouse, you could take a group of cattle and go somewhere within 50 acres, if you want.

Interviewer - Yes.

Brad Emerson - Right in the center of town. Yes. We drove the cows every day down a lane parallel to Fletcher Street, across Fletcher Street by what's now Dr. Gruber's, and up another lane to where the pasture where the hotel, where the Radisson Hotel is now. And they could roam for half a mile down, all the way down to what's now where the lights are at Golden Cove Road.

Interviewer - Right.

Brad Emerson - All of that side of the road was open field, even where Skip's Diner and the ice cream stand is. When I was a little kid, that was, well, it was swampy in that area, but there was a wooden guardrail right along there, and it dropped up into the swamp right where you now go to Skip's or the ice cream stand. Right.

Interviewer - Now, you just mentioned there was hard work and everything. You know, I raised chickens and ducks, and I talked to people whose fathers had chicken farms, and they never want to see a chicken again. Did you enjoy growing up taking care of cows, or did you want to get away from it?

Brad Emerson - I didn't hate it. I didn't know any other life. When I was going to school, high school in particular, it was routine stuff to get up at 5 o'clock in the morning and do chores in the barn and then come up to the house, get cleaned up and go to school. And as soon as school was over, you went home and changed your clothes and went back to work. I never got involved in sports or extracurricular activities, except girls. So it was a way of life.

It was a way of life. I didn't know that I was—I certainly wasn't abused, and I didn't know that I had a hard life. I thought everybody lived that way.

Interviewer - Yeah, yeah. And the other thing I tell people is, you know, if you grew up in Chelmsford, you could never forget Emerson's farm, the building burning. How did that happen?

Brad Emerson - Only speculation. One is, of course, faulty wiring, and another one is a sometimes hired hand was known to sleep in the barn.

Interviewer - Sleep?

Brad Emerson - No. Let's see. It wasn't Ernie, no. Ernie was around at the time, but he was sort of a drifter, and he probably worked when he needed money, and if he had money, he didn't care to work. But he was a smoker, and someone said they saw someone run out of the barn across a field at about the time the fire started. If that's true or not, we don't know.

Was it a Sunday morning or a Saturday night? When did it happen? Well, it was at night, early, early, early in the morning.

I had been out that night and probably got home around midnight and went to bed and to sleep, and the fire whistle, which was close by, woke me up, and my bedroom was on the back of the house, and it was all a red glow coming in the windows. And we're talking the fire department was just right in the backyard just about, wasn't it? The fire department was...

I could see it out my other window, and that probably was about 1 a.m., and my father and I went out and tried to rescue cattle and farm machinery as best we could. Was the farm pretty much engulfed by that? Totally, totally engulfed.

Heat must have been really something. There really wasn't much we could do. A few cattle, several, broke loose and were burned, but survived, very few.

The rest of them, coincidentally, I have some pictures right here of that after the fire.

Interviewer - So what was the loss? How many cows?

Brad Emerson - I would say my best recollection would be about maybe 40. 40, yeah.

Interviewer - Now, you rebuilt with a metal barn, if I recall?

Brad Emerson - Yeah, what was called... This was a big wooden barn. That's right.

It was a good size, really big, right? Yeah. The new barn was a new concept of, instead of tying them up in stanchions in a row, it was referred to as loose housing, a pen barn.

And at milking time, they would kind of line up and come into what was called a milking parlor, and they'd line up and wait their turn because while they were in there, they knew they were going to get fed their grain. So they'd come in to eat their grain, and while they were eating their grain... You'd milk them.

Interviewer - You'd milk them. Now, is that concept still working today? I mean, or did it go back to...

Brad Emerson - Oh, I'm sure that it's still done in a lot of places. And the advantage was that the milk would go directly from the cow through a pipeline into a bulk tank. It never got touched by human beings.

And it was quite a labor saver and also much more sanitary. And what was the most number of cows that that farm had? About a hundred. A

Interviewer - hundred? That's pretty big. Was it a devastating blow, the fire?

I mean, in other words, was there insurance on it? They didn't put the fire on it. They obviously didn't put it out of business.

You're able to keep going, but it sounds like losing 40 cows and a barn. There was some insurance, but no in there enough. So it was a financial hit for you.

Brad Emerson - Oh, absolutely. Yeah, that's too bad. Having grown up in this town and stuff, if I ask you about different dairies, can you tell me what you know about them?

Sure. Suburban dairy. Suburban dairy, Andrew Bomo, they bought milk from local farmers, processed it at their dairy and retailed it in bottles.

Have you ever heard of W.E. Adams? No. How about S.

Emanuel and Company? No. John Jarek, J-A-R-E-K?

No. Read and buy. Yes.

Who was that? East Chelmsford. Brickkilm Road, I'd say.

Okay, was it owned by Sears Farmers? This one was outfired by Brookhilm Road by the farming? I would, to place it where I think it was, it would be about where UPS is now.

Okay. How about Sunshine Dairy? Sounds familiar, but I don't know who or where.

Sheehan Brothers. Sheehan Brothers, Pine Hill Road. Okay.

Now, Sheehan has redone that house in the corner. That was the house. That was the house.

What about that old house there? That was Koulas's? It was the old house that's just sitting there for tons of years in the bottom field now.

Okay, that's kind of an interesting story. And Charlie Koulas bought it and was planning to move into it with his new bride. Something bad happened.

Whether she died or whether they got a divorce or whatever, I think she might have died because it was a real tragedy in his life that after he never wanted to continue the project of fixing up the house and it just sat there and deteriorated over the years.

Okay, wow. That's what I was always told.

I wasn't there. Yeah, yeah. How about Boulder Farm or Zaher's Farm?

That's where McCarthy is now, right? Yeah. I can remember before the Drum Hill Rotary was built, North Road went by McCarthy and down to where our dog pound is now on the left, and there was four corners there, and Zaher's had a vegetable fruit stand there on that corner.

You probably remember that yourself. Yeah, the family still lives in that big white house there on Davis Road. How about Galbraith, Galbraith Winters?

The only Winters that I'm familiar with was down off Chelmsford Street, more or less where Eastgate Plaza is now. Golden Cove Dairy? No.

And Burbex, because you talked about it already, Burbex Suburban. How about Alcorns? Alcorn, there was more than one Alcorn.

I'm not aware of any of them having a milk route that is selling retail.

Interviewer - Who did you say?

Brad Emerson - Yeah. California? Yeah. Okay. There was one on Acton Road and another one on either his father or his uncle over on Hunt Road. Okay.

Thayer's. You know that up at Chamberlain Road? Howard Thayer.

Yes. I remember him more as a market gardener or a greenhouse operator than as a— Right there.

Interviewer - Yeah.

Brad Emerson - In fact, I went there to a fire one night. It was kind of a comedy of errors in that I was driving one of the fire trucks. You were a volunteer fireman?

Yes. Oh, for years. Yeah?

Yeah, until they disbanded them. Were you a volunteer fireman when the barn burned down? No, but I became one soon after because I lived right next door.

Yeah, right. What was burning up at Thayer's? It was in the greenhouse.

Yeah, he did have a few cattle, but he was not known—my recollection is that he wasn't known as a local dairy farmer. Right. We talked a little bit about Koulas.

Now, Koulas seemed to have had a pretty good-sized farm there. Now, we're talking not the old house, but the white house that he lived—the Koulas is living now? Yes.

You know, I was talking to Walter Lewis and stuff, and I said, you know, everything just crumbled there. And I said, you know, he had cows, and all of a sudden, just everything fell apart. Was he a farmer, or was there a big farm there at one time?

He had a fair number of cows, but he just didn't take care of things. That was just his way, and I guess still is. And one time, maybe the first time I ran for political office, I was told that Charlie Koulas was one of the people I needed to see and talk to, and so I did.

And then with good clothes on, I went up there to see him one day, and he said he's out in the cow barn, which was out back of the barn you see there, the one that just fell down.

Interviewer - The one that fell down, the long one?

Brad Emerson - Yeah, it was in back of that. I mean, I grew up a farmer and was not adverse to the smell of manure. It was the most unpleasant visit that I ever made in anybody's barn.

It was just his style. Everything was a mess. Yeah, it's just cows all over the place there.

Now, is this the same guy who owned the house that just collapsed and everything? Yes, yeah, Charlie. So he eventually married and lived in the White House and left the other one just deteriorating.

Right. Now, Dawson's farm, that was a neighbor like up the road from you. Okay, up North Road.

Bill Dawson was a real character, heavy drinker, funny. Now, let me just sidestep here for a second. He probably drank at, what was it called, the Owl's Nest?

What was that one bar on North Road? Oh, the Lion's Den. The Lion's Den.

It was almost in his front yard, right? Well, close, yes. My father and our family, my grandfather and me too, were auctioneers, and sometimes we'd have a farm auction of livestock.

Bill Dawson would come to these auctions and, as they say, he'd always drink and he was funny. He was rough, rotten mouth, and when a cow would come out into the ring, he'd go out and handle her, and sometimes if she wouldn't stand still, he'd grab her by the tail and she'd drag him around the ring.

Interviewer - Really?

Brad Emerson - And it was like a circus. Yeah. It was Bill Dawson at an auction.

Interviewer - Yeah, now he had a pretty big farm, right?

Brad Emerson - I remember he used to have two big barns right on the road there. And also, both sides of the road, his farm went where you know, what is it, Village View? Yeah.

Where Paul Hott used to live. So he had both sides? Oh, yeah.

So he had, I don't know how many acres, but a decent sized farm.

Interviewer - A lot, yeah.

Brad Emerson - And all those houses down there were all his. How about Roberts, where Roberts Field is? I remember that too.

They had decent sized herd of cattle when I was a kid. I don't know an awful lot about it.

Interviewer - Yeah.

Brad Emerson - I don't remember too much about it. Just to kind of wrap this up, like a hundred years from today, right? Yeah.

Somebody's reading about what you said and stuff. What would you like people to remember about this town of cattle and farms and stuff? Because to my knowledge, there's no working farms left in this town.

I'm not aware of any either.

Interviewer - Right.

Brad Emerson - I'm surprised there are none, but I'm not aware of any. Yeah. It's kind of like a way of life that disappeared in this town.

Well, again, it's like the shed farm in East Chelmsford would have been one of the last ones to go.

Interviewer - Yeah.

Brad Emerson - And just the temptation to get big money for the land and early retirement. Things like you must have been involved in the range or things like that, farmers associations. My father was.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I knew you were going to ask about dairies, and I thought of a couple others that you haven't mentioned.

Interviewer - Yeah. Give me it.

Brad Emerson - Okay. You know about Sunny Meadows, Walter Lewis. Yeah.

And you know about Suburban Dairy. Yeah. Okay.

On Mill Road, near the intersection of Turnpike. To Trumpis? The blood farm.

Was that where, when I was a kid, To Trumpis was there?

Interviewer - No.

Brad Emerson - Perhaps, yes. That's probably the same one. Blood.

Is that the same family that has that blood slaughtering house there on Rock? I think they may be related. So Blood Farm was right where Turnpike Road comes into Mill?

Yep. And it was called just a little farm.

So the blood family owned it and it was called just a little farm?

Yep. Now, a lot of farms have names.

How come yours didn't?

Don't know. And another one that, the only other one here that I've got that we haven't talked about, was right here on Chelmsford Street. It was the Wilson Farm.

That's who Wilson Street's named after? I guess. George Parkhurst is always asking me, do you have a Wilson bottle?

And I'm there, no. He says, when's your light going? So I guess he must have also put some in a bottle.

So anyway, what would you say about the Derry family and stuff? Well, I guess all I can do is recall how the town has changed from a rural country farming community when I was a kid with a population of 67,000 people to the residential community it is now with whatever it had, 35,000 people and highways and traffic lights and a permanently staffed fire department and all the things that go with it. I tell you, when I called Channel 43 to put the ad on the TV, the guy I talked to could not believe that there was a California Chipset Center.

Really? And he, 50 acres right in the center. That's unbelievable.

Now, do you have a, sometime if you could find a picture of the farm that you could donate to the Historic Society, if you could, just a picture of the farm, the barn or whatever, so that we could document that it was here and maybe do a little write-up on it, 50 acres right in the center. See, this is the thing, you get all these people moving in and they have no idea what this looked like.

Just offhand, I don't recall seeing or having a picture of the farm.

I mean, I have pictures of the house, the family members standing on the steps or showing off a horse that they just... Yeah, maybe if sometime in your travels you find a thing that you think represents that farm so that we could put it in a book and say, this was Emerson's farm, and maybe a little blurb under it so that when people are in the general store they can see what was here. One of the things I remember about that farm the most, because I spent a lot of time looking at it because my brother and I used to sell papers at St. Louis Church every Sunday, was that pond. I mean, the pond that's there now is nothing compared to it. I mean, so many ducks and baby ducks and you had the swamp around it and everything. Was that a natural pond there?

It was a swamp with a small pond that meandered through the Katmai Caves. My father got involved in some sort of a government subsidized program in which I think Walter Lewis was then maybe a government employee. They cleaned out the pond, made a pond, made more of a pond.

They actually came in and dug it out? Dug it out. Yeah.

Drag lines and so forth. And so then it was a real pond. Some depth.

Interviewer - Did the cattle drink out of that pond? Oh, sure. Yeah.

Brad Emerson - And so I guess, you know, it was spring fed because there was no brook that runs into it.

Interviewer - Yeah.

Brad Emerson - But as the land was developed and the pond got reshaped and smaller or larger, as the case may be, it was before the days of having to get permits and all this conservation committee's approval to change the configuration or fill or dredge or whatever. So it's obviously a lot different now. Yes.

When I was a kid, I mean, when I was a kid, a cow could walk across it and often did. Really? And on a hot day, the day it was cool, they would get out there and get in the mud and up to their bellies.

Interviewer - Did it get stuck in you?

Brad Emerson - They were known to occasionally.

Interviewer - Yeah.

Brad Emerson - But never, it wasn't like quicksand or anything. They wouldn't go down very far. They're just distant enough so they couldn't get out there.

Just a little help with a horse and a rope. How many horses did you have at that time? Well, we always had about three work horses.

And my mother was quite involved with saddle horses and boarded some and rented some for trail rides. So he actually used to be able to go to that place and rent the horse? Yes.

I remember your sister had a horse. You used to have corrals right in the front.

Interviewer - Now, that's much later.

Brad Emerson - That's much later. That's after, long after my mother died and my father remarried and Linda, my half-sister, Linda.

Interviewer - Right.

Brad Emerson - And yeah, she's been riding and showing for 40 years. He still is. How old were you when your mother died? I was 14. That's tough, huh? Yeah. Yeah, that's too bad.

Interviewer - Yeah.

Brad Emerson - Yeah. Changed, changed my life a little bit, but I survived.

Interviewer - Yeah, yeah.

Brad Emerson - That's too bad. Okay. Well, thanks for taking the time to talk to me.

Okay, well. I appreciate it, you know. And as I said, if you locate a picture that you think