Roads in their sugarbush to prevent erosion, and turn the Lines of maples along Howrigan Road, build drainage on the A farm was for problem-solving today andĪs children, the Howrigans helped their father transplant Meant more than the endless repetition of milking cows andĬutting hay. Yes, they were neededĪs workers on the farm, but in the Howigran family, farming Her girls, allįive of them, would go to college if they wanted and every Margaret's children would go to high school. Husband put on improving his farmland and tiny herd. She made sure 10 children wereįed, clothed and washed in a house not reached by electricĪ teacher before her marriage to William, she put as high a Margaret McCarthy Howrigan bore a child every 18 to 24 He'll do when he grows up: ``I'll be a cow farmer,'' he said. Twelve-year-old Tim Howrigan, for one, knows just what
They've got isn't sustainable forever and ever,'' he said. Kerr could not think of another Vermont farm clan as bigĪnd long-lasting as the Howrigans. Herd or teach the finer points of farming to a sister's
Materialize to help build an uncle's barn, move a cousin's The sprawling but tight-knit family network has provenįertile ground for growing both success and love of theįarming life. It's not just that they love what they do they are making ``Saddam Hussein couldn't drive these people off theirįarms,'' Vermont Agriculture Secretary Steve Kerr says, Loss of family farms in the face of low milk prices, theįlight of young people and the attraction of less back. They constitute a one-clan countertrend to Vermont's annual Women, have chosen a farm life like their parents'. But an extraordinary number of the men, and some of the Howrigans have graduated from Harvard become nurses,ĭoctors, teachers and lawyers left Fairfield or Vermont for Most influential voices in state and national dairy policy: More farms-38 of them-ship milk from Fairfield than fromĪny other Vermont town, in part because of the community's Their fields, pastures and woods cover 10,000 acres in The descendants of William and Margaret milk more thanģ,000 cows and produce maple syrup from nearly 40,000 taps Their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren workįarms in Franklin County-a dairy dynasty unique in Vermont. On a 35-cow hill farm in the Depression days. Howrigan, William, and his wife, Margaret, reared 10 children Howrigans have been milking cows in Fairfield since theirĪrrival from Ireland's County Tipperary in 1849. In the Howrigan clan, you are never too young to learn the How it's better to keep cows healthy than to have to cure He explained to his 10- and 11-year-old cousins More enzymes'' to prevent the udder infection in dairy cows, ``The cows that get the new treatment, their calves produce Others what he'd heard about a breakthrough in mastitis Trip last week, Tim Howrigan, 12, couldn't wait to tell the Into the back seat of their aunt's pickup truck for a road There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed inįairfield.-When Harold Howrigan's four grandsons crammed
Sugarbush truck and tractor pulls free#
I ask unanimous consent that a July 24, 2005, Burlington Free PressĪrticle featuring and honoring this wonderful Vermont family be printed Vermont agriculture and their communities, for they represent the President, I thank the Howrigan family for their service to I have known many members of the Howrigan family for years and haveĬome to appreciate the sound counsel on dairy issues and other aspects
The Howrigan family is a bedrock of Franklin County and VermontĪgriculture, and has done much to carry on our State's agricultural President, I rise today to acknowledge the Howriganįamily of Fairfield, VT, who recently celebrated their annual family Government Publishing Office, THE HOWRIGAN FAMILY OF FAIRFIELD, VERMONT Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 13 - THE HOWRIGAN FAMILY OF FAIRFIELD, VERMONT