The Salem Towne House Built in 1796 in Charlton, Massachusetts
Like most of their neighbors, the Towne family farmed. As you can see from their house, they were more prosperous than most. While a typical family farm in 1830s New England might have averaged about 80 acres, the Townes owned over 300 acres of pasture, hayfields, woodlot, orchards, and "tillage," or cropland.
The Towne family farm was not all one neat property, but consisted of several pieces, some distant from each other. (Some farmers even owned and worked land in more than one town!) If it were all in one piece, the Towne family farm would be almost a mile long and half a mile wide. That is considerably larger than all of the Old Sturbridge Village property that you will see today! Use your imagination to envision such a large farm. It could support dozens of cattle, along with pigs, horses, chickens, and perhaps more than 100 sheep.
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