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About Gurski - History - Dairy Farming - Tobacco Farming
Uncovering the past at Merwin Brook Cemetery

Dairy Farming

Brookfield once had many dairy farms. From Gallows Hill to the Danbury line, from Obtuse Rocks Road to Kellogg Street, farms flourished in the early 1900s.

At that time, Brookfield had a population of about 800 people, the majority of them working the almost 100 farms that dotted the town. Most of these farms were small, with milk as one of their most important products.

According to an August 18, 1960 story in “The Brookfield Journal,” only seven dairy farms were still operating in 1960 in Brookfield. The Gurski Farm, located on Obtuse Hill Road, was one of those. Eva and Frank Gurski purchased the farm for $5,500 in 1918 from Warren Washburn. In 1960, the farm encompassed 105 acres, according to town records.

In 1960, many of the farms might have about 25 cows, while others might have up to 40 or 50. The milk-producing lifetime of a cow was about a dozen years.

The classic two-story dairy barn on the Gurski Farm, was already 50 years old at the time of the farm’s purchase by the Gurski family. The upper story was devoted to hay and feed storage, and the cows were milked on the lower level. The barn had several outbuildings attached to it, such as a shed for wagons on the south side of the barn and a silo, which was located on the north side.

The silo was later taken down and the wood used to build a structure for bulk storage of milk.

The beams in the barn were hand-hewn and the frame was made of chestnut. A cupola sits on top of the roof.

For many years, most of the tilled acreage of the farm was devoted to growing corn or hay to feed the cows. The corn was harvested in September, chopped, packed down, and stored for later use in a silo where it went through a fermentation process to remove bacteria. Hay was also utilized for bedding for the animals.

Hay was also stored in another barn that had previously been used for tobacco.

Cows were milked twice a day, morning and evening, seven days a week, a schedule that had to be strongly maintained. Prior to the advent of milking machines, cows were milked by hand. Eventually, the sound of streams of milk hitting the pan would be replaced by the hum of machinery.

Until the 1930s, according to the late Harry Gurski, milk from the farm was transported in 40-quart cans, up to three or four a day, to the creamery located in the Iron Works, where the milk was churned into butter and cheese.

In later years, trucks picked up the milk cans from a small stand on Route 133 opposite the farmhouse. After World War II, tankers stopped two to three times a week to pump milk out of an electrically cooled stainless steel tank located in an addition to the dairy barn. Pumping took about half an hour, after which the milk was taken to Bridgeport.

Dairy farmers could face hard times. The late Stanley Gurski, who ran the farm for 25 years, often told about how nature could wreak havoc on a farmer’s life and income.

Farmers had to know how to read the weather, he often said. Even then, there was often a race with the weather, because, if the hay was cut, a sudden, unexpected storm could come up quickly and destroy the crop.

The whole family would help with the haying, on what always seemed to be the hottest days of the summer. When I was a child, I particularly remember helping out after the hay was baled. I would roll the hay bales so they were evenly lined up. This made it easier for the men to pick up the bales and load them on the truck.

Prior to tractors, hay was cut with a sickle bar mower drawn by horses. Prior to hay balers, the loose hay was picked up by the men of the family and loaded onto a large wagon pulled by two horses. Stanley said his father would stand on top of the wagon and distribute the hay that was pitched up to him.

Problems with the animals could also affect the farm’s income. Cows could get sick and be unavailable for milking until they were well. A heifer could be raised until she was three years old, only for it to be discovered that she wasn’t a good milk producer. Or, Stanley would tell, he could go to look for missing cows after a thunderstorm, only to discover them dead under a tree, struck by lightning.

In 1968, the Gurski family sold 80 acres to the town for open space, and the cows were sold. A framed poem, “This farm is dead,” was hung on the door of the cow barn. A few years ago, the town purchased the remaining acreage and buildings.

A sickle bar mower drawn by horses was used to cut hay prior to the use of tractors. The late Stanley Gurski is pictured in front of the sickle bar mower and at the wheel of the more modern tractor.

The late Stanley Gurski and nephew Frank stand by the silo as a cow leaves the barn following milking.

Cows are pictured in the pasture adjacent to Merwin Brook Road.

Article written by: By Jan Howard