
Farm Stories
Presentaion by Jim and Martha Fitch for the Cornish Historical Society | 2019
Cornish Historical Society, Cornish, NH : Helen Lovell & Bernice Johnson. Jim Fitch talks to Helen Lovell and Bernice Johnson | 1998
Upper Valley Land Trust Intern Jessica Buckey interviews landowner Jim Fitch about the conservation of his family's farm and forest land in Cornish | 2013
Cornish Historical Society, Cornish, NH : James Brewster Fitch 100th birthday and 70th wedding anniversary | 1984
Cornish Historical Society, Cornish, NH : Fitches | 2017
250th Celebration
The year 2021 marked the 250th anniversary of the deed on the Fitch family land in Cornish, NH and ten generations of Fitches living on the land since 1771. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we celebrated in 2023.
Ceremony - Fitch Farm 250th Celebration
Friends and Family Stories - Fitch Farm 250th Celebration
Celebration Scenes - Fitch Farm 250th Celebration
A Walk Through the Generations - Fitch Farm 250th Celebration
Cemetery Walk - Fitch Farm 250th Celebration
Song for the 250th
Low Lilly, based in Brattleboro, Vermont, is a wonderful folk band that draws from bluegrass, Irish, Scottish, New England, and Old Time Appalachian traditions. We commissioned Low Lilly to write and perform a song honoring the 250th celebration of our family farm and James Brewster Fitch who lived on the farm for 101 years.
We all have fond memories of grandpa’s love for poetry. He would memorize and recite many Robert Frost poems—his favorite poet. Many of us also have memories of Grandpa mowing hay on the farm with a scythe. The family chose Frost’s poem “Mowing” as it evokes memories of Grandpa and reflects some of the essence of the farm’s special character.
Mowing by Robert Frost
There was never a sound beside the wood but one,
And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground.
What was it it whispered? I knew not well myself;
Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun,
Something, perhaps, about the lack of sound—
And that was why it whispered and did not speak.
It was no dream of the gift of idle hours,
Or easy gold at the hand of fay or elf:
Anything more than the truth would have seemed too weak
To the earnest love that laid the swale in rows,
Not without feeble-pointed spikes of flowers
(Pale orchises), and scared a bright green snake.
The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows.
My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make.