John and Laura Moore met 50 years ago at a 4H gathering in Washington, DC. Both were teenagers from farm families, hers in Michigan, his in Orange, Massachusetts, and they were sent to Washington in recognition of their prize-winning farm products. They fell in love, carried on a long-distance romance, then married and settled down two miles north of the center of Orange on the Cross Road farm where John was raised. They have lived and farmed there ever since, raising four children who still live close by. Their grandchildren are the ninth generation of Moores to live in this part of town.
It is as rural and as pastoral a story as can be imagined. It seems—and the farm feels—very far removed from the center of Orange, in either its industrial heyday or its struggling present. And yet Moore’s Maple Grove Farm has reflected the changes not only in Orange but in the area’s larger industrial economy for well over a century, and the linkages between them challenge us to see the farm and the town as two sides of the same story. Continue reading Farming at the edge of industry: Moore’s Maple Grove Farm, Orange
