For many years most people in Norwich lived on farms. Because of this, it is not surprising that one of the most commonly discussed topics in the video and audio interviews I have been digitizing is farming. One of these farms that has played a major role in Norwich’s history is the Meetinghouse Farm. The house was built by Constant Murdoch in the 1780s. The Meetinghouse Farm has now been owned by the same family since 1913.

“…they were trying to decide what to do with [the old Meetinghouse] and so Constant Murdoch who was the builder of [Meetinghouse Farm] said that he would buy the wood from the building…”

Deb Van Arman, Katherine Mahler, and Fred Ladd talk about the history of Meetinghouse Farm

“It was such a quiet road that we were able to bring our cows… from their barn to the pasture up the road, about a half a mile, and they were able to walk on the road… probably 30 or 40 cows at once… and we were able to do that without any interruption of traffic because there was no traffic.”

Deb Van Arman talks about cows walking in the middle of Union Village Road and how much less traffic there used to be there in this interview in 2003

Deb Van Arman talks about the history of dairy farming in Norwich and about her family having one of the first televisions in Norwich.

“There were 40 small dairy farms, in the ’50s… there were little dairies… I think we’re down to 1, possibly 2 dairy farms…”

“…so we got the television home, we’re all excited, we turned it on, and all we could see was snow. So they decided that we needed an antenna… at that time there was only NBC out of Boston, so the picture we got you really had to use your imagination.”