Located at 31 North Road, in rural Foster, Rhode Island, this farm was purchased in 1923 by Charles Borders’ parents. The farmhouse was built in 1849 by Captain George Phillips. The Borders family moved in just before Thanksgiving of 1923. The cow barn was on the hill to the west of the house, and the barn behind the house was for horses. The first year, there was only one cow and a horse. Soon, Charles’ father began operations as a dairy farm with about 20 milk cows. There was no electricity until 1938, so a gasoline operated milking machine was used at first.
Charles was born in 1925. Dr. McCurdy and a midwife named Ida Webster assisted at the birth. Charles’ first remembrance of farm work was cleaning up the front dooryard, and his first job was getting grain ready for the cows. When Charles was 11 years old he bought his first cow. He milked his cow each day, then weighed the milk and combined it with milk from the other cows to be sold to H.P. Hood. After payment was received for the milk, Charles would be given his portion of the proceeds.
As Charles grew older, he took over more and more of the farm operations. After his father’s death, Charles bought the property from his mother and increased the size of the dairy farm. He rebuilt the old barn in order to accommodate 65 cows.
Charles met his wife, Margery, at church service at her home in Plymouth, MA. They were married in 1957. Margery served as Foster Town Council President and Foster Town Clerk for many years.
Margery and Charles had spent several years making plans on how to preserve the farm to protect it from development. All plans were just about in place when Margery passed away in 1999.
The fruition of their hard work took place in December, 2004, when a ceremony for the Celebration of the Preservation of Borders Farm was held. The proceeds from the sale of the farm’s development rights to the State of Rhode Island, as well as the remaining farmland and property itself, was turned over to the Borders Farm Preservation, Inc., a non-profit corporation formed to oversee and finance the farm forever.
The mission of Borders Farm Preservation Inc. (BFPI) is to preserve the past for the future. We are in the process of building our membership, and welcome individuals interested in following the BFPI mission.
