Marking History: Ambler Farm offers a glimpse of Wilton's agricultural past

By KARA O'CONNOR
Villager Staff Writer

WILTON --

Years of research, documentation and fact verifying has finally paid off for the Drum Hill Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

After an 11 year process, a historic marker was placed at Ambler Farm in Wilton on Sunday afternoon.

"Accomplishing this goal took many people and many years," said Alice Ayers, a Wilton resident who is a member of the DAR's Drum Hill Chapter. "We are just thrilled that a historic marker has finally been placed at Ambler Farm."

The placement of a historic marker at the Hurlbutt Street farm preserves the agricultural history of Wilton, said Ayers, and also serves as an educational purpose to the town.

"This is very exciting for Wilton," she said. "A historic marker is a pretty prominent thing, and Ambler Farm really represents the heritage of our town."

Ambler Farm was owned by the Raymond-Ambler family for more than 200 years, making it one of the oldest farms in Wilton owned by a single family. The two sisters who owned the farm, Elizabeth Raymond and Hannah Raymond-Ambler, were members of the DAR's Drum Hill Chapter in 1986, only six years after the chapter was established. The farm, which was purchased by the town in 1999, was once 300 acres and was one of most prosperous farms in the area, said Ayers.

"Ambler farm was a very prosperous piece of land, which is now owned by the town," said Ayers. "It has been an important part of our agricultural history for over 200 years and it's important to recognize that."

Alice Brown, the marker chairman for the Drum Hill Chapter, said there are several things the DAR has to accomplish before placing a historic marker on a piece of property, including: giving a detailed description of the location of the marker in a physical format, getting permission from the town, verifying all the historical facts on the marker and including two letters of documentation by historical experts. She said the wording on the marker carefully explains the history of Ambler Farm and the two sisters that owned it.

"I'm ecstatic this is finally finished because it has taken a lot of hard work to get here," said Brown. "I think that the town is very fortunate to have Ambler Farm, and now to have this marker that explains it's history."

Ambler Farm now joins three other historic sites in Wilton which have received a DAR historic marker. Among the three other sites are the Wilton Heritage Museum, which includes the Sloan-Raymond-Fitch house; Drum Hill, which overlooks the area where early drummers alerted the town to Indian raids, fires, town meetings and church services; and the Comstock Cemetery site, where soldiers from the French and Indian Wars and the Revolution are buried.

Ann Bell, president of the Friends of Ambler Farm, said she is honored a historic marker has been placed at the farm. "We are very happy to have the marker at Ambler and have the farm recognized as a historic symbol for Wilton," said Bell. "It's a nice representation of what Ambler Farm means to the town."

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It may be wet but summer is officially here!

The extremely wet weather hasn't damped the spirits of the Apprentices and garden volunteers happily laboring away at Ambler Farm. The farm stand has been chock full of a variety of salad greens, spinach, and chard, plus the most beautiful beets thanks to the labors of Ben and the corp of people helping harvest early Tuesday and Saturday mornings.

The educational garden has been planted by the Apprentices, and sometimes their parents join in the fun. Very soon it will yeild all sorts of fresh veggies to be sold at the farm stand and also used for cooking and food prep by both the Apprentices and the summer program attendees.

Finally, a garden we don't usually mention but has been lovingly cared for over the years by a small band of devotees. It's the "victorian" flower garden behind the Raymond-Ambler house and this year it looks incredible! Maybe it's all the rain but I think it has something to do with the hours of work put in by Marie Donahue, Nancy Husta, and Mary Kimmerlin. If you visit the farm take a walk down to the garden hand have a look or just sit on the garden bench and relax.

But you don't need to be a gardening fan to enjoy the farm. Quite frequently artists come with their easels (on the rare sunny days!) to paint. Leslie Concannon, whose mother lives locally, has been at the farm creating a series of small oil on wood painting of the Raymond-Ambler house. She has generously given a number of these beautiful little gems to the farm and several will be part of the silent auction at the Summertime BBQ on Saturday. We also plan to create a series of notecards featuring the paintings. Thank you Leslie!

And the devoted building committee is continuing to push through the work on the Raymond-Ambler house...more to come later!

Hope to see everyone at the farm now that summer is officially here!

May at Ambler Farm

Beautiful weather shown on a weeks of LINKS programs. LINKS partners the Cider Mill fourth grade classes and classes from schools in Norwalk and Bridgeport. Over the year these partnering classes do special things together, one of which is a day at Ambler Farm. At the farm the children make cornbread, plant in the garden, learn about the art of stone walls and try their hand at painting a watercolor landscape, and finally play some old-fashioned games.

Our new bee hives were set up and hopefully will thrive this year and yield some honey. These colonies benefit from last year's workers who create honeycombs, all they need to do now is make honey.

The lambs arrived - Nutmeg and Clover - two males, one black and one brown. They were born at Millstone Farm in Wilton and came to Ambler when they were just a week old. They've been bottled feed several times a day every day since their arrival and have already grown a little bit in the short time they've been at the farm.

The farm stand has opened with a variety of transplants as well as greens and herbs for purchase. And soon tasty vegetables will be available.

Finally, the Apprentices represented Ambler Farm in the Memorial Day parade - check out the photos.