Event Details: Draft Horse Plow Match and Vintage Baseball Opening Day, Saturday, May 14, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. $6/adults, $4/children, Historic New England Members free.
Located at the Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm in Newbury, MA
Featuring: draft horses and mules, vintage baseball, sheep shearing, music, puppet shows, food, Ipswich Ale, house tours, crafts for kids, stroller and leashed-dog friendly.
Throughout its 380 years as a working farm, the Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm has seen its share of plowing days. Draft horses, mules, and oxen prepared the soil for planting every spring, turning the soil to return nutrients into the soil and ensure that new plants could grow. In the 1880’s, Ed Francis and Daniel Noyes Little made draft horses their business, importing young horses from Iowa by rail and training them to work on other farms and for lifesaving stations as far away as Maine.
Twenty-one years ago, in 1995, the farm hosted its first Draft Horse Plow Match to celebrate this tradition. At the time, an active draft horse club brought their members to the event, and up to a dozen teams would spend the day seeing who could plow the straightest furrow. In the last several years, however, the club disbanded, as many of its members were unable to maintain their teams.
Just as it seemed that the days of plowing the fields with draft horses was over, a new partnership was formed with the Granite State Draft Horse and Pony Association, a very active, New Hampshire-based club that will once again bring multiple teams of draft horses and mules to the farm. Teams will be judged in two categories – walking plow, where the driver walks behind the plow, and sulky plow where the driver sits on the plow.
One member, Evelyn Pike, whose mules are decked out in her signature pink, is especially excited to plow at the farm with her mules. “It’s been on my bucket list”, she said. “I’m so glad when we get invited to a farm like this. It should be a great time for everyone.”
The farm has activities for everyone. The Essex Base Ball Association, which plays with 1864 rules, will open its season with four games featuring match ups between the Newburyport Clamdiggers and the Lowell Base Ball Club followed by the Portsmouth Rockinghams and Lynn Live Oaks The farm’s resident sheep will shorn, and their fleece spun into yarn. There are puppet shows and crafts for kids, long with wagon rides and tours of the 1690 house.
Visit: www.historicnewengland.org