Westport’s Farming Families

Zembo family harvesting potatoes 1930s

A project to highlight the stories of Westport’s farming families, focusing on the 20th century, an era that began with 400 farms and ended with fewer than 30 farms. This project is co-sponsored by the Westport Historical Society and the Westport Grange 181.

This project seeks to identify people, places, objects, images, and related materials to represent this significant shift in agricultural activities and to celebrate the surviving Westport farms. This is not just a story of potatoes, cows, turnips and chickens, but also a topic that connects people of diverse origins — Portuguese, French Canadian, Polish, Scots, and early English settlers — as well as highlighting an extraordinary example of a farm owned and operated by a Native American family throughout the 19th and most of the 20th century. Materials gathered during this project will be showcased in a summer exhibition at the Handy House and preserved for future generations by the Westport Historical Society.

Project goals:

  • Gathering photos, documents and objects for an exhibition at the Handy House this summer.
  • Conversations and public programs to highlight aspects of Westport’s farming history.
  • Preservation of this history for future generations!

 

Westport’s Farming Families History Day

Tell us your story!

12pm – 4pm Saturday March 15, 2025

(Drop in any time!)

Westport Grange #181

931 Main Road, Westport MA 02790

You are invited to share stories and to bring objects, photographs, and documents relating to Westport’s farming heritage. We will scan the photos/docs and return them to you immediately. The digital files will be preserved and shared in our archive or included in our summer exhibition about Westport’s farming families.

This project is co-sponsored by the Westport Historical Society and the Westport Grange 181.