Those traveling up or down Elk Creek Road in the town of Meredith during the late 19th century were likely always watching to see what might be new at the John T. McDonald Farm.
It was fairly common to hear news about some of the things John T. McDonald was doing, here or elsewhere.
Travelers along Elk Creek Road in 2024 may have noticed a new blue and yellow New York state historical marker as they passed by the farm, installed in recent weeks. It’s hard to miss, as it’s across the road from the old concrete building with the smokestack, once a highly productive creamery.
The achievement noted on the historical marker is how McDonald electrified his farm in 1899, three decades before an electric utility company provided power in the Elk Creek valley. That year McDonald devised a method to generate his own electricity using the water from Elk Creek to power a generator with a water turbine. He is known to be the first farmer in the area to have electricity at his home and farm.
But that wasn’t all McDonald was well known for, as was explained in a recent program held at the Meredith Historical Society, presented by Frank M. Waterman and Gabrielle Pierce. Waterman is the author of a recently released book, “John T. McDonald: Meredith’s Legendary Farmer.” Pierce is the Delhi village historian. The book goes into details of McDonald’s achievements and family.
McDonald operated a 90-cow dairy farm from 1875 to 1924. As Pierce explained, from 1890 to 1910, McDonald became the “darling of the agricultural press.” People in the agricultural community from long distances away came to visit his farm and wrote about it in the national agricultural publications of the time, such as American Agriculturist. As Pierce said, “Because McDonald marched to his own drummer and did things differently, his way of doing things were very successful. He was a multi-talented, progressive farmer who had resources to achieve many of the ideas he conceived on his farm.” Many were labor-saving contrivances.
The farm had been around since the 1840s, started by James McDonald, his father. When John T. McDonald started on the farm in 1875, he had 20 cows and labor was mostly done by hand. He specialized in producing high quality butter, which he called Gilt-Edge butter, and sold it at premium prices to private customers, primarily in the New York City area. McDonald shipped his butter by local railroad from Delhi.
The farm had a mill with multiple water turbines that allowed him to do things other farmers couldn’t. The electrification helped the production in a creamery, which processed his neighbors’ milk as well as his own, and could produce 500 pounds of butter each day. His operation was large enough to employ up to eight men full time, and others to help around the house. McDonald built three houses for his employees, two of which still stand today.
He built a large barn, 60 feet wide, 100 feet long and about 50 feet high. It was unusual how the cows were kept in the second floor of the barn. Near there was a saw and grist mill. While the large barn is long gone, the mill still stands today.
As Frank Waterman explained, electricity was still new and a celebrated convenience in local villages such as Delhi or Walton as the coverage area was limited, so having this convenience on a farm was an amazing achievement of its time. At the McDonald farm, electricity started simple with light bulbs of about 30-watts each, but in time, John was powering equipment around the farm, especially in the creamery for the acclaimed butter.
McDonald’s achievement led to the installation of the historical marker funded by the Pomeroy Foundation.