The fame of Belchertown was well-known for the Belchertown Creamery butter which had
its factory just up the hill from Parson’s Field, and sold its butter in towns and cities across
the state. This business was started in November, 1889, in Turkey Hill by Dwight F. Shumway
and Monroe Heath. Hose-drawn teams would visit farms in Enfield, Greenwich (now under
Quabbin Reservoir), Ludlow and Belchertown to pick up cream. Before 1917 as many as
twenty-two trains of the Boston-Maine and Central Vermont railroads would whip tons of
butter a day to large cities. At the climax, the industry made $75,000 a year. One by one the
dairy farms disappeared or sold their milk to large dairies, and so the creamery closed in 1917,
and another great industry left the town.
SOURCE: Belchertown History - http://www.belchertown.org/departments/history/history.htm
Steve Shumway - shumways@@petershumway.org
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