Bovina Bicentennial Art Project, part 5

As part of the Town of Bovina’s Bicentennial Celebration, Brooke Alderson enlisted a group of ten local artists to create paintings of Bovina Landmarks. The artists were invited to paint their own interpretations of photographs of different Bovina buildings that are no longer in existence or have been altered. The resulting ten paintings were mounted on easels by Brooke and Scott Hill and were displayed throughout the hamlet during the Celebration at the site where the original structure stood (or still stands).

Over the next few months, I will be doing a series of entries highlighting the buildings and the paintings. The paintings are on display at the Bovina Public Library, where you can order prints of any that catch your fancy for $80, all proceeds going to the library. And stay tuned for an auction of the original works being planned for this fall. 

Bovina Center Cooperative Creamery, painted by Scott Hill and Lori Glavin

In the latter part of the 19th century, Bovina became famous for the quality of its dairy products, specifically for its butter. Butter making was a lot of work. Farmers began advocating in the 1890s for the option of taking their milk to a creamery. One of the earliest reported interest meetings for a creamery took place in January 1896. The Andes Recorder in January 1897 made a plaintive plea in its Bovina column: “Why cannot Bovina have a creamery?” 

The dawn of the 20th century in Bovina saw not one, but two creameries were constructed. In late June 1901, the Bovina Cooperative Creamery was organized located on Bovina Road not far from the Schuman property. Two weeks later, another group of farmers formed the Bovina Center Cooperative Creamery, located in the Bovina Center hamlet. 

The Bovina Center Cooperative Creamery opened for business on New Year’s Day 1902. The Bovina Center Creamery in its first year had over fifty farmers bringing their milk, receiving 17,500 pounds of milk a day. The creamery established a dry milk plant behind the creamery building. The creamery was powered by steam in its early days. In 1924, they converted to electricity.

The Bovina Center Cooperative Creamery operated for over 70 years. In 1939, it became the Bovina Center Cooperative Dairy. During World War II, sweet condensed milk was produced and dry milk production was replaced by the production of dried eggs to fulfill a government contract. This contract likely led to the replacing of the old wooden creamery with the current brick structure in 1944. 

By the 1950s, the focus of the creamery was on liquid milk. In the 1960s, several area creameries closed, leading to a brief increase in the milk coming to Bovina Center, with farmers coming from as far away as Durham, NY. It wasn’t enough to save the creamery. In March 1973, the 43 farmers still hauling their milk to Bovina met and with one dissension, voted to close the creamery and dissolve the Cooperative. 

For over 30 years, the Bovina Coop Dairy’s creamery building saw a new life as the home of McIntosh Auction Service. The weekly auctions were a popular draw in the 70s, 80s and 90s. In 2001, McIntosh Auction Service relocated to Margaretville, using the creamery building for storage. In 2016, after several ‘farewell’ auctions, the building was sold to Bovina Valley LLC to become once again a functioning creamery.

Scott Hill:  I came to Delaware County in the late 90’s. Like so many others, I fell under the spell of this natural world, the light, the easy pace, the friendliness of the community. I embraced the area and absorbed its history. I like stories and the local lore, and how they relate to the quest for a better life. 

I came from California many years ago, and for me, New York was freedom. It still is freedom. Before us, the struggles of the early post revolution farmers and homesteaders in this area were struggles for freedom. It was not easy for them and the struggle continues. 

In Irving's story of Rip Van Winkle we read not only of a man who sleeps for many years, but also of slumbering early America, a new land changing, awakening.  

We are all now living through another shift and awakening. The way forward will not be easy. There will be darkness, but the light will come. Scott Hill - artist, designer.

Lori Glavin is an abstract painter, collagist and printmaker who lives and works in Bovina Center, NY and Connecticut.  She is the recipient of a 2019 Connecticut Individual Artist Fellowship Grant and has exhibited in galleries nationally and internationally, including solo and group shows at The Brattleboro Museum and Art Center in VT, The Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, CT, World Collage Day in Ghent, Belgium, Dimmitt Contemporary Art in Houston, The George Gallery in Charleston, SC, The Flinn Art Gallery Greenwich and Anne Irwin Fine Art in Atlanta, among others.  In 2007 she co-founded Wilson Avenue Loft Artists, a community of artist studios in Norwalk, CT.  Ms. Glavin has an undergraduate degree from Syracuse University’s School of Visual and Performing Arts, Syracuse, NY.

"Meet the Lady Cowculators" - Bovina Dairying Pioneer Beatrice Thomson

Seventy-five years ago, a Bovina woman was becoming a pioneer in the dairying industry. The newsletter of the American Dairy Herd Improvement Association, in its June 1942 issue, reported on its front page that "Women Fight Too!" The article noted that "There are fighters on the home front too, and none are more intrepid than the women who are stepping in to fill the gaps left by men who have gone to the service." Later in the newsletter was a page devoted to several women in the country who were becoming milk testers. Bovina's own Beatrice Thomson was one of the women featured. A life long resident of Bovina, she grew up on the Thomson farm on Pink Street. She had "recently graduated from the New York Agricultural College where she completed the Dairy-Commercial testing course that trained her in butterfat testing...." Here's the clipping from that newsletter about Bea.

Here's a clipping from the August 6, 1942 Waterville (NY) Times about "girl cowtesters," including Bea:

Bea continued to work at the Bovina creamery, later becoming the plant manager, until its closing in 1973. The Oneonta Daily Star in June 1968 had a short article by Jack Damgaard about the Bovina Center Coop Dairy and noted that "we are unique...in that we have a lady plant manager...." Here she is on the last day at the creamery.

Photo by Betty Elliott

After the closing of the Bovina creamery, Bea worked for Dellwood in Frasers as the bookkeeper, retiring from there in 1983. She died in 1986 at the age of 68 and is buried in the Bovina cemetery. 

Another American Tragedy - The Closing of the Bovina Center Co-op Creamery

It was 40 years ago today on March 31, 1973 that the Bovina Center Co-op Creamery closed, after being in existence for 72 years.  This was reported in several local papers.  Here's the article from the front page of the Walton Reporter from April 5, 1973.  [See the blog entry for January 26, 2012 for some photos taken by Mrs. William Elliott on the last day the creamery operated.]

Bovina Center Co-op Closing Is Blow to Town and Farmers

     An era has ended.  After 73 years of operation, the Bovina Center Co-op Dairy is bowing to "progress" and closing its doors.
     It was the last plant in the county to handle exclusively canned milk, this out of an undetermined number over 50 which once operated.  It is known that nearly every village and hamlet in the county once had at least one creamery and some of the larger communities had four or more. 
     A twinge of sadness comes to one's heart when it is realized that anything is becoming extinct, but a special touch of remorse in this case is felt by anyone who grew up hearing the clanging sound of the cans.  The saddest thing of all, though, is that fact that it cannot help but adversely effet the small farmer, who must either convert to expensive bulk equipment or go out of business, if they do not desire to haul their milk to the Dellwood plant at Fraser. 
     It must be noted, of course, that New York State as a whole is declining in influence as a dairy producer, as its market is now controlled by Midwestern prices, a further blow to the little guy.

Had Long History

     The closing of the co-op means that the Town of Bovina, for the first time since its founding over 150 years ago, is now without an industry (other than tourism).  This is a blow to the town and to Bovina Center village which will be hard put to recover for a while. 
     The Bovina Center Co-op was banded together in 1901 by a group of 48 farmers and was, at the time of its demise last Saturday, reported to be the oldest existing co-op in the country, if not the world.  The original farmers had been coming together to make butter for a year or more, but realized need for some sort of organization to benefit them all, hence the co-op.  
     The plant produced exclusively butter until 1906, when a milk sugar-making process was installed.  Shortly thereafter, Bovina became one of the early producers in the United States of powdered milk.  Smaller rollers than one normally would think did the job - they were sometimes no more than two feet in length. 

Operations Change Often

     In 1922, the creamery switched to a drying box and the spray process for the milk and were pioneers at this also.  Skim powder was made until World War II, when they fulfilled a goverment contract (as did many other area plants) to make dried eggs.  
      Early power there, as in all such enterprises, was a team engine, but in 1924 they converted to electricity.  One of those who wired the plant was current county historian Fletcher Davidson (who lives just outside the village and who made a living doing electrical work on area creameris as well as providing much of the historical info herein). 
     The old wooden plant was razed and the present one built, primarily for its wartime contract, in 1942.  The operation of late has been carried out by four people, chief of them being Miss Beatrice Thomson.  Miss Thomson has been at the plant for 25 years and its manager for the last 10. 
     Floyd Aitkens has been a co-op empolyee since the dry milk days of World War II.  Marvin Archibald has been at the plant for about 15 years and Herman Archibald about 10.  

Served Wide Area

     Before the Mar. 31 closing, the co-op at Bovina Center served 43 farmers directly, several of whom may opt to close rather than to adapt to bulk operations or cart their milk all the way to Fraser.  
     One of the producing and hauling farmers is Roscoe Brink, who has been hauling milk everyday from the area of Durham, near the Albany-Greene-Schoharie county border and who serves several other farmers.  He has come to Bovina for a year, since the closing of a similar plant in Blenheim, Schoharie county and will now have to truck to either Worcester or Cobleskill with his load.  
     Most of the Bovina producers will be able to haul their milk to the Dellwood plant, which is the only plant now in the county to handle cans (most of its business comes from the bulk milker but it will accept all can dairies which meet its quality standards).  They will take cans at Fraser only so long as it is profitable for them to do so, but David Jones of the Dellwood operation added that closing of their can operation and deck will not be in the immediate future. 

Vote Near Unanimous

     The 43 farmers in attendance at the Friday night meeting voted with only one dissension for closing.  Thirty-three of the group also voted to dissolve the co-op and the board of directors was designated to do as they saw fit along these lines.  Charles McIntosh Sr. is president of the board, which also includes Jack Hilson and Millard Russell Jr. 
     All parties concerned are still wondering what can be done about saving the small farmer, who once was the backbone of the country, but is now being pushed out of existence by financial and other woes.
     It is another American tragedy. 

Last Load at the Bovina Center Coop

Recently, Mrs. William Elliott over in New Kingston contacted me because she had photographs of the last load of milk her husband's farm delivered to the Bovina Creamery on its last day of operation.  I was thrilled to see these wonderful snapshots taken by Mrs. Elliot herself on March 31, 1973.  They pretty much tell the story in the captions she wrote on the photos.

The last load from the Elliott farm arrives at the creamery.

This is Herman Archibald emptying one of the milk cans.

Bea Thompson was the milk tester at the creamery for many years.

Brothers Marvin and Herman Archibald

The empty cans being loaded back on the truck for their last trip home from the creamery.

The Elliott farmstead is in New Kingston, though it borders Bovina (and some of the farmland is in Bovina).  The farm has been in the Elliott family for several generations.  After the closing of the creamery, the Elliotts converted to a bulk tank operation.  It is one of the very few dairy farms still operating in the area to this day, now run by Mrs. Elliott's son.

Many thanks to Mrs. Elliott for sharing these.  And to her daughter Sally Elliott Scrimshaw for letting her mom know of my interest in photos like these.