Parfitt Farm

The photo shows workers pulling turnips up using traditional methods around 10 years ago. The farm originally occupied 160 acres of Lot 10, Concession 2, Widdifield Township until an additional 320 acres were purchased. Christopher Parfitt bought the original bush farm in 1919 with a veteran’s loan available to First World War soldiers. He married a local school teacher in 1924, and began to work the stony soil, adding limestone by hand to remedy its acidic nature.  

The farm’s main cash crops were maple syrup and firewood, but the family pursued other areas to earn a living. For example, the children were kept busy picking and bundling rhubarb and green onions, which were sold in North Bay for 18 cents a bundle.  Christopher acted as bush foreman for the clearing of land for the airport. This, plus the work on the farm, brought back his PTSD from his service in the First World War. When he was hospitalized, his 15 year old son Bill carried the mortgage with his job (which paid $9 a week).  

The original log farm house was converted into the kitchen of the current house. There are three barns including one from 1885 built with huge maple and ash logs, hand-hewn with a broad axe in a community building bee. Livestock (mainly cattle) was once raised on the farm, but the main focus has been turnips for the last 40 years.  The farm utilizes a sunken cold storage shed and hand-built/designed washing and waxing machines. 

Memories of... A Stormy Night
“It was the worst lightning storm we ever experienced. The next morning, when I drove down the road to check on a neighbour, I looked in one of our fields and saw some dark lumpy shapes. They turned out to be downed cattle. They had taken shelter under some bamagillia trees (a type of poplar with a tap root). These trees attract lightning strikes, and this one stormy night killed 23 from our herd of 40 cattle. The carcasses were used for fox food. The date was July 8 1970.

— William Parfitt