On Sunday, May 21, Jon and Dan Shaw, their families and friends, many with excited little children, watched as eight Red Angus cows and their six calves stepped out of a trailer onto the 25-acre pasture at Cherry Hill Farm. The herd immediately began grazing on land that the brothers’ grandfather had farmed for seven years more than 75 years ago, and that had last seen cows in 1959.
Photo credit: Roger MarchandLee Wormell from Wormell Farms in Cumberland and his grandson Brandon trucked the Red Angus cows 460 miles from Weedsport, N.Y. After the 61/2 hour trip, they kept them overnight before bringing them to Cherry Hill Farm.
The farm is a project of the Shaw Brothers Family Foundation that purchased 258 acres off lower Main Street from ecomaine in 2017. Since then, they have made three miles of trails and relocated an 1830s barn on the property. The success of the Shaw Brothers Construction Company made possible the foundation with its mission to maintain “Cherry Hill Farm, the land, buildings, and trails as well as to support organizations helping children and local non-profits that share the brothers’ conservative values without social activism.”
“We always said that if we made any money,” Jon said, “we want to help kids with cancer and help preserve Gorham’s agricultural heritage.” The business that began with “two brothers, a backhoe and a handshake” in 1977 is now one of Maine’s largest earth-moving companies. The Foundation has provided financial support to many non-profits, including Camp Sunshine and Maine Medical Center. But the goal of creating a farm is rooted in Shaw family history.
Jon and Dan’s grandfather came with his family to Gorham from northern Maine in 1939. He rented the Whipple Farm property that is now the site of Cherry Hill Farm until the lease ran out in 1947 and the property was sold to R.J. Grondin. Jon, Dan, and their two brothers grew up on the family dairy farm in western Gorham with registered Holstein cows. Jon said that when planning the Foundation’s farm, “it was important to include registered cattle.”
Photo credit: Courtesy of Jon ShawLeft to right: Dan, Jim, Jon, and Tom Shaw at the family farm in west Gorham about 1976.
The cows that arrived at Cherry Hill last month were purchased from Montrose Beef Cattle in Weedsport, New York. They are registered Red Angus from a herd started in 2002. Cherry Hill Farm will only have cows descended from that herd. To prepare for farm buildings and cattle, Jon said they cleared the land that had become forested since Grondin last used it for pasture. They removed brush and stumps from rows of pine trees planted by the Boy Scouts. The cows are grazing there until winter, but will be housed in a large barn now under construction next to the restored Mosher barn.
As part of their mission to support non-profits with no political agenda, the foundation has provided a home for the Gorham Historical Society in the Mosher barn. “I thought it would be a good fit,” Jon said. The foundation hired Dennis Nickerson of Affordable Builders to design and build the interior space. The Historical Society paid for shelving and cabinets.
There will be an opening celebration for the Historical Society and the new cattle barn in late summer. Meanwhile, Kelli Dearborn, the society’s archivist, is organizing the space for the collection. When she looks out at Cherry Hill Farm, she remembers the neat rows of pine trees, “but now I see people using the trails, coming together from different areas and backgrounds,” she said. Cows grazing in the pasture are only the latest addition to the Shaw Brothers Family Foundation’s gift to Gorham.