Howell Farm

In 1984, Howell Living History Farm had its grand opening. It had been donated to Mercer Co., New Jersey, 10 years earlier, with the stipulation by its last owner, Inez Howell, widow of NJ Congressman Charles Howell, that it be used as an educational facility. So the county went through its governmental red tape and hoop-de-doo and turned the farm into a county park. It's operated as an 1890-1910 working farm, with work horses and oxen providing much of the power. Actually, oxen weren't used so much in New Jersey at that time, but a program to train interns to use them was put into place at the farm. Pete Watson was hired, though I'm a bit fuzzy on whether he came on as intern trainer. You see, Pete had gone into the Peace Corps some years before, and being an English major, naturally he was trained to work with oxen. You see the connection, don't you? Oh, well, anyway, Pete was trained right here in Tennessee by Ben Ellingson out near Nashville. He later went to Africa (I don't know which particular countries) and trained farmers over there to use oxen for field work, rather than using hand tools. So when he came to Howell Farm, he put his oxen expertise to work. Here's a picture of the yoke of oxen the farm had when I started volunteering there in 1994, Lyon and Giant.

Giant, the black one, is an Angus steer. Normally, Angus steers are destined for a trip to the slaughterhouse at about 15-18 months old. But the year Giant was born (sometime between 1984 and 1994), there was a football game between the New York Giants (who play in New Jersey, of course - ??) and the Denver Broncos. The governors of NJ and CO made a friendly bet - if the Giants won, Colorado would pay with a steak dinner. I don't know what NJ would have payed if the Broncos had won. A pair of cement shoes, maybe?? Well, after the Giants won (hence the name), the guv of CO sent a whole steer, fer goodness sakes. Rather than treat his cronies in the State House to steaks, the NJ guv did the right thing and gave him to Howell Farm. After they got a teammate for him - that's Lyon, the red and white one, a Hereford steer - they were trained to work together. Those things on their faces are to keep them from grazing when they're working. Here are Frank and Jesse; they were the farm's oxen in 2002.

They are Milking Devons and were trained in New England, where there are a lot more oxen still doing farm work than in NJ.

More later.