Herrick Farm

McKinley was the town where Herrick's Farm was, that was what the town was called back before it was changed back to Bass Harbor. I talked to Nelson Herrick about his dairy farm when he was nearly 100 years old. He said he was an inventor and a tinkerer - said he invented a "walking bridge". A local Navy Commander and author (Admiral Ellsberg) talked Nelson out of patenting it. It was on Nelson's mind on that day as we talked about his past. Nelson started his farm about 1943. He had 18 cows, mixed breed on 140 acres of not great farmland.

While on vacation in Connecticut during WW2, Nelson applied for a job at a Colt gun plant. He made more money working there during the war than the dairy industry back home in McKinley He ended up selling his herd to a farmer in Massachusetts. As an added note, he said that 1906 was a warm year, like in the year we were talking. My parents and family friend Archie McEachern worked for Nelson Herrick under Dickensian conditions starting as a driver for the milk route at age 12.