Lloyd Frazier

It is hard to say exactly when Lloyd moved to MDI. A 1941 article about Guernsey cattle in the Biddeford Daily Journal refers to "Lloyd Frazier, East Corinth". The first mention I could find of Lloyd Frazier on MDI was a Bar Harbor Times article about milk producers for the "Bar Harbor Market” meeting at the "Farm of Lloyd Frazier in Salisbury Cove" in July of 1944. There is no record in the Registry of Deeds that he owned any property in Bar Harbor until 1965.

According to the Bar Harbor Times, Lloyd was using a dairy farm in Salisbury Cove on what is now the site of Sweet Pea Farm. Early on a Sunday morning in September of 1945 the large barn on the property caught fire, eventually destroying the barn, 70 tons of hay stored for winter feeding, and 12 of his herd, including a prize bull that wouldn’t come out of the burning structure because of all the confusion. Fortunately he was able to save six older bulls that were in a stockade attached to the burning barn, and thirty cows from his herd were spared as they had been pastured all summer on a different property, 8 miles away in Trenton, that Lloyd and his brother Charles had bought the year before. But the loss deeply affected him not only financially, but also personally, as he had a strong emotional connection with his animals beyond their value as livestock. (See newspaper article about the fire in additional photos below.)

The new operation in Trenton, which he called “Rougilla Farm”, was a 750-acre parcel along Route 3 near the turn-off to Lamoine. Here, Lloyd built his herd up to 100 and milked 75, according to his great-niece, Robin Porter.  This is where I found his milk can (photo below) in his dump in the woods. Cans like this held bulk raw milk that went to Hancock County Creamery, a farmer-owned co-op of which Lloyd was a member. Lloyd was a noted breeder of Guernsey cattle, specifically the “polled”, or hornless strain of the breed. 

He sold the Trenton farm in July 1964 to Phillips Lord, a developer who tore the farm buildings down and dammed up a brook that ran into the Jordan River, making two small ponds. The site is now the location of an antique store and numerous other endeavors including a golf course.

Lloyd moved to Lakewood Farm on Crooked Road in Bar Harbor, becoming the latest in a long line of dairy farmers and processors who operated on the site (Joseph A. Wood, Clarence Alley, William Pierson Hamilton, Hugh Kelly, Milton Linscott, and again Hugh Kelly). Lloyd continued to sell bulk milk to Hancock County Creamery.  In August 1983 Lloyd sold the farm to his great-nephew Merval “Rocky” Porter.  Rocky ended up being the last commercial dairy farmer from the MDI dairy farming era, eventually selling off his mixed herd in 1986.

Lloyd appears in the film “Trail to Better Dairying”, which is available through the Northeast Historic Film in Bucksport.