… That Lincoln is the home of a “Century Farm”?
To be honored as a Century Farm, the farm must be owned by the same family for at least 100 consecutive years, and a family member must be living on the premises. For the Flint family and their Matlock Farm, these were easy qualifications to meet. The land was acquired by Thomas Flint in the 1640s and has been farmed by Flint family members continuously since the early 1700s.
When the Flints received their Century Farm Award in 1990, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis wrote to express his “warmest congratulations.” “You and your forebears worked the good land of Massachusetts, and you have personified the ideals of hard work, self-sufficiency, and dedication which we all hold so dear.”
The Flints’ farm had been honored earlier by Governor Paul Dever in 1949, when Warren F. Flint was inducted into the Green Pasture Club, in recognition of “production of pasture feed in order to conserve grain, reduce feed cost, and maintain the dairy industry.”
The Flints and Matlock Farm are no longer in the diary business, but the Flints continue in other agricultural endeavors and continue to personify “the ingenuity and perseverance of successive generations of the family that has owned this Massachusetts farm for more than one hundred years.”
What a legacy! Click here to learn more about this historic farm.
Sara Mattes, President
The Lincoln Historical Society
August 2021
