Introduction

Phillips Family
(1737-1860)

Miller Family
(1860-c1901)

A.B. Coleman
(c1901-1909)

Leming Family
(1909-c1919)

Cromwell Family
(1920-1948)

Suydam Family
(1948-1962)

Howell Family
(1962-1974)

Mercer County
(1974-present)

In 1920 the farm was purchased by Xenophon Cromwell.    Xenophon and his son, Hart, operated the farm as a dairy farm.  In the 1940s, Hart further enlarged the barn by moving two bays of an older barn to attach to the west end of the barn.  Because this barn was narrower, a one story shed was added on the barnyard side.  These two expansions were made to accomodate the increasing size of the Cromwell herd.

In 1920 Xenophon Cromwell purchased the farm and owned it until his death in 1939. Cromwell had been living in Pleasant Valley for a number of years renting the adjoining farm on Pleasant Valley Road to the east - the property now known as the Birum farm. In the 1920s Xenophon enlarged the barn, to accommodate a larger dairy herd, by filling in the north east corner area where the original two sections of the barn formed the "L". 

In 1940 ownership went to his son, Hart, who owned the farm until 1948. The Cromwell's continued to work a dairy herd and also developed a milk delivery route in Hopewell Borough and Lambertville. During World War II the Henry Phillips Barn was greatly extended and remodeled to accommodate an enlarged dairy herd. Two bays of an early barn from a nearby farm had been moved in the early 20th century and set up a little northwest of the Henry Phillips Barn. In the early 1940s Hart Cromwell moved this old barn again to extend the original working barn to the west. He also added the shed on the south side of this addition and rearranged and extended the stalls for the cows. Despite these improvements he did not continue to farm the land himself after World War II.

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