CastleCache Traditional Cache
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Easy cache under a rectangular block.
Drive to the very end of road right up to the metal fence gate. You may want to walk the flat stone elevation, if you can, as it makes it more interesting.
In Uxbridge on the hundred-acre lot is where the hobby farm, Castle Hill Farms, was located. John C. Whitin owned a 70-acre lot on the Uxbridge/Whitinsville border that had never been successfully used for farming because of the large stones dotting the field. This was not a major concern for Whitin because he had an empire to build and farming was low on his “to do list.” One of the major problems facing a mill owner in this area was keeping his skilled workers so in 1875 during an economic depression in the textile industry, Whitin needed a way to keep his skilled men employed and in the area. He set his men to work removing the boulders and rocks from the Castle Hill land and these boulders were used to build a wall six feet high and almost as wide surrounding the entire hundred-acre farm. This wall survives till today, known as the “hundred acre wall” [[The 100 Acre wall is actually about a 1/4 mile up the road, or should I say what was once a road. An interesting walk, but very overgrown now]]and is all that remains of the dairy. (Work on the wall continued from 1876-78 and cost Whitin a staggering $13,000) The importance of the farm goes beyond that of a wall built to retain skilled workers, it also extends to the introduction of a heretofore-unknown ethnic group, the Dutch. After the land was cleared, the lot was used as a hobby farm for the farm’s registered heard of Jersey cattle. A case of tuberculosis wiped out the herd, so Mrs. Whitin, (who now ran the farm after her husband’s death in 1886), imported Holstein-Friesian cattle from the Netherlands. A Friesian man named John Bosma came with the herds to help get the cattle settled and get the farm on its way. Mr. Bosma liked the land and countryside so much he sent for family and gradually the group expanded with more Friesian Dutch coming over. By WW2, nearly 65% of the privately owned farms (not company) were in the hands of the Dutch farmers. When Mrs. Whitin died in 1919, the company took over the running of the farm and it was converted from a hobby showplace to a profitable business. ("The Whitin Machine Works Since 1831" by Thomas R. Navin)
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Puvan qbrf abg unir gur Pbeare ba Terng Jnyyf.
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