The great merino sheep craze

The woodlands of New England are littered with miles of stonewalls that are some of the only remaining relics of the once burgeoning sheep market throughout the region. As a result of the War of 1812, the US instituted an embargo on English goods, cutting off the main supply of wool. At the time, and to this day, one of the highest grades of wool came from the Merino sheep. However, at the turn of the 19th century, the world's supply of Merino sheep was located in Portugal, which prohibited their exportation until William Jarvis, the US consul to Portugal, brought 4,000 of the sheep to his farm in Vermont. This small number of sheep grew exponentially in a boom that has since been known as the Merino Sheep Craze.

Satellite view of sheep pen outline (Image courtesy of WIndham HD/HC)

By 1824 there were almost half a million sheep in Vermont; sixteen years later the number had grown to over 1.7 million. The craze was not limited to Vermont; the Merino wool industry boomed throughout the New England states. It is recorded that in 1840 there were about 600,000 Merino sheep in New Hampshire (information from the Concord Monitor) Some of those sheep grazed upon the hilltop meadows of Windham. The only significant remnant of the sheep craze in Windham lies on the Gage Conservation Lands where an approximately 34 acre former grazing land is bounded by a square of stone walls approximately a few feet in height.

A small portion of the outer walls (Image courtesy of Windham HD/HC)

     Constructed by David Gregg sometime between 1807 and 1815, most likely closer to the latter date, the pen was built to measure approximately 1,200 feet on each side (measured using Google Earth). Gregg was born on October 15, 1750. He fought in the Revolutionary War and there is an interesting anecdote about his service that was recorded by Leonard A Morrison:

                       "He was in the battle of Bennington, and had his thumb shot off. When the 
                        battle was raging he felt a stinging sensation in his thumb, and the smoke
                        was so thick he could hardly see; he put his thumb in his mouth, and found 
                        it hanging by a piece of skin; he bit it off, and kept on fighting, with a
                        determination to come off victorious, or die upon the field 'with his face to
                        the foe'. He was afterwards offered captaincy, but declined it. He received 
                        his commission of lieutenant after the war."
He married his cousin, Jane Gregg, daughter of Captain David and Ann Gregg on February 12, 1784. Morrison recorded that the land David lived upon was part of the original grant to the Gregg family and he was the first one to actually occupy the land. Jane died in 1812 and David married Sally Clyde about two years later. It is recorded by Morrison that David, "took care of his parents in their old age; was made an elder of the church. He was a good man but was unfortunate in the later years of his life, lost his property, and in his old age was dependent upon the charity of his friends and the town"; David died in 1831. In 1815, David sold his property to his son, John, and that deed is the first time the meadow (by definition "permanent pastures", hence often being enclosed by walls) is ever mentioned as existing on the land. In 1828 John Gregg sold the land to Jesse Gibson of Pelham, NH, who sold it in 1838 to Asa Buttrick of Lowell, MA. By the time Buttrick had purchased the land the great sheep craze was just beginning to come to an end.

Corner of sheep pen (Image courtesy of Windham HD/HC)