History of Place

Long before roads divided the landscape at what is now the intersection of Route 9W and Wemple Road, this land was stewarded by the Mohican and Munsee Lenape peoples. We acknowledge with gratitude and humility that we learn, speak, and gather on their ancestral homelands. Despite the hardships of forced removal, the Mohican people have maintained enduring cultural traditions and deep connections to both their ancestral homelands and their present-day community in Wisconsin. We honor their ancestors past and present and commit ourselves to building a more inclusive and equitable future. 

In 1652, the Dutch patroon Jan Baptist Van Rensselaer and the Mohican sachem Skiwias and his wife Kachkawo entered into an agreement concerning a vast tract of land that included the present-day farmland. The agreement provided the Mohican leaders with six pieces of cloth, 30 fathoms of wampum, four kettles, six hatchets, six chip axes, six pairs of socks, and 12 knives. Dutch colonial authorities understood such agreements as legal purchases that transferred permanent ownership and the right to settle and develop the land. The Mohicans, however, viewed land as a shared resource that could not be permanently owned or sold, and often understood these agreements as granting rights of use or establishing an ongoing relationship rather than relinquishing the land forever. These differing cultural and legal traditions led the two parties to interpret the same agreement in fundamentally different ways.

Under the Dutch patroon system, the Van Rensselaer family regarded the agreement as the basis for ownership of a vast estate and became feudal landlords over much of the region. Although much of the area remained woodland until after the American Revolution, the family exercised control over nearly all of the land within what are now the town borders.

For more than two centuries following European exploration, families of German and English descent worked this soil, each generation contributing to a legacy of stewardship and feeding their communities while adapting to a changing world.  As the patroon system came to an end during the nineteenth century, many tenant farms became privately owned. Historical records show Marcus Lasher established a farm here in 1795. By 1820, John and Rachel (Nicholl) Kelderhouse owned the farm and likely built the enduring 1840s barn. The Sager family followed but soon sold the land back to members of the Lasher family. William and Elvira (Palmer) Heath purchased the farm in 1920 beginning the almost 70-year legacy of Heath’s Shady Lawn Dairy Farm. At peak operation, the farm stretched across 450 acres. 

By the 1970s Shady Lawn had become far more than a dairy & poultry farm. It was a place of connection. Visitors came to witness the journey of milk from cow to bottle and to make a purchase from the farm store. At the same time, on this land families cultivated their own food through communal garden plots long before such practices became widespread. It was an early, innovative expression of agritourism and community agriculture.

After William Heath’s passing in 1987, the land faced an uncertain future. It was eventually slated for development. In 2022, the town of Bethlehem made an historic purchase, ensuring that this land, so long defined by care, labor, and connection, would endure.

Today, this place stands at the threshold of a new chapter. Its past reminds us that stewardship is not a static inheritance but an active responsibility. We are called to carry forward that responsibility with opportunities for equitable and sustainable agricultural, recreational and educational pursuits.