In Middlefield, Factory Village is a ghost town, once a bustling industrial wool town, where floods created havoc on buildings, homes, factories…even the railroad, and now sits silent, only the railroad was rebuilt. We set out to find two of the Church brothers homes located above the once full Middlefield Reservoir on Town Hill Road. This is a DCR parcel located just before Reservoir Road. Using lidar and DCR mapping, we hiked into the thick brush to see what was left. We found two distinct cellar holes and one barn foundation belonging to Lyman and James Church. The barn platform was used by Sumner Church for the wool factory. We continued on the trail to Factory Brook, where it entered the Reservoir, now a swampy home for beavers. Photos by Karen and Liz, special thanks to Doug Lyman for the custom map.

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