Article Title: As War Rages, Sabin's Pasture Changes Hands

Edition: May 2002
Category: General Interest
Author: Walter Carpenter
Article:

Editor's Note: This is Part Two of a short history of Sabin's Pasture. Part One was in the April 2002 edition, here is a link to that article: Pasture Owner Sabin: Slate Miner, Engineer

On the first day of June 1943 a certain piece of Montpelier changed hands.

It happened without much public celebration and, except for those involved, most likely without much general notice. Two weeks earlier on the other side of the world Nazi General Irwin Rommel's vaunted Afrika Korps had just been wiped out. Even more important for the allies, and the final victory of democracy, the dreaded Nazi U-Boats were pulled out of the North Atlantic.

On that day in June, a Montpelier woman named Laura Ferrin -- the daughter of Charles T. Sabin -- sold 120 acres of land to a family here named Aja.

Laura Ferrin was the widow of A.W. Ferrin, who had been treasurer of the Montpelier Savings Bank and Trust Company. The land she sold to Antonio Aja and his wife, Angeles, was what is now called Sabin's Pasture. In addition to the land, Aja also acquired a barn and some outbuildings.

There were, most likely, no bells to herald the purchase. Its history was duly recorded in the laborious language of a warranty deed: "The land with barn and outbuildings situated on the northerly side of the highway leading to the Pioneer Bridge so-called and then to Barre … thence easterly on the northerly line of Barre Street to the right-of-way of the Montpelier and Wells River Railroad; thence on a northerly line of the railroad right-of-way to the intersection of said right-of-way with the line of land of Montpelier Country Club." From there, the deed states the line then went to the line of the Westview Estates, " … and the lands being the lands of the Sabin Farm so-called..." Aja's purchase also touched the "easterly limits of McKinley and Hinckley streets."

The assessor's office listed Aja's new land as "rolling." Its tillage was fair and its pasture was rated as "good."Antonio Aja was a meatcutter. Together with his brother, he ran the Aja Brothers butchery on River Street and he lived on Barre Street.

Paul Guare, president of the Montpelier Historical Society, remembers Aja.

"He had a truck that he used to drive around town delivering meat," Guare said. "That was in the early 1920's and 1930's."

Guare remembers that Sabin's pasture was an operating farm into the late 1930's. "The farm was one of the principal farms in Montpelier," Guare said, adding that Aja also "had milking cows up there and had steers for his meat business."

Both before and after the sale, the pasture and the farm have, in fact, been more or less a continuous feature of the Montpelier scene. Demsey McCann, of Montpelier, said that he remembers kids sledding in the pasture.

"During the 1970's and early 1980's," he said, "people skied up there and there was even a rope tow. It was a small operation and frequently broke down." McCann said the Montpelier High School Ski Team used it for practice. Today the field is still owned by the Aja family and has been the subject of public discussion recently after a developer laid out a proposal late last year to build housing on it.

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