New Press! 300-Year-Old East Dennis Farm Saved by Community Effort

With just weeks to act, a local land trust and neighbors raised $1.5 million to save one of Dennis’ oldest working farms, a rare piece of the region’s farming past that dates to 1713.

The Dennis Conservation Land Trust will preserve the land and history of Sesuet Farm, which was started by Christopher Crowell on Sesuit Neck in East Dennis.

“There was no time to get a grant,” Trust Executive Director David Fryxell said on a June 9 tour of the property. The Crowell family wanted to close the sale in one month. Owner Seth H. Crowell’s grandfather was Seth Crowell, (1872-1949), who lived at and farmed there from the late 1800s.

The trust purchased the remaining 4.35 acres of the farm that originally extended from Sesuit Creek to Cape Cod Bay on May 13. Neighbors who love the farm were the primary donors of the $1.5 million purchase price, raised in just a few weeks, Fryxell said.

The triangular parcel that borders on Sesuit Neck Road and Old Town Lane in East Dennis includes a five-bedroom farmhouse, barn, carriage house, ancient stone walls and large lawn with mature trees. A depression in the grassy field that was once a cranberry bog prompted Fryxell to say it’s a dream is to restore it someday. The trust’s goal is to continue farming by partnering with other agricultural nonprofits.

Joe Masse, president of the trust board, explained on the tour that the trust wanted to buy the Sesuet Farm for several reasons – ecological, the neighborhood, wildlife and to preserve the rural character of the town.

“We’re not just preserving the land,” Masse said, but considering what is the value of the land.