Kings Ransom Farm Dairy

Kings-Ransom Farm Web Site

The King family began farming in the Bacon Hill area as tenant farmers in the late 1800’s. Edgar’s grandfather purchased his first farm in the area in 1901. Land from that farm remains as a portion of the total farm operation today. The current farmstead was added to the original base operation in 1923. At that time it was known as the Thompson Farm. The Thompson's owned a local paper mill across the Hudson River. They used the farm as their summer home. The first Kings to occupy the present home were Edgar and Blanche Schoonmaker King, after their marriage in 1938. They had two children, Barbara and Edgar, who were raised on the farm.

The early years at the Kings-Ransom farm were typical of many farms in the area, with a number of enterprises, included dairy, potatoes and other vegetables, grain and hay, threshing grain for neighbors and harvesting trees and sawing them with a portable saw mill for shipping.

Edgar Senior developed a business of hauling cream from farms to a local creamery. This business experience perhaps contributed to the decision to market the milk produced on their farm directly to homes and grocery stores in Saratoga Springs. That business, known as King Brothers Colebrook Dairy, began in 1932 and continued into the early 1960’s.

Edgar A. King began milking two Guernsey cows as a 4-H project, selling the milk to Colebrook Dairy. After graduating from Cornell University in 1963, Edgar and his wife, Carolyn Peck, purchased what is now the home farm from his father and uncles. In the fall of 1963 they began construction of the two-story tie-stall hip-roof barn. By the spring of 1964, they were milking 30 Guernsey cows and shipping milk. Holsteins were added to the herd shortly after. Today the entire herd is Holsteins. In 1972 the Kings constructed their first free-stall barn and milking parlor and increased the milking herd to 120 cows.

Number of employees: 8 full time and several part time
Milking Herd: 600 milking cows 400 heifers/calves.
Milk Production: 2 million gallons of milk per year
Farmland: Total of 1,180 acres of farmland (480 acres owned and 700 acres leased)

Corn                540 acres

Alfalfa             450 acres

Woodland      110 acres

Wetlands         50 acres