Fire destroys historic barn on Settler's Farm in Warwick

Warwick — Louis Miloszewski, Jr., had just moved his tractor around the other side of his barn a week ago last Thursday, just before 1 p.m. Walking from behind the barn, he noticed a small fire in the barn. He ran to another barn for his hay fork and tried to get the small pile of hay out of the barn before it spread. Too late. “I was probably working for half a minute when I realized it spread to the next hay mound,” said Miloszewski. “There was nothing I could do.” So he called 911 and set out to make sure it wouldn’t go any further. His house is about 150 feet from the corner of one of the buildings that caught fire, and other buildings sat within 40 feet of the blaze. Fire companies from Florida, Pine Island, Amity and Warwick converged on his Wheeler Road farm. Before it was under control in about two hours, two barns and a milk house, all adjacent to one another, were gone. “The firemen were here until about 7 p.m.,” Miloszewski said. Miloszewski has 25 head of cattle and his farm produces hay for many farmers in the area. The barns were used to store the hay. No animals were housed in those barns recently and none were harmed in the fire. No humans were hurt either. The farm is known as Settler’s Farm. It was settled in the early 1700s, according to the historic marker nearby, by Johannes and Elizabeth Wisner. Miloszewski’s grandparents bought the farm in the 1920s. It has been a working farm in his family ever since. The cause of the fire is still under investigation. Miloszewski is just grateful that no one was hurt. “The key is no one got hurt,” he said. “No animals, no humans. We only lost material things.” He is not sure, however, if he will rebuild. “It’s up in the air at the moment,” he said. “It has to be investigated by the insurance company. We will take it step by step. I don’t need a barn right now since all my hay is gone.”