Sallie Servin and her ‘Oreo Cookie' cows

Editor’s note: This is another in an occasional series on the history of Warwick. This piece is by Warwick Village Historical Jean Beattie May.

As plans and preparations are gearing up to celebrate Warwick’s Sesquicentennial in 2017, it is interesting to think about what the Village was like 150 years ago.
Have you noticed that it is one of the few villages in which one can still see cows in the verdant fields as one enters from Route 94 on Galloway Road?
The Holsteins and Guernsey’s that are the young stock of Barry Crandall who farms the McFarland/Burt farm are reminders of farms that early on were located within the village limits. These include the John Welling/Frank Campbell farm on Oakland Avenue, a landmark of the last century, as well as the Sallie Forshee Servin farm which originally comprised 115 acres on the eastern side of Forester Avenue on both sides of the railroad tracks.

The Sallie Forshee Servin farm

Once part of the pioneer Daniel Burt’s property which ran from Galloway all the way up Maple Avenue to Robin Brae, Sallie Servin’s farm included the Shingle House, the oldest house in the village which Daniel had helped his son Daniel build in 1764.
The handsome brick Smith-Welling house opposite which had been built in the 1830’s was also part of the property. In 1843, when Sallie was just six months old, her father, Abram Forshee, bought the property and moved into the house.
It was willed to Sallie on her father’s death.
In those early days, a path connected the Servin and Shingle houses with the original Burt house on Galloway, now owned by a descendant of Sallie Servin’s, Donald McFarland. It was known as Burt’s Lane – today it is Forester Avenue, named after Frank Forester, the Englishman who loved to hunt and fish in Warwick and write about it.
For a time it was known as Lake Street as there is a lake in what is now Memorial Park, a favorite swimmin’ hole in days gone by.
In 1864 Sallie married John L. Servin, a lawyer from Spring Valley, who practiced law in New York. The following year he and Sallie moved to the house in Warwick.

Civic minded

In 1869 John purchased the fledgling Warwick Advertiser, which had been started by Leonard Cox three years earlier. The office was located on Servin property in a frame building, which had once been a store that stood on the corner of Colonial and Forester avenues. Servin published the newspaper for about three years until illness forced him to give it up. He died in 1881.
The Servins were civic-minded and took a deep interest in the community. Before his death, John Servin had been one of the founders of the Warwick YMCA as well as superintendent of the Sunday School of the Dutch Reformed Church.
Sallie, also a member of that church, was involved in several of its operations. An early member of the Warwick Historical Society and honorary member of other state historical societies, she was also involved with the Women’s Auxiliary Society of the YMCA and the Women’s Missionary Society of the Church.

Dutch White Belted cattle

In the post-Civil War period, Sallie enlarged the house by raising the third story and adding the Mansard roof. Window sills and the stone slabs above the windows were changed from bluestone to brown stone. She remodeled the house and made “Valley Farm,” as she called it, a showplace of Orange County.
Sallie also took on the mantle of farmer with the prized Dutch White Belted cattle that she raised right there on Forester Avenue. Her two enormous barns across the street from the house were located about where the fire company now has its building at the end of Church Street.
The original Dutch name of the breed is Lakenfield-Laken meaning a sheet to be wound around the body of the animal. According to an article by the late Hylah Hasbrouck entitled ‘“Interesting Notes on Old Warwick,” (1950) “when city folks came to town on the train, they saw the cows in the field and thought the farmer very considerate to put sheets around their bodies to keep the flies away.”
Dutch Belted Cattle go back to the 17th century in Holland when they were solely controlled by the Dutch nobility. The first importation of the breed was made by the U. S. Consul of Holland, D. H. Haight, of Goshen, in 1838.
Perhaps it is from his herd that Sallie acquired hers.
In 1840, P. T. Barnum, the famous circus owner and showman, exhibited the animals as a “rare and aristocratic” breed in his circus. He found their “unique and novel appearance interesting and they also proved to be wonderful milkers ... far superior to any other cattle to which my attention has been drawn.”
He moved his exhibition herd to his farm in Orange County.

‘Charles the Great’

Sallie enjoyed showing her cattle at fairs throughout the state. One newspaper account noted that at the 1896 Trenton Fair, ”there was no competition. Mrs. S. A. Servin of Warwick being the only exhibitor.... Her aged bull, Charles the Great, now five years old and never once beaten, was in his usual excellent trim. He had won 74 first prizes in his life time.”
From the American Produce Review of 1906 we read that “Mrs. S. A. F. Servin of Warwick, one of the largest breeders who has maintained a farm solely for profit, kept a daily record for 11 years and 25 cows averaged between 9,000 and 10,000 lbs. of milk yearly …because of their scarcity, they were seldom offered for beef, but were sometimes used for ornamental purposes.”
These “Oreo cookie” cows, as they were later called, made a stunning sight in their Forester Avenue meadows.
Sallie died in 1911. She was survived by a son Abram and a daughter Sara. From her obituary we read that: “Sally had experience as a practical farmer, operating the homestead farm in Warwick as well as another farm she purchased in Rockland County. She was a successful breeder of the (Dutch Belted cattle) and her herd won many prizes at state and county fairs. Buyers from all parts of the country came to secure cattle from this famous herd, which for years, has been a familiar and picturesque feature of the eastern environs of our village, being looked for with interest by train travelers passing through the valley.”

‘Pride of the Village’

In 1914 at a public auction at the Demerest House, 108.5 acres of the former Servin farm, including the old “shingle house,” were sold for $10,800 to Benjamin F. Vail.
With the outbreak of World War I that year, nothing was done until April 1919 when the Home Defense League, then in charge of village affairs, appointed a committee to study the feasibility of raising money to purchase the property for a memorial park.
The committee was so impressed with the project that two of its members, Clifford. S. Beattie and H. G. Pierson, personally took an option on about 63.5 acres of the S. A. Servin tract lying south of the L&H tracks.
They proposed that $15,000 be raised through subscription which would enable the committee to buy the land for $100 per acre to cover the purchase and other expenses.
The following week active canvassing began.
Seventeen years later, in 1936 the Village accepted the property and Memorial Park became a reality.
Early issues of the local newspapers reported innumerable notices of picnics, clam bakes and even ox roasts that were held in “Servin’s Woods” by different organizations throughout the community. Fire companies, Sunday schools and civic organizations alike would hold their outings in the woods.
After pursuing many pictures in the remarkable archives of the Warwick Historical Society, it was determined that the “Woods” are located at the very rear of the park on the left side of the road, where a grove of tall and stately oak trees has provided shade for community gatherings for more than 150 years.
A photo of a 1900 clam bake is shown in a new exhibit at the Village Hall, which also includes more photos of Sallie and her beloved White Belted Cattle.
From 1919 until 1939, the Servin house was used as Warwick’s first hospital under Dr. Morris Renfrew Bradner.
After the new hospital was built, the house was occupied briefly by the Veterans of Foreign Wars, who decided to build their own building on Forester Avenue.
Thanks to a few members of the Warwick Historical Society who recognized both the historic and architectural value of the building, it was miraculously saved from demolition.
Elizabeth Lewis Van Leer, then president of the Society, Dick Hull and David Brandt and others organized a Revolving Fund. So with donations from citizens and local businesses, the Historical Society was able to finance the building until Robert Kennedy Sr. purchased and restored it as a medical office facility.
With its wrap-around porch removed and its exterior restored, the Smith-Welling House continues to stand elegantly as “the pride of the Village.”