Bridge Farm, Dresden Mills, Maine

Welcome to the Bridge Farm website. When Edmund Bridge founded Bridge Farm in the 1760s, blogs were done with a quill and pen. Edmund, the High Sheriff of Lincoln County from 1782 to 1812, would be amazed at many of the changes to his farm. Even the giant old maple that sits on the hill behind the large barn and pictured on our masthead wasn’t there in those days.

Today, Bridge Farm consists of the main house built in 1789 and expanded over the generations, the large barn, the huge barn, the garage and apartment, the two-bedroom ‘guesthouse,’ and 28 acres of mostly open land which sits on a 2,400-foot stretch of shore on the Eastern River at Dresden Mills, Maine. It is the home of Bob Howe and Kathy Coleman; Coco the dog; Tiffy, Mia and Cocoa the donkeys; Theodore, Amy and two other geese who have resided at the farm for 15 or 20 years; Barney the barn cat, two pairs of Mallards that have shown up in recent weeks, Smeagle, Amaryllis and Ruby Tuesday, our sheep; Willy and Buttercup, the odd couple-a retired race horse and his soulmate, a brown goat, and currently about 100 poultry.

Living nearby are eagles, ospreys, beavers, cormorants, foxes, deer and many other creatures.

Kathy and some of her sister Master Gardeners are planning a period garden on the farm.  It will feature many of the same herbs, flowers and vegetables that were grown here in the 18th century.  Dresden resident and unofficial town historian Eleanor Everson has contributed research into the gardens of the Rev. Jacob Bailey who lived very nearby in the second half of the 18th century and whose writings on his gardens survive to this day.

My gardening will never make me famous.
I’m a horticultural ignoramus,
I can’t tell a string bean from a soy bean,
or even a girl bean from a boy bean.
– Ogden Nash