A brief history of the farm, as retold by Walter Atwood, former owner, current CCC board member, and friend:

“About 1860 Miles Upson bought 30+ acres on the west side of East Bristol Road, now Woodtick Road, possibly from his father and began building. We believe that there was a small cabin on the property. The present farmhouse was completed in 1864. Miles is noted in the 1868 History of Wolcott as having "a prosperous farm 1 mile east of the town center". Upson Road just south of the farm on the west side of Woodtick Road was named for Miles Upson and formed the south boundary of the farm at that time.

Miles' daughter Mary(?) married Francis Cole and inherited the farm upon her father's death as her siblings were established elsewhere. When Mary died in 1903 the farm passed to her children as Francis was not an owner. In 1920 Mary's youngest child, Florence, married Lyman Atwood of Watertown and they rented a home on North Street (Rt 63) where Clarence, my father was born in 1922. Florence and Lyman relocated to Wolcott and bought her childhood home from her siblings. My uncle Ted was born there in 1925 and relocated to Middlebury after his marriage; he died of cancer in the early 1980s.

Clarence married Gloria H of Thomaston and they acquired a triangle of land between the north border of his parent's farm and Catering Road. There they built a home for their growing family and bought 20 acres from his parents, reducing their tax burden. Lyman died in 1967 and Florence in 1988. In a surprise of her will, she left the farm property to me and my brother, leaving our father with life use. Seeing the wisdom of the inheritance tax planning, Dad transferred his home and 3 acres to our sisters and transferred the 25 acres of woodlot to my brother and me. Clarence died in 2012 at the age of 90. I bought my brother's portion of the farm acreage and manage the farmhouse and woodlot for both of us. I sold the 23+ acres of farm to Community Counseling Center in 2013 and granted a 10 year lease (with option to buy) of the woodlot in 2014.”

It should be noted that when Community Counseling went to buy the portion of the farm mentioned by Walter above, they had to meet with members of the town at a public hearing as the parcel of land was being purchased by a charity, and not an individual entity. Virtually all feedback on the sale was positive, with one member of the community remarking on the fact that the “Atwood property is one of the last green spaces in Wolcott.” Protected by a conservation easement, most of the 23+ acres now maintained by Community Counseling as the Pillwillop Therapeutic Farm site can never be developed, thereby ensuring that we can always Nurture in Nature.