Buying the Farm: Peace and War on a Sixties Commune

Documents

M 193 N DOCUMENTS N Memo from Marshall, 1969 Excerpt from a draft for a founding document for Montague Farm. we are people who have travelld about a bit and now find ourselves here, where chaos stops at our border and Nature’s order and unity may begin. In joining together by the compact below, and signing each one ofus our own full names as if each were a unit distinct and whole apart from ourselves or the universe, we recognize that the event ofa vote taken among us is a temporary falling from the organic grace which we seek, an expedient used merely to save ourselves for the future possibility ofunity and trust regained. We hope those times when each must stand apart as a distinct unit and cast his vote, when the will ofsome may prevail over the will and understanding ofa single person or a few, are rare times and not vestiged with any false claims ofsanctimony, rather than mere base survival. For we are here to do our will, and Nature’s will, and seek a special unity ofour hearts, minds, bodies, homes, trees and river. we are pretty boy floyd associates, banded together as outlaws and renegades against that which is said to be lawful in the eyes ofsome. Our standards are our own or those ofall times; we dismiss the disunity, and unnatural world and laws ofthe society around us, with a pick ofour nose. We are each ofus independent sovereign states because we know and revere our dependence on others here and on Nature. this charter is a piece ofpaper written to give accepted and unnatural legal form to our sharing and caring, mostly because the pressures on us from the outside may at times be so great that we must have a strong buttress to meet them. 194 N DOCUMENTS MARSHALL’S WILL, 1969 N Nov.1, 1969 this is my last will and testament: all my property be given to a trust, Fellowship ofReligious Youth, the corporate directors ofwhich are those who live on our shared property in Montague, namely: Cathy Hutchison, John Wilton, James Tapley, Harvey Wasserman, Steve Diamond, Steve Marsden, Michael Curry, and others they shall name; that the executors of this will and testament are Raymond Mungo ofGuilford, Vt. and Daniel Keller of Wendell, Mass., that the exception to the above be such property in my second floor closet as Raymond chooses to dispose ofpersonally,* and Max, an Irish Setter, who is first to be offered to my parents and failing that is to be given to Daniel Keller, and my “papers,” such as they are, which are Verandah Porche’s ofGuilford, Vt. and Daniel Keller’s to dispose ofas they wish. Failing all this, in the event the legality ofthis document is not accepted, and my property reverts to my parents, Sam S. Bloom and Lillian Bloom ofDenver, Colorado, I charge them with executing the above provisions to the best oftheir ability. My love to all, especially my parents, and to too many to name here who have given me joy and love; would that my life could have been more help to them; I am sorry about all this, [Signed] Marshall Bloom *and for which purposes he shall be the first person to go through the closet 195 N DOCUMENTS TRUST DOCUMENT, 1970 N FELLOWSHIP OF RELIGIOUS YOUTH REALTY TRUST WE, CATHERINE HUTCHISON, JOHN WILTON, JAMES TAPLEY, HARVEY WASSERMAN, STEVEN DIAMOND, STEVEN MARSDEN, and MICHAEL CURRY, all ofMontague, Franklin County, Massachusetts, do hereby declare that we hold all the land and any other property, real, personal or mixed, ofwhatever nature which may simultaneously with the execution ofthis instrument or at any time hereafter be conveyed to us to be held as trustees ofthe FELLOWSHIP OfRELIGIOUS YOUTH REALTY TRUST for the following purposes and upon the following trusts: FIRST: To manage and maintain and improve the same and to invest and re-invest the property and proceeds ofthe trust. SECOND: The said trustees whose term shall include their successors, shall hold all the said property, funds and assets, now or hereafter held or paid, to or transferred or conveyed to said trustees or successors, as trustees hereunder, for the benefit ofthe members ofthe FELLOWSHIP OfRELIGIOUS YOUTH, an association ofindividuals residing at the present time on a farm located in Montague, Massachusetts, the original and to date the only members ofwhich Fellowship of Religious...