CORNISH — You’d think a family that’s lived in the same house for the last two-and-a-half centuries would know how to throw a party there at the drop of a hat.

But for the Fitchs, who have owned and lived on their 165-acre plot of land atop Dingleton Hill in Cornish since 1771, it’s taken roughly a decade to plan a celebration of 250 years of the deed on Fitch Family Farm. That celebration took place Saturday night under a white tent in a field overlooking the farm with around 200 guests, mostly of Fitchs and Fitch-in-laws, but also friends of the family and members of the Cornish community.

The town of Cornish’s 250th celebration in 2013 spurred an excitement within the family, particularly with his brother, Orville “Bud” Fitch, to do the same, said Jim Fitch, 70, who was caretaker of the farm before handing the reins over to his son Corey a few years ago. He spoke while waiting for one of the couple 4x4 ATVs ferrying people from the farmhouse up a field to the tent area and being driven by children.

The celebration was supposed to happen in 2021, the actual 250th anniversary of the year the Fitchs acquired the land, but concerns around COVID-19 delayed it to this year. Jim, along with Bud and their sister Martha, are considered part of the eighth of 10 consecutive generations to live on the farm, with Corey and his siblings being the ninth, and their kids the tenth.

Alfred Fitch (1861–1903), patriarch of the fifth generation of the family, is a common ancestor of four branches of Fitchs. Inside a small, blue tent posted outside the bigger white tent was a table featuring the family trees of each of those branches, including both living and deceased relatives.

It showed dozens upon dozens of living Fitchs. And they come from all over the place.

Jim, chuckling, said it would be easier to name the states where a Fitch doesn’t reside, mentioning that there were family members at the celebration from as far off as Nevada, Colorado, California and Missouri.

An all-day affair, the celebration started at 10 a.m. with a family tour at nearby Chase Cemetery, then a tour of the farmstead and barn. Signs propped up around the property highlighted just how lengthy the Fitch’s lineage really is and how each generation of the family put their own stake in the land: The farmhouse, built in 1795 by Hezekiah Fitch, still stands today, as does the adjacent horse barn, built in 1880 by Alfred (which is only still standing because Jim and his wife, reset the foundation in 1985).

The celebration was hindered somewhat by the inclement weather: While various members of the family, including Bud, Martha, Jim and Corey, spoke in front of the crowd about the past and future of the farm, other family members scrambled to unroll more of the tent’s walling to prevent whipping rain and wind from getting inside.

Corey explained to the crowd that he and his wife Deanna’s vision is to “integrate art into the farm” by holding educational classes there and potentially showcasing “installation art” in the property’s woods. He said they both have backgrounds in art and that they were inspired by the Cornish Art Colony and hope to continue that artistic tradition at the farm.

“Each generation has been able to make the farm their own and have their own vision of what they want to do,” Corey said. “It hasn’t always been a dairy farm for 200 years.”

Much of the land the farm resides on was conserved with the Upper Valley Land Trust in 2009. Bud said that would ensure the land is preserved “as much as you can, the way it is.”

“Nobody who inherits it further down the line really has much of a choice to say we're going to (build) a trailer park or housing development or something like that,” he said.

The town of Cornish identified Fitch Farm at the time as a “keystone property,” that plays a “vital role in the wildlife/conservation corridor extending from Yatsevitch Forest to the Connecticut River.”

The various party games located outside the tent — cornhole, an arts and crafts table for kids, and a bouncy castle — were rained out quickly. Only the younger kids had the nerve to continue playing outside while it rained sideways.

But inside the tent, despite the rain, moods were high. How couldn’t they be, when surrounded by so many friends and family?

Clinton Hughes, who’d operated the genealogy tent earlier in the evening with his wife, Kari Skinner-Hughes, watched intently as Kari went onstage and talked about her experiences as a kid visiting the farm and hearing stories about the glories of Fitchs’ past.

Hughes, 35, said it was his first time visiting the farm. He said he and Kari, who both live in Kansas City, Mo., got married right at the start of COVID and therefore had a very small wedding. In other words, this was the first event with his in-laws where he could see just how big the family is.

Earlier in the evening, he watched Kari help a family member from St. Louis answer a question about their ancestral tree. Hughes, who said he is half-Black and half-white, put into perspective how lucky the Fitchs are to know their family’s complete history.

“The Black side of my family (is hard to trace back) because of slavery, it makes it harder and harder to go back,” Hughes said. “Then I met Kari and her family is so big, you know, it was a shock to me because my family’s small, but they’ve all welcomed me.”

Ray Couture can be reached at 1994rbc@gmail.com.