GRAY — Meandering down a dirt road onto Bull Run, where green meadows spread nearly to the horizon and white hay bales flank the land, a party celebrating 50 years of farming for the Wilson family of Wilsondale Farm drew more than 300 people Saturday.

It was a remembrance of the era of agriculture that brought a flood of memories from the guests who scanned albums of pictures and posters of memories commemorating family, agriculture and accomplishments.

Mike and Marilyn Wilson and their daughters and grandchildren said the gathering was a thank-you to all those who have been part of their lives over the past 50 years.

Errol Abbiton of Leeds, retired from the family dairy farm that goes back 200 years, had lots to say.

“We traveled in the same circles,” Abbiton said. “Our kids started in 4-H together. Mike was outspoken but said what was on his mind. We became friends,” said Abbiton, who sold his herd and leases his fields to area farmers.

“(Wilson) helped a number of young people who went on to being farmers,”  Abbiton said.

Glenn Wildes, retired dairy specialist for the Maine Extension Service, worked closely with the Wilson family.

“We tried to fit the needs of the dairy farming families,” Wildes said. “Now there are approximately 300 dairy farms in the entire state, where in 1959, there were 140 dairy farms in York County only.”

He said Mike Wilson set high goals at a young age.

“He had luck and knew his breed herd well,” Wildes said. “He kept the farm simple; hay, grain and husbandry of cattle came first. And, he had a hardworking wife.”

“It makes me feel old, but it makes me feel like I’m coming home again,” said Robert Lowe of New Gloucester who worked at the farm for four years when he was in high school in the 1960s.

He said the responsibilities and mentoring he received from the Wilson family helped give him a work ethic, a sense of responsibility and an appreciation of animals.

Lowe is now the service manager of the Big Rig Shop in Oxford where he serves the trucking industry.

Pineland farms purchased Wilsondale Farms from the Wilson family in 2001 with 900 acres. The Wilsons’ prizewinning 50-head Holstein dairy herd furthered the goal of Pineland Farms to develop a registered dairy herd and a dairy production facility.

In 1961, Mike and Marilyn bought the Karl Merrill farm that had been owned for more than a century, including a herd of registered cattle.

One of the cows at Merrill’s farm was Trina Redstone Marvel. “Old Trina” became the foundation of that well-known Trina family of cows.

The Wilsondale farm, with their friends and mentors, became one of the top Holstein breeders in the country.

Wilsondale genetics, especially from the Trina family, resulted in embryo transplants developed at the farm that were sent to England, Japan, Italy and other countries.

Bill Foster of Nottingham, England, flew to Boston for the party and talked about his company genus’ work with Wilson importing more than a thousand embryos from the Wilsons’ Trina family of cows bloodline to sell to farmers in England who were building up their stock in the 1980s and ’90s.

“We imported so many that now we don’t have to anymore,” Foster said. “There are now 20 generations of Trina Holstein offspring today. The cow’s bloodline can be traced back to the 1800s, imported from Holland.”

In 1975, the Wilsons earned the New England Outstanding Young Breeder award and the New England Master Breeder award in 1999; the farm also was a 19-time Premier Breeder at the Maine State Show.

The Wilsons won the second-highest breed average score in the country in 2001.

Tom Foster, president of the Windsor Fair, said, “I think it’s unique to the extent the family and grandchildren are involved with the farm. The Wilsons have a great work ethic.”

Roy Andrews, president of the Fryeburg Fair, said the Wilson family had participated for 48 consecutive years at the fair.

“The quality of his animals are some of the best in the country,” Andrews said. “What they’ve accomplished in 50 years is more than some. The livestock become better each year.”

The Wilsons now own 30 cows. A visit to the barn shows the continuing generations of offspring from “Old Trina.”

Mike and Marilyn continue to work for Pineland Farms’ Wilsondale dairy herd.

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