Russell M. Davenport

Russell Maurice Davenport died April 7, 2020.

Russ was a farmer, maple producer, tinkerer, and strong until the very end. During his 90 years, he traveled every inch of Mt. Massaemet and loved farming and agriculture. He's survived by his wife of 67 years Martha (Hurd), who was always by his side.

Born in 1929, Russ learned at a young age how to make do with little and use Yankee ingenuity to make things go. Over the years he watched horses make way for tractors, mowing machines replace scythes, and square hay bales succeeded by round. In the 1960s he tried to harness the wind by building a windmill to power the farmhouse. The son of Maurice and Marguerite (Smith) Davenport, he was the eldest of four children, and is survived by his youngest sister, Martha Davis, and predeceased by his sister Ruth Crowell and brother Don.

Russ and Martha graduated from Arms Academy in 1947, with Russ as the president of his class. From there he traveled to England with the Future Farmers of America and went on to the Stockbridge School of Agriculture where he earned an associate's degree in Poultry Science. After their respective college graduations, Russ and Martha married in 1952 and settled into one half of the big farmhouse, where they raised five children: Marjorie, of Suwanee, GA; Christine Bochar, of New York City; Barbara Goodchild, of Shelburne; Norman, of Shelburne, and Abe, of Montague. He loved to hear about the accomplishments and exploits of his 11 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren, and to swap stories and family history at the many Davenport and Gould family reunions held at the farm.

Not one to sit still, Russ supplemented the moderate income to be had from milking a herd of registered Holsteins by building houses with George and Bucky Dole, plowing snow for the town, and operating a bulldozer for his cousin Bob Ormond. With Martha, he traveled to Poland, Romania, and China on agricultural "People to People" tours in the 1980s. From 1984 to 1988 he was a member of the town Planning Board and a Selectman from 1988 to 1997. In 2004 the Annual Report for the Town of Shelburne was dedicated to Russ and Martha, the same year he delivered the commencement address at Stockbridge.

He was Treasurer of the Arms Academy Board of Trustees; a trustee of the Shelburne Historical Society; factory representative and landscaper for Hillside Plastics; and longtime member of the Shelburne Grange, the First Congregational Church of Shelburne, and Harvest Club. Russ frequently rolled up his sleeve and donated over 25 gallons of blood through the American Red Cross.

Throughout his life, there was always maple syrup. Russ said he had sap running in his veins and would put syrup on everything - hot biscuits being a favorite. From the first slightly warmer days in February until the tree buds marked the end of the season, he tapped, gathered, boiled, and canned through three sugarhouses, first with wood slats as fuel, then oil, and then the state's first reverse osmosis machine. The current Davenport Maple Farm Restaurant was a dream realized in 1990, with sap pumped directly to the tanks - no more slogging on snowshoes over knee-high snow and muddy roads. For ten years, he and Martha greeted visitors to the maple booth in the Massachusetts building at the Eastern States Exposition, where Russ always had stories to tell to anyone who would listen.

His accolades were many: elected chair of the North American Maple Syrup Council and inducted into the North American Maple Hall of Fame in 1986, named Massachusetts Outstanding Tree Farmer in 1991, appointed to the state Board of Food and Agriculture in 1993 and became chairman in 1999, oversaw the complete rewriting of the North American Maple Syrup Producers Manual that was published in 1996, was awarded life membership in the Massachusetts Maple Producers' Association in 2001, was named the first of the 150 "Faces of Massachusetts Agriculture" in 2002, and was honored for his outstanding service by the international maple industry in 2004 in Lake Placid. Russ and Martha attended every NAMSC annual meeting for almost 40 years.

After he retired from farming, Russ put his vast memory of local lore to use and wrote a biography, The Sunny Side of Mt. Massaemet. He had a keen sense of history and the passage of time and thought it right to document the past for those in the future. He knew all the old roads on the mountain, where to find Yellow Lady Slippers, where to wait for the deer or wild turkey that would provide a tasty supper, and where to dip his baited hook to bring home a cache of trout for Martha to clean. Photography, a wood lathe, and catching striped bass and bluefish off Martha's Vineyard delighted him.

After years spent crouched under cows and doing hard physical labor, his knees and hips began to wear out and Russ stoically endured multiple joint replacements - six in all. His dedication to recovering after each one was akin to his dedication to the farm: the cows had to be milked and the hay harvested, no matter what. His strength was astounding, from how he could toss a hay bale onto the top of a wagon to how he could do a flip from the diving board of the swimming pond he dug for his family.

While sad at his loss, his family knows Russ is at peace. Gifts in his memory may be sent to the First Congregational Church, Russ Davenport Memorial, 21 Common Road, Shelburne, MA 01370.

Smith-Kelleher Funeral Home in Shelburne Falls is assisting the family. To send a message or memory to Russ's family, please visit www.smithkelleherfuneralhome.com