Lunenburg‘s Cherry Hill Ice Cream is a beloved dairy bar situated in a barn off Leominster Road. It sprang from the scenic pastures of Cherry Hill Farm, just down the road.

The history of Cherry Hill Farm dates back to 1917 when Canada’s Soldier Settlement Board was established to place returned WWI veterans on working farms. One such veteran was Robert MacMillan, a Scottish immigrant to Canada. MacMillan was placed in Lunenburg, Massachusetts, as a farm manager for a family called the Browns. The Browns later sold the farm’s 90 acres to MacMillan.

Robert MacMillan passed to property to his son Doug, and his wife Marilyn, whom he met at the Lunenburg Grange. They raised vegetables, pigs, and of course, cows. The scenic hillscape surrounding Cherry Hill Farm was once dotted with dairy farms, but few remain.

In 2018, several years after Doug and Marilyn’s son Ray had assumed ownership of the farm, the iconic red barn and grain silo at Cherry Hill crumbled, killing one cow and crippling the dairy operation. Community members and other local farmers like Hollis Hills Farm’s Jim Lattanzi helped the MacMillans get back on their feet.

Part of the overwhelming response was from ice cream fans. The MacMillans had started a successful ice cream operation on the property in the 1990s. In 1998, a friend of the MacMillan family, Glen Shepherd, purchased the ice cream business alongside his brothers. Shepherd still runs the stand today with the help of his family. A second location — Cherry Hill Too — is located in Townsend.

Photo courtesy of Cherry Hill Ice Cream

Sources: farmaid.org, sentinelandenterprise.com, cherryhill-icecream.com