FEATURE
Imagine the scene! Five hundred plus geese on the riverbank in Deeping Gate eating corn and leftovers to fatten them up for the Christmas table! John Huffer was the farmer whose family of farmers and smallholders can be traced back to the 1700’s in Deeping Gate. The coming of the railway in nearby Helpston had given them the opportunity to expand the poultry business and John born in 1830 to John and Sarah Huffer who had embraced the challenge and the culinary fashion to have goose on the Christmas table. As well as geese John bred turkeys and chicken and would employ two men at night to walk the river bank and fire off their guns occasionally to prevent opportunistic foxes and people trying to get a free meal. This did not stop a dog belonging to Mr Hides of Deeping Gate in April 1878 going amongst the flock of 61 goslings and killing all but one! The birds were worth about three shillings each and were sold to London Hotels and at the markets in Stamford, Market Harborough, Peterborough and Uppingham. At the zenith of his enterprise in 1881 he supplied London Club Houses and Hotels with 1200 geese and a number of turkeys and other fowl. Buyers wanted to see their geese alive and not trussed, plucked and hung as they do now and so the geese were taken alive to the station and to toughen up their feet they were walked through tar after they had been herded up like cattle.
boarding at the Crown & Anchor in Deeping St James. He was the Secretary of the Deeping Gate Pig Club of which his father was the President, having started up the Club in 1868. This successful business did not pass without incident. In 1875 it was reported in the Stamford Mercury that John had lost one of his workers. An inquest was held at the Black Bull with Mr Percival as the Coroner after the body of John Lambert, aged 75, had been found in the Welland. He had been a hardworking and trustworthy labourer for John Huffer for many years and that day was no different. Having had his supper and drink allowance at John Huffer’s he had left to go home a little after 10.00pm. It was thought that from the darkness of the night and the unevenness of the path at High Locks he had lost his footing and fallen in the river. He was wearing a large overcoat and this floated him down the river to Deeping St James Bridge where he was found drowned the next day, floating on top of the water – the verdict was accidental death. Calamity struck again in 1886 when at about 11.00 am on a Saturday morning a fire broke out in Mr Huffer’s stack yard. Smoke and flames were seen issuing from a large straw stack. Every means was tried by the neighbours to put the fire out but it was the Fire Engine under the direction of Mr Dean with an
Behind every great man is a woman, as they say, and for John this was his second wife Harriet Barker whom he had married in 1864 after the death in childbirth of his first wife Frances Beeson. With two children, Lucy and John, from his first marriage, and three from his second; Emily, James and Annie, the family played a large role in the community in Deeping Gate. John Junior did not marry but helped his father in the poultry business while continued >
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