Three centuries before Steve and Joan Belkin of Weston, Massachusetts purchased Lookout Farm in 2005, Natick was just a small settlement west of Boston. In 1650, Minister John Eliot (whose name now graces the town’s Eliot School and the Eliot Church) and a group of settlers paddled down the Charles River in canoes and made their home by the fertile shores of the river. This group later established the farm.

Over the years, Lookout Farm has become one of the oldest working farms in the country, and an important part of the history of South Natick. Originally, the land yielded beans, turnips, strawberries, and grapes. Eliot and his community were friendly with the Native Americans who inhabited the area, which was known to them as “the place of the hills.” Today, this “place” is Lookout Farm.