Are you old enough to remember the days when milk was delivered to your home in glass bottles? In the collection of the Portsmouth Historical Society is a calendar advertising the Fairholm Dairy. Located on West Main Road by Hedly Street, it was started by Mervin Briggs and later was run by family members. The dairy developed into a wholesale and retail establishment. As a family business, Mervin’s sons Barclay, Frederick II and Ernest Briggs all had roles to play. By 1970 it was operated by Mrs. Frederick Briggs and sons Frederick, David and Richard.
Newspaper accounts in 1953 show that the Briggs family had a championship Guernsey cow named Fairholm Senator’s Coronet – that produced 10,423 pounds of milk and 483 pounds of butterfat. In 1949 when the Glen Guernseys was sold at auction, Mervin Briggs bought one of the Glen Farm prize cows.
Mervin was a dedicated member of the Friends Church in Portsmouth and he played an active role in agricultural interests in the town. One account lists him as a “Extension Minuteman” who would help to survey Portsmouth farms for food supply in 1943.
portsmouthhistorynotes 
Dec 21, 2021 @ 15:27:02
As a boy I went to the farm many times. “Uncle Mervin” often gave me a carton of coffee milk from the packaging line. My father worked on the farm for his uncle Mervin as a boy. Uncle Mervin was an avid sailor and restorer of sailing ships. I was told by Ernest that there was an article in Providence Sunday Journal on the Sailing Farmers-I have been looking for years but have yet to find it. Uncle Mervin had a champion bull named Lucky Strike pictured on a farm calender.