Stephen Gaskin, founder of The Farm, dies at 79 Stephen Gaskin — an often tie-dye-clad hippie philosopher, a proud "freethinker" and iconic founder of The Farm — died Tuesday morning at his home. He was 79. More than four decades ago, Mr. Gaskin — an ex-combat marine with crystalline blue eyes — led a caravan of nonconformists across the country, taking his band of beatnik brethren deep into the Tennessee woods and establishing what would become The Farm, one of the country's oldest surviving communes. It was the vision of a man who spoke with pride about the lineage of freethinkers from which he came. continued Stephen Gaskin Requiescat In Pace Thank God for Hippies
