Holiday Greetings

Wherever 

your holiday 

celebration takes you,

we wish you a safe, relaxing 

time spent with family and friends.  

Happy holidays from the Trustees of the 

Sandwich Conservation Trust.

2014 Is Coming to a Close

There are only a few more weeks until we roll over into the new year,

If you are thinking of making a tax free donation for the 2014 tax year, look no further.  The SCT is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization.  If you like, you may give a gift in honor of someone or in memoriam.

Your support helps us to preserve natural or undeveloped land in our beautiful town of Sandwich, for habitat protection, recreation, and visual beauty.

If you have any questions,please call:   508-888-7629


Our address:
Sandwich Conservation Trust
P.O. Box 531
East Sandwich, MA  02537 

November Take a Hike at Talbot's Point Photos

Thanksgiving

The SCT hopes you had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Why not head outside this weekend and walk some of our trails. If you do, feel free to bring some clippers or loppers and do a bit of trail maintenance while you are at it. It will help with working off all those Thanksgiving calories : ).

In just over 2 hours ...

It's a balmy day out there for November. Why not take a hike at Talbot's Point with the SCT! Meet at 2 at the E. Sandwich Grange Hall. Hope to see you there!

TAKE A HIKE - November 9, 2014

   

Take A Hike - Talbot's Point 

 

By John Nye Cullity 

This Sunday, November 9, 2014, at 2 P.M. the Sandwich Conservation Trust is sponsoring a walk to Talbot’s Point in East Sandwich, one of our oldest conservation preserves, and arguably one of our most beautiful. It is a 36 acre peninsula, lying in the middle of the inner marsh of Scorton Creek. It was once farmland, but is now nicely wooded.  Features of interest include beautiful perimeter and inner trails, a dark pine forest, views of the marsh, a flowing spring and two tiny islands.

 

We will begin the walk at the Grange Hall, at 91 Old County Road. When you park, please pull well off the pavement and avoid blocking any driveway. The hike will take about 1 ½ hours, is mostly easy walking, and will not be held if it is raining. If you have any questions, feel free to call me at (508) 888-7629.

Maple Swamp Hike

Photos from last month's hike on a lovely Sunday afternoon at Maple Swamp.  Thanks for joining us!

Take A Hike - October 2014

Take A Hike

Maple Swamp Conservation Lands

This aerial view of the Maple Swamp area was taken by the author in October 1986.  Within
 the preserve are features with names dating back to the 19^th century:  Sam Nye’s Mountain,
Zene Wright’s Swamp, Moody Fish’s Bottom, Deer Hollow and Millstone Rock.

By John Nye Cullity

The Sandwich Conservation Trust invites you to walk the hills and hollows of the Maple Swamp Conservation Lands this Sunday the 12^th at 2 p.m.  The entrance is at a parking lot off of Service Road, about half way between Exits 3 and 4.   

For those who don’t know the area, it is the largest conservation preserve in town - about 770 acres.  Most of the land is controlled by the Conservation Commission, though the Sandwich Water District and the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife own parcels as well.  The Maple Swamp itself is a couple of acres in the bottom of one of the hollows.  Historically, the lower areas closest to the Service Road were once pasture land, and the hills and hollows were woodlots owned by the various bayside farms.

The walk will be about an hour-and-a-half in length, and will be somewhat strenuous - there are some steep slopes and loose stones.  The walk will not take place if it is raining.  We ask that dogs not be brought along.  If you have questions call me at (508) 888-7629.

2014 SCT Annual Meeting

SCT Annual Meeting

to feature “A History of Fields in Sandwich”

Spring Hill area circa 1910

The Sandwich Conservation Trust will hold its annual meeting on Sunday, October 5th at the East Sandwich Grange Hall at 91 Old County Road.  The business portion of the meeting will begin at 2 p.m., and the featured program at 2:30.  The public is invited to attend.

The SCT is a non-profit organization, and has been working since 1985 to preserve open space in Sandwich.  216 acres are held in preservation through SCT ownership and conservation  restriction agreements with landowners.

The featured program will be a slide show and talk by SCT president and local historian John Nye Cullity entitled, “A History of Fields in Sandwich”.  The creation, uses, restoration and preservation of fields will be discussed and illustrated with photographs from the 1870s to the present.

The program is free, though donations are always appreciated. 

For more information, please contact:

John Cullity 508-888-7629                                   Joe Queenan 508-833-0861        

Images from Nye Pond to Scorton Creek Take a Hike on 9-14-14

Overlooking Nye Pond at the beginning of the walk.

Recently constructed fish ladder behind the Nye House.

"Forest art" alongside Marsh View Trail.

Believed to be the site of a small shipyard for coastal shipping.

Take a HIke

Nye Pond to Scorton Creek

This 1957 view shows Nye Pond flowing out to Cape Cod Bay through the 

East Sandwich Fish Hatchery near Old County Road, and the Game Farm

beyond.  Both of these Division of Fisheries and Wildlife facilities are now 

conservation land.

By John Nye Cullity 

The Sandwich Conservation Trust will continue its series of monthly walks this Sunday at 2 P.M. with an exploration of the East Sandwich water system and adjacent lands that begin at Nye Pond and flow out to Scorton Creek and the bay.

This system is one of three in Sandwich that begin as powerful springs which flow fresh for a bit before entering salt marsh.  The others originate in Upper Shawme Pond, and in the pond next to the Green Briar Nature Center at Spring Hill.  All three supported various water mills and many other historic uses, and all three experienced all sorts of manipulation - damming, filling, bridging, diversion, etc.  My ancestors did much of the fiddling around at Nye Pond and out to the marsh, and on this walk I will describe what was done. 

Equally interesting is Nature’s response to man’s imposed changes, including, finally leaving it alone.  To determine this we study the land carefully, along with old photographs, maps, documents and stories.  We can never know exactly what took place, but we can more or less trace the changes.  As always, we will take note of interesting trees and other vegetation and signs of wildlife that now exist.

This will be a fairly easy walk – no steep grades – but there may be a few roots, wet spots and puckerbrush.  It will last about an hour-and-a-half or so.  We will meet at the Grange Hall at 91 Old County Road – 2 P.M. – and please park on grass or gravel so that cars don’t protrude into the road or block driveways.  If it is raining the walk is cancelled.

If you are interested in the history of landscape change, you might enjoy attending the annual meeting of the Sandwich Conservation Trust at the Grange Hall on Sunday afternoon, October 5^th. SCT members will begin our business meeting at 2 PM, and I will be presenting a slide show and talk at 2:30.  The public is welcome to both.  Donations to help pay for the hall or support the SCT will be most appreciated.  

Fisherman’s Landing on Scorton Creek, once the site of a small 

shipyard, saltworks, and a dock for coastal shipping.  

Summer 2014 Newsletter

The Sandwich Conservation Trust Summer 2014 Newsletter has been mailed to members.  For those of you who are not members, we welcome you to join.

Click on the link to view the Sandwich Conservation Trust Summer 2014 Newsletter.

Please consider renewing your 2014 membership to the SCT.  If you are a member, you should have received an envelope with your copy of the newsletter. Please see our mailing address below if you wish to support the SCT:

Sandwich Conservation Trust
P.O. Box 531
E. Sandwich, MA 02537

Trails & Overgrowth

 

Spring is finally here and summer cannot be too far away.  However the good weather produces lots of foliage and this foliage sometimes over-grows and encroaches upon our trails.

 

The Sandwich Conservation Trust trail system is very limited.  We need volunteer help to maintain them in an acceptable condition.  If you think you could provide some help please contact me.

 

Thank you very much for your attention to this.

 

Joe

joe.queenan@comcast.net

Take a Hike - Joe's Woods

TAKE A HIKE 

 at Joe's Woods

with the Sandwich Conservation Trust

by John Nye Cullity

Hopefully by this Sunday the 18^th, the rain will have abated and we can meet at 2 PM to walk Joe’s Woods, off of Spring Hill Road.  We will meet at the Quaker Meetinghouse.  Directions: from the Route 6A and Quaker Meetinghouse Road intersection, go northerly over the railroad crossing, and take the next left, Quaker Road.  Look for the meetinghouse on the right, and please go in the second entrance, a bit up the hill.

This walk is mostly level and easy, and will last an hour or slightly more.  We will follow Roos Road (Yes, I will explain that name) to 7 acre Joe’s Woods, an SCT preserve donated in 1987 by Thomas Gelsthorpe.  From there we will take a large loop through a 30 acre town conservation property purchased by the town in 2000 using Land Bank funds.  This is a quiet area with a number of re-forested old cranberry bogs.  

There is no charge for the walk.  Be prepared for ticks, and no dogs, please.  The walk will not be held if it is raining.  

Daffodil Festival

Daffodil Festival

April 26, 2014

(despite the sometimes inclement weather)

Thank you to the organizers and participants of the 2014 Sandwich Daffodil Festival.  And, if you stopped by to see us, the SCT, THANK YOU!  A lot of dedicated individuals worked many hours to create the festival.  Despite the rain and wind, we still had a few thousand visit.  Bravo!

Entrance to the festival.

SCT display

Nancy showing a SCT produced map to an interested party.

Joe keeping warm with some tea.

All decked out for the rain.  Look at that smile!

Everything was weighed down due to the winds.

Club Day

EMS Club Day - Hyannis

Today through Saturday (May 1-3) is Club Day at EMS Hyannis for members of outdoor organizations.

What will a purchase get you?

• Up to 25% off full price in stock items and an extra 5% off camping gear.

Make sure you enroll in EMS Rewards while you are there (if you aren't already a member) and you will earn double points in the EMS Rewards program.  Don't worry, there is no key card to carry around - they use your phone number to keep track.

Daffodil Festival

Please Join Us:

Daffodil Festival

Saturday, April 26, 2014

10 a.m. - 4 p.m.

Oak Crest Field on Quaker Meetinghouse Rd.

Please stop by to say hi to us at the Daffodil Festival this Saturday at Oak Crest Field.  There will be something for everyone, including:

gardening events

master gardeners (bring a soil sample to be tested)

flower arranging competition

local artists

food

music

KID zone

Click below to see the official Daffodil Festival site for more info:

 Daffodil Festival

Earth Day 2014

April 22, 2014 = Earth Day

Original Earth Day advertisement in 1970

 

Have you noticed our signs around town to remind us of Earth Day and to support your local land trust in an effort to preserve our land?  You will also see us at the Daffodil Festival on Saturday - please stop by and say hi.

 

Earth Day, what is it?

Founded in 1970 as a day of education about environmental issues, Earth Day is now a globally celebrated holiday that is sometimes extended into Earth Week, a full seven days of events focused on green awareness. The brainchild of Senator Gaylord Nelson and inspired by the antiwar protests of the late 1960s, Earth Day was originally aimed at creating a mass environmental movement. It began as a “national teach-in on the environment” and was held on April 22 to maximize the number of students that could be reached on university campuses. By raising public awareness of air and water pollution, Nelson hoped to bring environmental causes into the national spotlight.

 

Earth Day History

By the early 1960s Americans were becoming aware of the effects of pollution on the environment. Rachel Carson’s 1962 bestseller “Silent Spring” raised the specter of the dangerous effects of pesticides on America’s countrysides. Later in the decade, a 1969 fire on Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River shed light on the problem of chemical waste disposal. Until that time, protecting the planet’s natural resources was not part of the national political agenda, and the number of activists devoted to large-scale issues such as industrial pollution was minimal. Factories pumped pollutants into the air, lakes and rivers with few legal consequences. Big, gas-guzzling cars were considered a sign of prosperity. Only a small portion of the American population was familiar with–let alone practiced–recycling.

 

Did You Know?

A highlight of the United Nations' Earth Day celebration in New York City is the ringing of the Peace Bell, a gift from Japan, at the exact moment of the vernal equinox. Elected to the U.S. Senate in 1962, Senator Gaylord Nelson, a Democrat from Wisconsin, was determined to convince the federal government that the planet was at risk. In 1969, Nelson, considered one of the leaders of the modern environmental movement, developed the idea for Earth Day after being inspired by the anti-Vietnam War “teach-ins” that were taking place on college campuses around the United States. According to Nelson, he envisioned a large-scale, grassroots environmental demonstration “to shake up the political establishment and force this issue onto the national agenda.”

Nelson announced the Earth Day concept at a conference in Seattle in the fall of 1969 and invited the entire nation to get involved. He later recalled, “The wire services carried the story from coast to coast. The response was electric. It took off like gangbusters. Telegrams, letters and telephone inquiries poured in from all across the country. The American people finally had a forum to express its concern about what was happening to the land, rivers, lakes and air—and they did so with spectacular exuberance.” Dennis Hayes, a young activist who had served as student president at Stanford University, was selected as Earth Day’s national coordinator, and he worked with an army of student volunteers and several staff members from Nelson’s Senate office to organize the project. According to Nelson, “Earth Day worked because of the spontaneous response at the grassroots level. We had neither the time nor resources to organize 20 million demonstrators and the thousands of schools and local communities that participated. That was the remarkable thing about Earth Day. It organized itself.”

On April 22, rallies were held in Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles and most other American cities, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. In New York City, Mayor John Lindsay closed off a portion of Fifth Avenue to traffic for several hours and spoke at a rally in Union Square with actors Paul Newman and Ali McGraw. In Washington, D.C., thousands of people listened to speeches and performances by singer Pete Seeger and others, and Congress went into recess so its members could speak to their constituents at Earth Day events.

The first Earth Day was effective at raising awareness about environmental issues and transforming public attitudes. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, “Public opinion polls indicate that a permanent change in national priorities followed Earth Day 1970. When polled in May 1971, 25 percent of the U.S. public declared protecting the environment to be an important goal, a 2,500 percent increase over 1969.” Earth Day kicked off the “Environmental decade with a bang,” as Senator Nelson later put it. During the 1970s, a number of important pieces of environmental legislation were passed, among them the Clean Air Act, the Water Quality Improvement Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Toxic Substances Control Act and the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act. Another key development was the establishment in December 1970 of the Environmental Protection Agency, which was tasked with protecting human health and safeguarding the natural environment—air, water and land.

Since 1970, Earth Day celebrations have grown. In 1990, Earth Day went global, with 200 million people in over 140 nations participating, according to the Earth Day Network (EDN), a nonprofit organization that coordinates Earth Day activities. In 2000, Earth Day focused on clean energy and involved hundreds of millions of people in 184 countries and 5,000 environmental groups, according to EDN. Activities ranged from a traveling, talking drum chain in Gabon, Africa, to a gathering of hundreds of thousands of people at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Today, the Earth Day Network collaborates with more than 17,000 partners and organizations in 174 countries. According to EDN, more than 1 billion people are involved in Earth Day activities, making it “the largest secular civic event in the world.”

(Source:  www.history.com/topics/holidays/earth-day)

Great Hill Take a Hike Photos

Thanks to all who came out to join us for a hike up Great Hill last Sunday.

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

Take a Hike with the Sandwich Conservation Trust

By John Nye Cullity

The SCT will begin this year’s series of second-Sunday walks, Sunday, April 13th, at 2 PM with the straightest one we have, the trek along the Barnstable-Sandwich town line. The walk begins at Service Road, about half a mile east of Exit 4, and goes in a straight line to Great Hill. Here we find the closest thing we have to a dramatic crest on Cape Cod, with a nice view towards Nantucket Sound, at an ear-popping 230 feet above sea level. This is a good time of year to visit this elevated spot. With the absence of foliage we can see the topography through the trees.

The habitat is dry pine-oak woods, livened up by hills and valleys as we make our way to the top. The land to the east is the 1200 acre West Barnstable Conservation Area, and to west is a long strip of privately owned land that is held in a conservation restriction with the SCT. Through the generosity of the landowners the public is allowed to pass.

This section of walkable town line was created in the early 1950s, when the clearing was bulldozed to create somewhat of a fire brake and better access to the woods. My guess is that this action was inspired by the great forest fire of 1946, when much of South Sandwich, and even part of East Sandwich was burned over.

The walk will last 45 minutes or so. It is a strenuous walk in that there are some steep slopes, loose stones, and probably some branches down after our long winter, so please be prepared. The hike will not be held if it is raining.

Parking is best along the south side of Service Road; make sure you are well off the road. There is no charge for the walk. No dogs, please. Call me at (508) 888-7629 if you have questions.

Laffoon Preserve

On January 21, 2014, the Sandwich Conservation Trust accepted a land donation in E. Sandwich.  The property was deeded to the non-profit SCT by Christine Marrs and Daniel Laffoon of the Nancy J. Laffoon Trust.  The parcel, consisting of ¾ of an acre of salt meadow, is situated on Long Creek, just south of North Shore Boulevard.  Thank you to the Laffoon family for this gift of land.

John Cullity has provided the following photos of the property: