McCarthy Farm Conservation Area in Rockland Dedicated

By Scott MacFaden, Director of Land Protection

On October 21, the Town of Rockland dedicated its newest open space preserve—McCarthy Farm Conservation Area. Comprising 36 acres in extent, the Farm is situated on the west side of Beech Street in southwest Rockland, bordering the Town of Hanson and closely proximate to the southeast corner of the Town of Whitman. 

Rockland Open Space Committee Chair Don Cann Makes Short Work of the Ribbon

Until recently, McCarthy Farm was one of two remaining active farms in Rockland and one of the largest remaining unprotected, privately-owned properties in the town—thus a high priority for preservation.

Louise McCarthy and her family acquired the property in 1952 and maintained a small-scale working farm for many decades. Among other agricultural endeavors, the McCarthys raised chickens and cultivated various types of flowers. 

With Louise’s departure from the premises several years ago due to ill health, the property was effectively abandoned, and its era as an active farm relegated to history. In March 2021, Louise’s heirs entered into a purchase and sale agreement with a developer who sought to convert a portion of the farm into 36 units of residential housing. Fortunately, the farm was enrolled in Chapter 61A, and the Town therefore retained a right of first refusal on the property. The Chapter 61 Programs allow owners of qualifying open space lands, including farm and forestland, to receive significant reductions in their property tax assessment in return for keeping their land undeveloped. Chapter 61 is for forestland, Chapter 61A is for agricultural land, and Chapter 61B encompasses open space lands not falling into either of the other two chapters. Municipalities retain a right of first refusal to purchase land enrolled in any of the Chapter 61 programs if the landowner seeks to sell their land for development or develop it themselves. 

Rockland open space preservation advocates successfully mobilized an effort to encourage the Town to exercise its first refusal rights, and after considerable deliberation the Town’s Board of Selectmen did vote to exercise that right.

Rockland voters approved the purchase of the farm at a Special Fall Town Meeting on September 13, 2021, and the Town closed on the land on December 29, 2021. The Town used a combination of Community Preservation Act (CPA) funds and “LAND” Grant funds from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to acquire the property. As part of ensuring compliance with CPA requirements, the Town is granting a Conservation Restriction (CR) on the property to Wildlands Trust. This CR will represent Wildlands’ first acquisition of any kind in the Town of Rockland, and we are pleased to welcome the town as a partner in our regional land preservation efforts. 

Despite its history as a working farm, the majority of the property is wooded. The area that was farmed is along the property’s southerly boundary and adjacent to the former McCarthy farmhouse. A small pond that was likely expanded and deepened during the McCarthys’ tenure is in the approximate center of the property. The summit of the 122-foot-high Rye Hill is located in the property’s southwest corner. It also includes at least two potential vernal pools.

Topography ranges from level to gently rolling. Pockets of wetland habitat are interspersed throughout, with the largest area of wooded swamp in the property’s southeast corner. Two intermittent streams flow through the property that are tributaries of French’s Stream, a North River tributary.

The property now includes a trailhead parking area and an approximately one-mile hiking trail loop that provides visitors with ample opportunities to enjoy a leisurely woodland stroll.

McCarthy Farm Conservation Area sits within a corridor that includes numerous undeveloped parcels, some of which are preserved. Directly abutting to the west is a 10-acre parcel owned by the Town of Rockland, and directly abutting to the north and northwest, respectively, is a 30-acre undeveloped parcel owned by the adjacent Town of Whitman that was formerly part of a Girl Scouts Camp, and a 12-acre privately owned undeveloped parcel. In the larger landscape context, there is the potential for future connections to the Town of Rockland’s Beech Street Conservation Area, situated approximately 0.6 mile to the northwest.

Congratulations to all the town officials and volunteers whose collective efforts ensured McCarthy Farm’s permanent preservation. Town Administrator Douglas Lapp, and particularly the members of the Rockland Open Space Committee, deserve special mention for their unceasing commitment to the preservation effort. We at Wildlands have an acute understanding of how difficult it can be to protect land enrolled in Chapter 61A within the crucible of a proposed conversion to development, a process that in many ways places all concerned under significant logistical, financial, and temporal duress. Future generations of Rockland residents will owe a debt of gratitude for the perseverance of those who accepted the challenge of preserving McCarthy Farm.

Wildlands' Governance News 2022

It’s always hard to say goodbye to long-serving, knowledgeable, committed board members. With their fingerprints on so many of our protected lands projects, Howard Randall and Gary Langenbach combined had 60-plus years of service to Wildlands by the time they retired from the Wildlands board this past September. We thank them both for their many years of service to our mission. Howard has served as past Board Chair, and Gary as the Chair of the Lands Committee. We would also like to thank Allen Caggiano, who stepped down after nearly a decade of service.

The board voted in a slate of new members, and we are delighted to welcome Matt Cammack of Milton, Russ Keeler of Rochester, Peter Tyack of Hanover, and Ethan Warren of Plymouth.

Hats Off to Tower Fest

On Saturday, October 8, the D.W. Field Park Association, a nonprofit organization dedicated to celebrating D.W. Field Park, brought back the annual Tower Fest after a 2-year Covid hiatus, with great success! 

Tower Fest is a celebration of community located at the well-known lookout tower in D.W. Field Park, formerly the highest point in Brockton. This free festival has plenty to do for all ages, with pony rides, pumpkin painting, a bake sale, balloon animals, music with the Rose Conservatory, and of course, climbing to the top of the tower. This year, Wildlands Trust was invited promote the D.W. Field Park Initiative, of which the Association is a key partner. 

Wildlands’ goal at Tower Fest was to pilot our newly completed community survey about D.W. Field Park. Our goal in surveying the community is to learn how people are using the park currently, what kind of improvement projects would be important to park users, and what access barriers there might be for both users and non-users. The survey is live online now at wildlandstrust.org/dwfieldpark in English and will soon be available in Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Cape Verdean Creole, and Spanish. 

Director of Special Projects Rachel Calderara had a great time chatting with community members and encouraging survey takers to spin the prize wheel. We want to thank the City of Brockton Department of Parks and Recreation, the Fuller Craft Museum, and the D.W. Field Park Association for donating prizes, which included a golfing gift card, free organizational memberships, and bake sale items. Wildlands threw in a few free memberships, Halloween candy, and some $5 Dunkin gift cards, and the prize wheel was a hit! Over 70 people completed the survey, so we’re off to a great start.  

If you live in Brockton or the surrounding towns and have a few minutes to tell us about your experiences at D.W. Field Park, please complete our survey at here. 

A big thanks to the Old Colony Planning Council for developing this survey with us!  

Late Summer Land Acquisitions Update

By Scott MacFaden, Director of Land Protection

Thus far in 2022, we’ve completed a variety of projects across our coverage area that protect a diverse array of habitats and conservation values, including properties on two of the region’s major rivers.

In February, we completed the first two phases of a long-contemplated project that will create our first preserve in Plainville. These first two steps involved adding another two acres to the 33.5-acre Conservation Restriction (CR) we’ve held on lands of the Crystal Spring Center for Ecology, Spirituality, and Earth Education Inc., since 2008, and then assigning the expanded CR to another qualified nonprofit conservation organization—the Attleboro Land Trust. With those steps concluded, the third and final step will transfer the “fee simple,” or outright ownership of the property, from Crystal Spring to Wildlands Trust. We expect that final transfer to occur before year’s end.

A drone's view of Sylvester Field and the Indian Head River in Hanover. Photo by Jerry Monkman.

In June, we acquired five acres in Norwell along the North River that protects important habitat for marsh wrens. Donated by the Estate of Clayton Robinson, the parcel represents the culmination of the Sylvester Field Preservation Project, through which we previously protected 20 contiguous acres along the Third Herring Brook in nearby Hanover.

In late July, we purchased 30 acres on Halfway Pond in Plymouth that was the largest remaining unprotected parcel on the pond’s west shore, and consequently one of our longest-standing preservation priorities. The property includes pockets of Pine Barrens, a globally rare natural community, and directly abuts and expands our Halfway Pond Conservation Area, now over 460 acres in extent and one of the crown jewels of our protected lands portfolio.

Most recently, in the waning days of August we protected 11.7 acres in Lakeville along the upper Nemasket River through the combination of a deed restriction and a two-acre land donation. This hybrid project protects over 900 feet of linear frontage along the Nemasket, a major tributary of the federally designated Wild and Scenic Taunton River.

Morning fog on Halfway Pond in Plymouth. Photo by Jerry Monkman.

We’re working to close more projects by year’s end, including the third and final phase of the Plainville project, and projects in Bridgewater, Scituate, Rockland, and Hanson.   

Watch this space!   

Staying the Course to Protect Atlantic Coastal Woodlands

Read Time: 3 min

By Karen Grey, Executive Director

As we were sealing the fate of the newest addition to Wildlands’ 550-acre Halfway Pond Conservation Area this past July, one of the sellers remarked, “Can you believe we started talking about this seven years ago?” He was surprised when I explained that it’s not unusual for projects to take a decade (or sometimes two) from start to finish. Establishing trust with those contemplating the fate of their land is the lynchpin to success, and building that trust requires an investment of time from both parties. Often, the landowner is surprised at how long a project can take, but rarely are we.

Wildlands Trust has methodically worked to build the relationships necessary to protect the last four privately held parcels within our largest holding, the Halfway Pond Conservation Area in Plymouth, for the past thirty years. We successfully protected three of the four parcels by 2015 before turning our sights toward the jewel in the crown, the 30-acre property owned by the Advaita Meditation Center (AMC), headquartered in Waltham. AMC had purchased the land and its accompanying 11,000-square-foot building as a retreat center in the 1980s, and by 2015, its aging membership was rethinking the organization’s future. For the past seven years, we have worked with AMC to contemplate a purchase of the property by Wildlands that would include a term tenancy for AMC to continue using the retreat center several times a year. On July 26, 2022, we celebrated the consummation of this win-win-win scenario for Wildlands, AMC, and the people of Plymouth.

Halfway Pond Conservation Area is a significant holding within the Atlantic Coastal Woodland (ACW), a 20,000-acre forested corridor in Southeastern Massachusetts spanning from Carver and Wareham in the west and through Plymouth to Cape Cod Bay in the east. Wildlands Trust has focused much of its work over the last 50 years on protecting this landscape, recognized as the largest contiguous forest in one of the fastest-growing regions in the Northeastern United States. The ACW is an intact ecosystem home to globally rare pine barrens and coastal plain ponds with huge sections uninterrupted by roads and development. Other iconic landscape features of the ACW include wooded wetlands, cranberry bog complexes, and a mosaic of pitch pine, scrub oak, and scattered ponds with rare species found nowhere else in the world; ACW has the second-largest remaining tract of Coastal Pine Barrens worldwide. Globally rare plants sit upon deep glacial deposits to filter and protect the largest drinking water aquifer in Massachusetts, the Plymouth-Carver Sole Source Aquifer.

Large-scale development projects continually threaten to fragment and denigrate the ecological integrity of this vital landscape. We are delighted that this property is now permanently protected. Plans are underway to expand trail systems and establish a stewardship training center on the property.