1. Preservation History of the Estabrook Woods: please click here.
2. Community perception of 1960's undertaking as one of joint stewardship of Estabrook's protection.
At the present writing in September of 2005, the Middlesex School is persistently advancing its plans to develop at least 2000 feet into its part of the Estabrook Woods with a causeway, road, athletic facilities, utilities, and a sewer. It has cut and cleared the first phase, and plans to build a 300-foot bridge into the Woods in 2006. Future development in its "Area B" would be even deeper in the Woods, to within sight of the old Estabrook road. On Oct. 7, 1998, the then-retired Dr. Ernst Mayr, former director of the MCZ, wrote the author the following, objecting to the School's plans:
"The news...is indeed most distressing....Monk Terry, at that time headmaster of Middlesex School, was one of our most enthusiastic supporters [in preserving the Estabrook Woods]. We did not have to buy this land because at that time Middlesex School was as passionately for the preservation of their piece of Estabrook Woods as we were. I am afraid there was no formal agreement on that point, but it was a 'gentleman's agreement.' I am sure Monk Terry would be horrified about [the School's] present plans."
This is absolutely consistent with Monk Terry's commitment to a 1400-acre forest preserve east of Bateman's Pond (click here for Mr. Terry's important statement). It is also consistent with the memories of MCZ Curator Barbara Lawrence and Acting Concord Field Station Director Charles Lyman. (See, Letter, B. Lawrence (Schevill) to Concord Journal, Dec. 8, 1996; and letter, Acting CFS Director C. Lyman to M. Fraser of Estabrook Woods Legal Defense Fund, Concord Journal, May 21, 1970.)
Click here to go to a page of text and hyperlinked maps:
At risk:
A "dream," a "gentleman's agreement,"
and an act of joint stewardship
Fourteen documents proving that the original intent was that inner Estabrook Woods should remain free from development.
The texts are from Middlesex Headmaster Monk Terry, officials of the MCZ, the CLCT, the Concord selectmen, retired Middlesex officials, a witness to a 1960s deed-signing, and press accounts.
This was the perception of the community at the time, and people relied on this perception when citizens and foundations donated funds for the purchase of the Harvard land abutting Middlesex School.
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Some Middlesex School students and graduates continue to hope that this project will happen elsewhere. In the fall of 1995, four hundred petitions from graduates supporting the preservation vision and opposed to the development in Estabrook Woods were bound and presented to the School's Trustees. The Concord Land Conservation Trust and sympathetic Middlesex alumni/ae have purchased an alternate site, the Jenks site, worth $400,000, and offered it to the School without charge, but without success. And in 2004 and 2005 the school was offered $5 million to endow, with Harvard's support, a joint environmental studies program in Estabrook Woods, which would have carried out the original vision. But the school declined.
When asked how to reconcile this history, this "gentleman's agreement," with current plans, one Middlesex School official replied, "That was then and this is now."
3. Detailed 1992-2000 Chronology of Current Middlesex Project
Here is a detailed project chronology by Carol Dwyer and me. It covers the significant events of the last eight years through April 2000. It is good for true Estabrook junkies or for students that really want to dig in to this complex and controversial issue. Click here.
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