Fall, 2024

NEWSLETTER

There has been much community discussion this year about protection of open spaces, landscapes, viewsheds, and habitats on the Blue Hill Peninsula. We feel connections to so many spaces in our towns for a variety of reasons. They might be places we have frequently walked and explored. Or places that evoke memories of friends, neighbors, and loved ones. Maybe it's a view we have always known and can't imagine it ever being different than how it is today. So, it seems only fitting that we continue our look at how people in our community have worked with Blue Hill Heritage Trust to protected and conserved land dear to many of us for these very reasons.

Today Ben Emory shares how he and his late wife, Dianna, made the decision to purchase and protect land now referred to as the Dianna K. Emory Conservation Area.

On Route 172 in Sedgwick sits 79.6 acres of land that you may have noticed and appreciated because of the view. Or maybe this just part of the backdrop of Sedgwick that you haven't spent much time considering. Is this one of those spaces you just assume will always be there? Thankfully, it will be...

Much of this property includes an expansive view that changes with the seasons. This time of year it is dotted with autumnal colors, but during the height of summer its fields are alive with wildflowers, grasses, and a variety of other species who thrive in all nature has to offer them. Each fall the fields are cut and used locally for hay. The Dianna K. Emory Conservation Area (donated to BHHT in 2021) is open to the public with limited parking (that is yet to be formally established). Look for more information about this property in the near future on our website along with an onsite kiosk planned at the small parking area.

The following is Ben Emory's personal account of the process that he and Dianna, underwent to ensure that this open space they love remains largely unchanged for generations to come. It is with their help, and that of all our community donors, that Blue Hill Heritage Trust continues to conserving land, water, and wildlife habitat on the greater Blue Hill Peninsula.

The origins of the Dianna K. Emory Conservation Area’s belonging to Blue Hill Heritage Trust date back to a June 2002 executive committee meeting of the board. Peter Clapp and the late Pam Johnson urgently wanted us fellow committee members to consider what to do about Meadow Brook Farm – also known as Punchbowl Farm -- on Route 172 in Sedgwick. The family of Gordon Campbell, the recently deceased owner, wished to sell. Meadow Brook Farm straddled Route 172 six miles south of Blue Hill village and two miles north of Sedgwick village. From the road 68 acres of sloping hayfields, wetland meadows, and forest sweep southeastward to the edge of Meadow Brook just a short distance south of where it flows into the Salt Pond. The hayfields are cut by a second brook, Thurston Brook, which comes under the road and meanders among alders until it empties into Meadow Brook. The latter drains an extensive freshwater wetland known as Great Meadow, which extends south almost to the Benjamin River. For the Wabanaki the Benjamin River and Great Meadow provided a protected portage route from the Penobscot Bay region to Blue Hill Bay.

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