History
The Canton Land Conservation Trust is a non-profit conservation organization, which was chartered in 1972 by members of the Canton Conservation Commission to preserve the natural resources of the Town of Canton.
Starting with a $1500 grant from the Ford Foundation, the Land Trust’s earliest activities were designed to inform Canton residents of the Land Trust’s mission, to build support and membership, and to solicit donations of money and/or land. These activities included production of a sound-synchronized slide show, a logo contest conducted with cooperation of the Canton Public Schools, and a Newsletter.
The Land Trust’s first gift of land came to us through the generosity of Charlotte Craig. The Craig property is a lovely one-acre meadow located at the corner of Cherry Brook and East Mountain roads in Canton Center. Other early gifts included the Knode and Potter properties in Canton Center, which help preserve the aesthetic beauty of the Cherry Brook Valley. In the mid 1970s the Land Trust received the first of its large parcels. The Smith and Capen properties provide sanctuary for wildlife as well as places to hike and to observe and enjoy nature. In 1985 the Land Trust received a gift of 108 acres on Ratlum Mountain from Thomas M. Perry. Over the next decade, several additional gifts from the Thomas M. Perry Charitable Trust provided protection for almost 500 acres of mature and secondary forest. These generous gifts form a sanctuary in the Breezy Hill/Ratlum Mountain area, where much of Canton’s songbird population and other wildlife species are able to raise their young in relative safety from species such as raccoons, crows, and house cats that flourish as forests become fragmented.
In 1996 the Land Trust received the Mary Conklin property, a beautiful 107-acre tract of woodland and meadow on Indian Hill Road. This property, which includes the building that was the home of Mary Conklin, has been enrolled in the Connecticut Forest Stewardship Incentive Program, and is being managed according to a plan based on a detailed inventory of the forest. The Conklin property is also home of the Ramon Smith Trail, created in honor and memory of former CLCT president, Ray Smith. The Land Trust has published a walk book describing this trail.
In addition to these properties, the Land Trust has obtained easements on properties once owned by Sun, Wind and Woodland, and Jean and Hale Anderson, as well as land owned by the Humphrey family along Cherry Brook. In recent years, we have received gifts of land from Arthur Sweeton, Joan Kenny, Fred Swan, Jane Goedecke, Noel Baker, and Towpath Associates on High Street, Collinsville.
The Land Trust has been assisted by the State of Connecticut via State Open Space Grants. We received our first open space grant for the Sun, Wind and Woodland parcel. We have since purchased the Arnold property and the Sweeton Pasture Lot with the aid of State Open Space Grants. Our most recent purchase, the Uplands Preserve, is also being funded in part by a State Open Space Grant.
Land Trust volunteers, with the help of local Eagle Scouts, began extensive development of hiking trails in the early 1990s, to make Land Trust properties more accessible to Canton residents. The Charlotte Craig Trail, blazed on the Smith Farm in 1982, was the Land Trust’s first named trail. The Sweetheart Mountain Preserve trails on the site of the former Canton Ski Club were dedicated in 1992, and the following year the Ted Wright trail was opened, connecting the Ratlum Mountain preserve with the Smith Tree Farm. The Land Trust also established the well-received Trailblazer program for children aged five to eleven to encourage them to experience the wonder of their natural surroundings. The Land Trust has published a loose-leaf trail guide for those interested in exploring our walking trails.
Through the years, the Land Trust has enjoyed the support of Canton’s town government. The Board of Selectmen, the Finance Committee, the Town Planner’s Office, and the Conservation, Inland Wetlands, Planning and Zoning committees have all been steadfast supporters of the CLCT and its goals. The commitment of these bodies has been and continues to be crucial to the Land Trust’s success.
Today, the Canton Land Conservation Trust owns over 1,600 acres of undeveloped property and conservation easements. These holdings make it one of the largest land trusts in Connecticut in terms of property held. Stewardship of these properties is a great responsibility, which the Board of Directors takes very seriously. In 1998 The Board voted to conduct its affairs in compliance with the Standards and Practices for Land Trusts manual published by the Land Trust Alliance, a national organization in support of local land trusts, to assure land donors and the people of Canton that the CLCT is and will continue to be a carefully managed, healthy organization, capable of carrying out its important mission.
We are pleased with our achievements over the past three decades, and hope that our ongoing efforts will benefit Canton and our neighboring communities for generations to come.
--Edited Sep. 2006 by G. Tilton