A Gift of Land on Barrett’s Mill Road
As the year ended, the Land Trust was pleased to receive a gift of land from Elizabeth (Libby) Corey Bourquin: a small but lovely parcel on Barrett’s Mill Road next to the historic house where she and her sister Rosita Corey spent much of their childhoods.
The donation is just the last in a series of steps taken by Libby, her mother Dorothy and her sister to preserve the natural and historic landscape of Barrett’s Mill Road. Her mother’s gift of the Corey Meadow in 1985 was followed in 2006 by the bargain sale by Libby and Rosita of a large hayfield and woodland, now the Land Trust’s Corey-Bourquin Field. The most recent gift is a fitting addition to these almost 30 acres. Together, they create a scenic, natural buffer around the family homestead at 222 Barrett’s Mill Road that dates from 1671. The new, ½ acre parcel connects Barrett’s Mill Road to the hayfield to the north and, according to Libby, is a popular neighborhood pass-through and wildlife corridor.
This is how land conservation often happens – by the acquisition of individual parcels over time, by the accretion of conserved lands into a meaningful whole – a landscape or a habitat – and, as in this case, through the foresight and generosity of one dedicated individual, Libby Bourquin.
