Founders and Pioneers
On the occasion of our 40th anniversary celebration in June 2007, Fritz Gahagan spoke to an audience of former directors and friends of the Land Trust.
In his remarks Fritz said: “Our success did not just happen; it evolved over a long period of time. We don’t have to look far back to recall when the land trust was viewed as an idiosyncratic group of well meaning, but harmless, individuals. Wow, were they wrong! In hindsight we can recognize some of the strategies that worked and some other factors that I can only call our Lyme blessings. You, the early leaders of the Land Trust recognized that:
- conservation action had to begin with landowners & the strong emotional tie that every landowner has with their land; and
- that broad community support had to be built from the ground up; i.e. the hard way.”
Fritz continued “We [the Land Trust and the town of Lyme] are blessed, blessed with a number of things all of which, I believe, were necessary components of our success.
- We are blessed with resources of national and international significance.
- We are blessed with our landowners, who protected over 2000 acres of land, by gift, before there was ever money involved or it was the “Lyme” thing to do
- We are blessed with two farmers who were willing to sell their development rights to preserve farmland and a way of life.
- We are blessed with town leaders who had an open mind and were willing to see that conservation action was necessary to protect our town budgets and our traditional community values.”
Fritz concluded with: “All this resulted in something wonderful – what I call ‘community conservation consciousness’ which affirms and values the protection or our conservation resources. And so others came to live here who shared those values. Looking back these 40 years, it seems that we are blessed with a truly endangered phenomenon in the modern, east coast of the United States – a common ethos: a sense of who we are, what is important to us and, most important, a real commitment to take the responsibility to make it work – to live out our values.”
Fritz Gahagan was well qualified to address this group; three generations of his family have served as land trust directors.
Shirley Howard is to the best of our knowledge, the only remaining founder of the Lyme Land Conservation Trust. Shirley served as Secretary from 1967 to 1981. Read Shirley’s interview here.
Arthur Howe Jr. was the third President of the Land Trust from 1964-1972. Read Arthur’s interview here.
