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03/28/2017 12:00 AMThe Madison Land Conservation Trust (MLCT) recently invited the public for a tour and dedication of its newest property: The Rettich Farm Preserve on March 26. With the weather starting to warm, the land, situated along the Hammonasset River, is open for the public to enjoy.
The Madison Land Conservation Trust, founded in 1964, is a non-profit organization and one of the oldest land trusts in the country. Run by a volunteer board, the trust oversees close to 1,700 acres of woodlands and wetlands across the town and maintains the nearly 35 miles of trail on the land.
The Rettich property is the newest addition to the trust and covers 11.2 miles. Fred and Rosa Rettich donated the land to the trust in their will, according to MLCT President Michael Maloney.
“I had met Fred a couple of times and he said that he felt it was really important that the land be preserved,” he said. “He said it was the last big piece of land along the river. That was really his wish.”
The land itself is a unique piece of property, according to Maloney.
“The most valuable attribute of the land is that it is largely meadow,” he said. “If there is a piece of land left to itself in this area, it really just grows up to be a forest; it doesn’t stay as a meadow. The fact that he was a farmer—he used to hay the field—means that a big portion of it is a meadow, which is an important habitat for a lot of different animals so that is one of the really special things about it.”
Fred Rettich passed away in 2013 and even though MLCT knew the land was coming to it, the trust had to wait for the will to be processed. The MLCT obtained the land in 2015, but Maloney said some work needed to be done before it was opened to the public, emphasizing the time and commitment of the land trust required to get a property ready.
“When we got it I want to say there were 20 buildings on the land and some of them were in really unsafe condition. One actually collapsed, so the land trust really couldn’t invite the public to go on the land if it wasn’t safe,” he said.
MLCT went through with a contractor and determined which buildings could be saved and which needed to be taken down. Now there are four buildings left on the property including a barn and a corncrib. The land was then opened to the public and the dedication took place.
“The land trust is very grateful for the vision of Fred Rettich in preserving this land that the whole town of Madison can now use forever,” Maloney said. “We can never thank the family enough and let them know how much we appreciate it.”
To learn more about the property or the Madison Land Conservation Trust, visit www.madisonlandtrust.org.