IN THE NEWS

Concord Monitor
Editorial: Earl of Sandwich


We applaud Denley Emerson's generosity.

Monitor editorial

Land has been one of the unsung gifts of the greatest generation. We couldn't begin to list the donations made to New Hampshire conservation organizations by those who bought property when, by modern standards, it was unimaginably cheap, held it, treasured and worked it for decades, then decided to preserve it.

Their names, though, appear on signs leading into town and state forests, parks and recreation areas. Sometimes the donation is not a gift outright.

It can come as a conservation easement or an agreement to sell the property for far less than it's worth. All such gifts, given the paltry resources the state devotes to preserving New Hampshire's landscape and quality of life, are invaluable. We'd like to single out one person today by way of saying thanks to many.

"I'd like to have this town remain unchanged - or at least approximately unchanged - for as long as it can," 85-year-old Denley Emerson of Sandwich told Monitor reporter Rebecca Tsaros Dickson. "It's a beautiful place and the pressure is so intense here."


Emerson, a local real estate broker, is planning to sell 800 acres of ecologically precious Sandwich Notch land at a good price to The Lakes Region Conservation Trust. Some of that land contains the last unprotected piece of the White Mountain National Forest. Some of it is home to Pulpit Rock, site of Sunday sermons by a local minister a century and a half ago. All of his land, Denley said, will be protected one way or another before he goes.

Thanks in good measure to such gifts - aided by ample fundraising efforts - the trust now protects some of the most beautiful land in central New Hampshire. Through that land the trust plans to create a 100-mile east-west hiking trail stretching from Mount Kearsarge, over Mount Cardigan, around Newfound Lake and south to Squam Lake.


Thanks to people like Denley Emerson, we've no doubt they'll succeed.

Monday, November 24, 2003