From an old orchard near the 500-foot summit of Dean’s Hill above Still River Road, you can see Bare Hill Pond gleaming silver to the south. The Nashua River Valley sweeps westward to the ridge of hills that includes Mount Wachusett. To the east, the hill slopes down to the Bowers Brook wetlands.
Adding this orchard, with its panoramic views, to Harvard’s conservation land is the Conservation Commission’s top priority. In a March 2 public presentation, commission member Wendy Sisson described plans for the town to buy about 14 acres of the 24-acre parcel by combining a federal grant with support from Harvard’s Community Preservation and capital committees. Abutting landowner Peter Dorward would buy the other 9-plus acres and put it under a permanent conservation restriction.
An orchard full of memories
Some of the apple trees in the orchard are more than a century old, according to Chuck Davis, son of Charles and Patricia Davis of Concord, who have owned the orchard for the past 50 years. They have cataloged the heirloom varieties of apples, such as Wolf River and Baldwin, that grow on the ancient trees, while also planting many newer varieties. The Davises never lived in Harvard, but daughter Laura Verdibello of Westford recalled in a phone conversation that the family made many weekend outings to tend to the orchard.
At the meeting, Mark Finnegan of Oak Hill Road described how, as a kid, he had skied from the Tully land behind the Ryan athletic fields, up and over Prospect Hill, down Dean’s Hill to Bare Hill Pond, and across the pond to his home. And on that ski trip, he recalled, he’d seen Paul Willard, current chairman of the Conservation Commission, ice-fishing on the pond. “Strategically,” Finnegan said, “this land is one of the final key pieces in the puzzle” connecting several conservation areas.
Meeting town’s open-space goals
Acquiring the Davis land fits with many of the stated goals in Harvard’s 2016 open-space plan, Sisson said. Among these goals are protecting the rural character of the town, protecting agricultural land, and providing interconnected trails and walkways.
ConCom is applying to the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a federal program that is administered by the state, in hopes of getting a $300,000 grant toward the purchase of the Dean’s Hill property. That grant would reimburse the town for about half the cost of the purchase.
Sisson pointed out that the town will have 120 days if there is an offer on the property to exercise its right of first refusal, as the land is currently classed as agricultural. The commission needs to put together a budget to be able to respond, she said, but the matter will probably come up at an expected Special Town Meeting in September, not at the imminent Annual Town Meeting April 1.
The effort to acquire the Dean’s Hill land comes on the heels of ConCom’s unsuccessful attempt last year to buy Horse Meadows Knoll, on Harvard’s southeastern border. The commission’s application for a state grant was rejected last fall, blocking that purchase. Two private groups, the Harvard Conservation Trust and the Sudbury Valley Trustees, are currently seeking ways to protect the property.
