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The Trustees of Reservations | |
| Founded in 1891, The Trustees is the oldest private non-profit conservation organization in the USA, dedicated to preserving natural open spaces in Massachusetts for the benefit of all. | ||
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The idea for a non-profit land conservation organization originated with Charles Eliot, a landscape architect working in Boston near the end of the 19th century. In the 1880s, Eliot saw Boston's rapid industrialization and booming population threatening to engulf and destroy a priceless natural resource: open spaces with special features that made them particularly worthy of preservation. Eliot wrote a letter to Garden and Forest, a Massachusetts periodical, and proposed the organization of a special non-profit corporation, headed by a board of volunteer trustees, to claim, hold title to, preserve, and make available to the public those special areas of land "just as a Public Library holds books and an Art Museum holds pictures." A year later, the Massachusetts General Court voted to establish The Trustees of Reservations for this purpose. The list of unique natural areas, houses and gardens, beaches and other properties preserved by The Trustees has grown long and rich. For details, and to support The Trustees' work, see The Trustees of Reservations website. The Trustees of Reservations |
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The
Old Manse in Concord MA,
onetime home of the Emersons
and Hawthornes,
now preserved by The Trustees
of Reservations.
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