Schiff Natural Lands Trust Turns 40!

Schiff Natural Lands Trust Celebrates 40th Anniversary in 2024

Mendham, NJ – Schiff Natural Lands Trust (Schiff) will celebrate its 40th Anniversary in August. 40 years, two generations of time, spent on conservation and preservation of land that has hosted countless peoples over millennia. Schiff’s board recognizes the responsibility it has to care for land that across time has provided food and shelter to indigenous people, farmland to raise food and dairy products, habitat for countless species and now, also supports health through exposure to the benefits of being in nature. Our Mission to foster an understanding and appreciation of the natural world through land preservation, environmental stewardship, education, and passive recreational activities, continues this legacy.

OUR PAST

Historically, the local Lenni Lenape likely used the sheltered valleys to provide trail corridors and food resources. Native American artifacts have been found along the streams in the Ralston area and on the Schiff Preserve.

For much of the 18th and 19th centuries, the land that is now the Schiff Nature Preserve was made up of family farms. Beginning in 1912, the family of Richard Henry Williams Jr. began buying up many of the old family farms in the area, in the process creating the nearly 600-acre country estate they called Brookrace, part of the Mountain Colony of the Somerset Hills. In 1931, within months of each other, but unknown to one another, Richard H. Williams Jr. of Brookrace and Mortimer Loeb Schiff, the recently elected president of the Boy Scouts of America (“BSA”), died. After a wide search, the BSA settled on buying the bulk of the Brookrace estate from Richard Williams’s widow, Julia Lorillard Edgar, where the organization could establish a national training center for scouting leaders.

In 1979 the BSA moved its headquarters and national training center to Texas. AT&T acquired the Schiff property and announced plans to develop it as a large-scale management training and conference center. The plans provoked much public opposition and AT&T ultimately abandoned the project. In 1983 AT&T sold the property to the Trust for Public Land, an intermediate owner.

As no governmental body stepped forward to acquire the property from the Trust for Public Land to preserve it as open space, alternate plans were made to sell the property to a private entity that would develop part of the land with the balance to be dedicated as preserved open space. The Schiff Natural Lands Trust (SNLT) was incorporated in 1984 to serve as the steward for what would eventually be the undeveloped portion of the land. In 1997, SNLT took title to 310 acres of the original 500, and the boundaries of the reservation were shifted farther eastward with the addition of 40 acres, donated by the Farrelly family. Many people strived to save Schiff from development and have become legendary in the stewardship of open space. Of those, names like Catania, Davidson, Farrelly, Hayden, Parker, Porter, Thomas, and Willemsen stand out. From 1997 until 2014, Schiff primarily focused its activities on further land acquisition. Since 2014, Schiff’s strategic focus has been on land management and program development.

OUR FUTURE

We hope you will experience the Preserves for yourself by participating in a Full Moon Hike, Maple Sugaring, Environmental Film Fest, or Music in the Woods. Improve your mental and physical health by attending Singing Bowls or sitting in the Great Meadow listening to bird song. Children can also benefit through our environmental education, including the Fledglings and Summer Nature programs.

SUPPORT SCHIFF

In this anniversary year, please consider how much Schiff offers you while hiking, attending programs on the Preserves or living next door. What impact can you make on this land through supporting SNLT conservation and preservation? A few suggestions, if you are not sure; become a member, donate, volunteer on a committee and on the trails, or attend the Farm to Table Dinner benefit, our largest annual fundraiser.

40 years of stewardship layered over millennia of natural balance and growth. Shoes for the forest may have changed in design from deer hide to Gortex, but we hope the impact of the footsteps are just as light, leaving the land to flourish for generations to come.

Schiff Natural Lands Trust has preserved 786 acres of land for open space, passive recreation, and to protect and provide natural habitats for native plant and animal species in our region of New Jersey. Schiff Nature Preserve serves as a model of environmental stewardship and invites volunteers, schools, and scout groups to help work on the preserve through our Volunteer Work Sessions. The Maple Sugaring Demonstration Days, Annual Environmental Film Festival, Music in the Woods, and Summer Nature Program for Kids are just a few of their most popular programs. Schiff is a nonprofit organization that depends on annual memberships to support its operations. To find out more information on membership, volunteerism, and more at www.schiffnaturepreserve.org.