NORWAY — The Western Foothills Land Trust has announced the award of an $11,000 grant from the William P. Wharton Trust.
The money will be used to acquire an additional 97 acres of land adjacent to Witt Swamp, said Lee Dassler of the land trust in a recent statement.
Witt Swamp is a 141-acre preserve acquired by the land trust in 2004. It was named for Benjamin Witt, one of the founders of Norway, and was part of the Cummings Mill holdings. In 2007, Keys North LLC donated a 60-foot-wide access corridor connecting the then-landlocked preserve to the trailhead on Pleasant Street.
Since that time, the preserve has been developed with a trail system, a sign, a small kiosk and a small parking area, which was established in 2009.
Dassler said the acquisition will protect an additional 4,301 feet of Witt Brook, double the wetland acres protected by Witt Swamp Preserve, and provide upland buffer to the wetlands.
“The buffer will allow for a two-mile, year-round, nonmotorized trail, linking the Witt Swamp trailhead on Pleasant Street with Shepard’s Farm Family Preserve trailhead on Crockett Ridge Road,” said Dassler in the statement. “This 2.5-mile trail will create a much-needed link for hikers, skiers and snowshoers, as well as for walkers and trail runners and mountain bikers, who want a five-mile mixed trail/road loop from Main Street, Norway.”
The 20-acre Shepard’s Farm Family Preserve, which is contiguous with the Witt Swamp Preserve, was donated several years ago by the Bill Detert family of Norway in recognition and appreciation for the many years the family has spent in the community.
The William P. Wharton Trust was created in 1976 after Wharton’s death. Wharton, who was born in 1880, was considered a pioneer for his lifelong support of the study and conservation of nature, on the local level in his hometown of Groton, Mass., as well as on the national and international level as president of the National Parks Association and work in many other organizations.
The Western Foothills Land Trust has applied to the Maine Natural Resource Conservation Program for the balance of the acquisition costs and has received initial approval of that application, Dassler said.
ldixon@sunjournal.com
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- In 2012, volunteer Eric Rathbun was pictured on the then-new cedar walkway that covers a portion of a one-mile trail that was opened that summer on the Witt Swamp Preserve in Norway.
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