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Conservation Commission

Conservation and More

              by Bruce B. Beckley

Issue #58, January 27, 1999
Abby's Woods

Abby’s Woods are quiet now. Later in the day commuters returning to Mont Vernon and up Christian Hill will be audible. But now only a little peep is to be heard. Snowflakes the size of silver dollars sift down, signaling the end of last night’s storm. High in one of the tall pines a restless bird or perchance a red squirrel jiggles a branch releasing a crystalline shower.

It is a Currier and Ives morning, the way William Drury would have painted it, with the wintry light softened by a lingering haze over the hay field and the Great Meadow below. A fox has preceded me down the farm lane after circling the field in her quest for breakfast. Long stretching leaps by a hare across the snowy meadow may easily have taken him away from the fox and off the menu. In the lane, the hunter’s tracks are almost mechanically straight. They are far straighter than mine as I look up into the tall, erect pines, nurtured by generations of care by the owner and forester.

Near the point where Caesar’s Brook enters the Great Meadow an anomaly rises alone in this stand of perfect trees. One bull pine, six feet in diameter at waist height, sprouts eight trunks, each a tree in itself. Was this giant already king of the woodlot before Harold Wilkins began grooming these woods for the Boutelles? Perhaps it was a matter of seniority 60 years ago with the tree winning. Or, do the few pieces of rotted wood held by rusty vestiges of spikes say this was the owner’s chosen spot for his deer stand?

Further on, small dirty foot prints dot the snow as they emerge from a tennis ball-sized hole under a blown down red maple. Mrs. Mink must have told her mate to get his dirty feet outside. He bounded off between the upright sensitive fern spore cases, remnants of last summer’s greenery.

This land is a beloved gift to the Conservation Commission from a beloved lady. Eight years ago when Abby Boutelle was 88, she donated the 60 acres she spent her life on for conservation purposes. In accordance with her wish, no announcement was to be made during her lifetime. On December 23, 1998 Abby Boutelle died. Abby’s Woods will always be with us as open space, as a memorial to her sister Charlotte and her father Fred, as a managed woodlot, as part of a growing ring of green refuges around the village.

Thanks be to God for the life of Abby Boutelle and her generosity.

Old Name Lives On

The Boutelles were among the first settlers of Souhegan West in the 1740’s. The name (sometimes spelled Boutell) appears frequently in the historical records of Amherst. The population during the early years was small but stabile at about 1,000 to 1,500 from 1810, when it actually dropped from a high of 2,369 in 1790, until the 1950’s.

Abby was one of four children of Fred (1865-1923) and Martha (1867-1907). All were born in the white house at 5 Eaton Road which Fred bought in 1894 for $1,800 from Eliza Eaton. Abby’s mother died when Abby was three and after that her father raised the children by himself until he was killed in a logging accident.

While Abby was still active, she arranged through her trustee and friend Pat Spencer that her land except for the house lot be given to the Amherst Conservation Commission in memory of her father and sister. The Commission, speaking for all residents, is grateful to Pat for making Abby’s wish a reality so the Boutelle name can continue to be a part of Amherst lore.

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