A group gathered last week to unveil a “Welcome to Duffy’s Woods” sign in Mary “Duffy” Monahon’s honor at Peterborough’s Fremont Conservation Land on Old Jaffrey Road.
The group shared stories about how Monahon secured a grant from the state’s Land Conservation Investment Program (LCIP) to conserve the 150-acre parcel as that fund was sunsetting in the early 1990s. A skilled grant-writer for both land and historic preservation, Monahon knew to marshal support – or the appearance of support – from many groups. It was no easy process, as the LCIP grant required a match made by placing additional land of equal natural resource value as the subject land under permanent, legal conservation.
A newspaper clip announcing the grant credited the Conservation Commission and a citizens’ group, but those in the know remembered how Monahon did it all, driving the application to Concord on the grant deadline day. Family members and friends at the sign unveiling nodded in recognition of Monahon’s energy, especially when deadlines loomed.
Her family’s land abuts “Duffy’s Woods” to the north, land once owned by her Hoffman grandparents who ran Four Winds Farm Orchard. The land was subdivided when the orchard closed, with some parcels going to family members and others put up for sale. With memories of visiting the farm as a child, Monahon set about bringing as many errant parcels back as possible.
For the success of that 15-year effort, conserving her family land in addition to the LCIP Fremont project, the Conservation Commission gave Monahon a Conservation Award in 2003. A story she told at the award dinner centered on her final project, purchase of a 44-acre parcel whose owner had staked it for a subdivision. It was during a recession, when Monahon Architects didn’t have many projects. Monahon and her husband Rick were architects, and Duffy’s office window looked across Grove Street to the Town House.
“I knew the family turmoil resulting from my purchasing the land – and going into debt – would be less than the turmoil of all those houses built right under our noses. But just in case, I didn’t tell Rick,” she said.
A few years later, when business was up, she gave news of the purchase to her husband as a Christmas gift. In time, the Peterborough Conservation Commission launched a fundraising effort to conserve the 27-acre front field that gives trail access to Duffy’s Woods, a one-mile walk across open field and through the woods. A loop trail at the end is in the works. Entries in the trail logbook over the decades speak to the value of public conservation lands, and the Fremont area specifically. The last story told at the gathering included a quote from the trail book: “A wonderful set-aside. The world would be a much better place if more areas like this existed.”
The woman who wrote that entry directed her family to spread her ashes at the Fremont land, one of three people known to have done the same.
Duffy Monahon was the catalyst who made the town’s expanded Fremont conservation area possible. As the new sign says, in addition to the front field: “150 acres of forest, streams, stone walls, glacial boulders, cellar hole, and barn foundation. Trails for people. Habitat for wildlife.”
Francie Von Mertens is co-chair of the Peterborough Conservation Commission.