Cynthia Maltbie Adds to Blynn Garnett’s Legacy
The story of how Cynthia Maltbie and her late husband, Bruce decided to donate a conservation easement on 83 acres of land on North Road in West Newbury began almost two decades ago, with another conservation success: “My husband and I bought our house, barn, and apple orchard from the Upper Valley Land Trust in 2006. Named the Garnett Legacy, that property had been the homestead of the Tucker family, and part of a farm that originally stretched across the road and up the hill into fields and woodlands. We dreamed of reuniting and conserving the original farm so it would always be fields and forest. When the 83 acres came up for sale 15 years later, we jumped on the opportunity and immediately called UVLT to make a plan for conserving it. As word got out, our friends and neighbors stopped by to say, “Thank you, thank you for preserving this precious patch of land for its bounty and its beauty.” Indeed, thank you to the UVLT for making it possible for us to ensure its future!”
From the tree line of the forest, there are incredible views of the White Mountains, and North Road continues to be one of the four scenic roads designated in Newbury’s Town Plan (2023), because it opens on scenic panoramas of characteristically rural land. These scenic values across our landscape are quickly disappearing, as land is converted from fields and forests. Here, preventing land conversion has critical ecological benefits as well.
A wide range of wildlife, from bears to songbirds, find sanctuary in the diversity of habitat provided by the woods, wetlands, and fields. About 61 acres or 75% of the parcel is forested and buffers about 4.5 acres of wetlands and more than 3,000 feet of perennial streams that drain eastward towards Halls Lake. The land sits on the eastern edge of a 5,600-acre interior forest block prioritized for conservation by the State of Vermont, which encompasses Brock Hill to the north and Tucker and Woodchuck Mountains to the west.
Generations of West Newbury residents have lived and worked in the rural hills and valleys, making their livelihoods by carefully stewarding their farmland and forests for pasture, maple, hay, and wood products. Today, the statewide significant farmland soils provide hay for a neighbor and fertile, well-drained forest soils provide wood to meet some of the local wood industry needs.
Now splitting her time between Vermont and California, Cynthia is an active member of Third Act , a growing movement of 60+ year-olds, founded by climate leader Bill McKibben, uniting “to tackle the unfinished work of our lifetimes and ensure a safe and stable planet for generations to come.” She’s also no stranger to land conservation. In addition to helping protect land owned by her father in Connecticut, Cynthia and Bruce settled into a conserved homestead they purchased from UVLT back in 2006. Their old cape, barns, and land was bequeathed by Blynn Garnett to UVLT to be conserved and sold to fund more conservation along North Road. This newly protected land joins that property and over 1810 acres of other protected lands in this part of Newbury and Topsham.
