There's a forest in Bedford with hemlock trees more than 300 years old. A river cuts a deep gorge right through it. It almost became a housing development. Then a handful of neighbors gave up their Christmas week, and their life insurance, to stop it.
Bad News on Christmas Eve
One Christmas Eve in the 1950s, Gloria and Tony Anable were decorating their tree. Then the news arrived. A landowner was about to sell 60 acres in the heart of the Mianus River Gorge. That stretch was old-growth hemlock forest, and developers wanted it for houses.
There was one way out. The owner would sell to the neighbors instead if they matched the $30,000 price by New Year's Day. That gave them about a week. In the 1950s, $30,000 was a fortune.
So They Bet Their Life Insurance
The Anables were part of a small group of locals who had formed the Mianus River Gorge Conservation Committee. They didn't have the cash. So three members put up their own life insurance policies to raise the down payment.
It came down to the wire. The signed offer went into the seller's mailbox by the morning of New Year's Day. The forest was safe, at least for now.
Their Leader Held a Deep-Sea Diving Record
The person leading the fight had already done something wild. Before she was Gloria Anable, she was Gloria Hollister, a scientist with the New York Zoological Society. She worked for the famous explorer William Beebe.
Beebe explored the deep ocean in the Bathysphere. It was a hollow steel ball, lowered into the sea off Bermuda on a long cable. In 1930 Hollister rode it down 410 feet, a record for a woman. In 1934 she went down 1,208 feet, nearly three times deeper, and set a new record. No woman had ever been that far down.
So a dinner-table deadline in Westchester wasn't going to scare her.
The Nature Conservancy's First Land Purchase
The neighbors still needed the rest of the money. They raised a lot of it from the community. Then a young group called The Nature Conservancy stepped in. In 1955 it lent the last $7,500, and the committee paid it back over time.
That loan made history. Mianus was the first piece of land The Nature Conservancy ever helped buy. Today the group says it has protected more than 125 million acres around the world. It started with 60 acres in Bedford.
There was a second fight, too. Around the same time, a plan to raise a dam on the Mianus River threatened to flood the gorge. The Nature Conservancy says the group pushed for a compromise. The dam was built lower, and the old hemlocks were spared.
One of America's First Natural Landmarks
In 1964, the U.S. Department of the Interior named the Mianus River Gorge one of the country's first National Natural Landmarks. It was honored for its old hemlock forest and its rocky gorge.
The preserve kept growing, too. It started at 60 acres. Today it's more than ten times that size, and it's still run by a local nonprofit.
Walk It Before Nov 30
The trails at the Mianus River Gorge Preserve are open from April 1 to November 30, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. After that, the gate closes until spring. So if you want to see it this year, you have a few weeks.
The entrance is across from 167 Mianus River Road in Bedford. There's no required fee, but the preserve asks for a $10 donation per hiker. Leave the dog and the bike at home. Neither is allowed. Don't take anything with you, either. The rule is pack it in, pack it out.
Walk under those hemlocks and think about three neighbors signing over their life insurance on Christmas week. That's why you get to be there.
Who are you bringing before the gate closes? Tell us on Instagram at @the914collective. And for more Westchester stories, subscribe to the free Not Upstate digital magazine at thenineonefour.com.
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