December 01, 2023
A Second Easement Creates an Impressive Block of 486 Conserved Acres - Healy-Briggs Farm
BACK IN 1960, WHILE A STUDENT at Bennington College, Sophia Healy took a drive on the backroads of Washington County and unknowingly found the place she’d call home for the next 60+ years.
“I had no idea where I was,” she recalls, but I knew I wanted to live there.”
Days later she returned to what turned out to be White Creek and inquired about renting a place to live. She was connected with local farmer Roland Walker Sr. who owned a long-vacant 1777 farmhouse on three acres that she could rent for $50 a month. A few years later when he offered to sell it to her, it was an offer she couldn’t refuse. Later, Healy also acquired the adjacent 150 acres, originally part of the farm, and the property became known as the Healy Lake Farm.
In addition to teaching papermaking at Bennington College, Healy began working alongside farmer John Edward Niles who owned land across the street from her property. “He had just under 150 acres that he used as summer pasture for his dairy cows. We farmed that land together, tending cows, pigs, and horses and putting up a lot of hay for 22 years. It was a labor of love, and it just made me grow to appreciate the land and natural resources even more.”
Then, one day, Healy was presented with another offer she couldn’t refuse: Niles offered to sell her the land they were working. “Just like before, I said ‘yes’ right away,” she recalls. “That roughly 150 acres became the Healy-Briggs farm—Briggs being the original owners of the land—and today it’s leased to John Edward’s nephews for farming.”
With a deep appreciation for the beauty of the land and an understanding of the importance of conserving land for agriculture, Healy donated an easement for the Healy Lake Farm to ASA in 2015. More recently, she donated the easement for the Healy-Briggs Farm. “What this effectively does is create a block of 486 acres of conserved land, including the 264 acres from my farms and the neighboring Landview Farm, that will never be developed.”
“This land has given me so much over the years,” says Healy. “Protecting the land with ASA ensures that all of it will be available to others to appreciate and farm even when I’ve moved on. And that feels right for so many reasons.”
Funding for this conservation project was provided through ASA’s Forever Farmland Fund.
