Historic Land To Be Preserved By Town
November 9, 2009 by John Rook
For approximately 275 years, parcels of land just off of what is now South Brooksvale Road have been home to the Thayer/McKee family.
Generations have called the area their own, including Frederick Law Olmsted, the famous American landscape designer and journalist who designed Central Park in New York City.
And now, more than 47 acres of that land will remain preserved for posterity after the family donated the property to the Cheshire Land Trust and South Central Connecticut Regional Water Authority earlier this year.
“We are pleased to continue our close working relationship with the Regional Water Authority by partnering on the conservation easement of the unique, historical, and beautiful Thayer/McKee Family property,” said Kevin Wetmore, Cheshire Land Trust president. “Between our local stewardship and the Authority resources, this land will be preserved and protected for the benefit of future generations.”
The Thayer/McKee family trust has donated a total of 47.83 acres of land, accounting for five parcels, through conservation easements. The easements will allow family members to remain on the property, but will ensure that it remain open space and not become developed property in the future.
Margaret Jean McKee, a lifelong Cheshire resident and direct descendant of Thomas Brooks, who settled the Brooksvale area in the early 1700s and is credited with naming Cheshire, began speaking to the Land Trust and Regional Water Authority about preserving the land seven years ago. Originally, the conversation focused on two parcels of land, but eventually expanded to include five, making up the more than 47 acres of total property.
“It is a very pretty location,” said McKee. “My sister and I had always thought about how to preserve the land and we decided that putting it under conservation easement would be the best way.”
The land had originally been used as a farm and was established in 1733, making it potentially the oldest farm in Cheshire to have remained in the care of one family. The property is distinguished by its sprawling hayfields and stonewalls; a reminder of Cheshire’s long history as an agricultural community built on farming.
For McKee, who grew up on the property, the grandeur of the landscape was never lost on her or her family. “My mother would always say that we lucked into our ancestry,” remembered McKee, with a laugh.
The family also grew up with stories about their famous relative, Olmsted, who lived on the property regularly between 1844 and 1845.
“He wrote about how beautiful it was here,” McKee recalled. “He also wrote how he walked down from Hartford to Cheshire.”
Olmsted is best known as the chief designer of Central Park, but was also the designer of Prospect Park in Brooklyn, NY, the “Emerald Necklace” in Boston, and several major parks in such places as Buffalo, NY and Louisville, Ky.
He also played a major role in the redesign of the Capitol Grounds in Washington, D.C. and the development of the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893.
That love of landscape may well have originated in his visits to Cheshire and his stay on the family farm earlier in his life, an influence that actually peaked the interest of a film crew, which came to the McKee/Thayer property this summer to shoot scenes for an upcoming documentary on Olmsted’s life.
For McKee and her late sister, Elizabeth McKee-Lewis, preserving the property was important both from an environmental standpoint — to keep a pristine piece of property relatively untouched — but also from an historic standpoint.
“That was very important to us,” said McKee. “You feel the strength of the land itself, but you also feel a deep connection to family.”
That connection has only been reinforced over the years, as what McKee describes as “long-lost” family relatives make their way each year to the Cheshire property, to get a sense of where their family tree began to blossom.
“They love to see the old family homestead,” McKee remarked.
Genealogy has also become somewhat of a hobby for McKee, as she has tried to trace as many family members back to the property as possible.
The conservation easement provides McKee and her family some tax benefits that certainly aided in their decision to donate the land, she admitted, but the greater benefit, she explained, was in ensuring that her family’s land and rich history would remain preserved.
“This (land) was something special and different,” said McKee. “It is wonderful to know this property is going to be protected.”