By Jeannette Purdy

“We’ve run out of land to abuse and desert. We now have to live with what we have.” The inaugural edition of the Connecticut Wildlife Conservation Bulletin, published in September–October 1955 by the Connecticut State Board of Fisheries and Game, contained these opening editorial sentences. “What we do with what is left of a once great and valuable natural resource will determine the amount of recreation and enjoyment it will provide us.” Indeed, Connecticut’s population had grown very quickly in the 19th century, and once-common wildlife like wild turkeys and beavers were extirpated one by one due to overhunting and habitat loss. Conservation started early in Connecticut, where polluted rivers were denuded of fish and treeless landscapes suffered from widespread erosion. By the 1950s, the “new environmental movement” was a public education priority (“Connecticut Bureau of Natural Resources Through the Years,” Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, portal.ct.gov/deep/wildlife/bnr-150th-anniversary/bnr-historical-timeline).

It may well have been this 1955 article that prompted Woodbury farmer and former artist Natalie Van Vleck, then in her mid-50s, single, childless, and with no family aside from one or two first cousins, to begin thinking about how to preserve her farm. Born in Morristown, New Jersey, she attended Manhattan’s Brearley School, where she excelled in athletics. A first trip to Europe in 1914 cemented her desire to become an artist. Van Vleck was mentored by Agnes Richmond, who encouraged her to study under Robert Henri at the Art Students League of New York. She also studied under modernist painter Max Weber and, in the 1920s, traveled internationally to paint. She opened an Arts and Crafts studio in New York City in 1921, making carved frames, folding screens, fireplace screens, and custom furniture. In 1926, she was instrumental in helping her parents find a farmhouse in Woodbury, and by the following year, she moved in with them. Although she continued to paint, by 1935, she became a full-time farmer in Woodbury, first producing some of the most sought-after Thanksgiving turkeys in the area, and later raising show-quality Hampshire sheep.

Van Vleck doted on her sheep and employed a full-time shepherd until her death in 1981.

In 1959, Van Vleck took action by inviting the Connecticut Board of Fisheries and Game to assess her land’s suitability for conversion into a place for “passive recreation” and the Soil Conservation Service (now known as the Natural Resources Conservation Service) to inspect a marshy area for a possible dam, which was made ready for beaver pairs in 1961. Van Vleck was advised by experts such as John Ripley Forbes, president of the Natural Science for Youth Foundation and cofounder of Connecticut’s first nature center, the Mid-Fairfield County Youth Museum, who took her in 1961–1962 to visit that location as well as the Stamford Museum and Nature Center as models for her own center (Flanders archives).

In 1963, when Van Vleck launched the Flanders Nature Center (as it was known before it added the Land Trust designation in 1973), its first pamphlet justified its founding by answering the pointed question: Why a Nature Center Here? The reasons are as true now as they were then: conservation and education in natural science. The Center quickly attracted the attention of the Junior League of Greater Waterbury, a formidable local chapter of the national volunteer organization for young women whose mission was to improve their communities. The Waterbury chapter was progressive, energetic, and committed to the environmental cause at the time. Incoming president Pam Goss and past president Nancy Santopietro were invited to visit by director Doug Lunan. Before passing in 2024, Goss recalled visiting Van Vleck in her home on several occasions to convince the reserved Van Vleck to collaborate with the Junior League to bring schoolchildren to the Center. These visits led the Junior League of Waterbury to elect in 1964 to support the activities of the Center for two years, which became five highly productive and successful years, ending in 1969. During this time, over 75 percent of the chapter’s volunteers were trained to teach in schools, give demonstrations, and lead tours and hikes.

Cub Scout Pack 54 from Woodbury helped build trails every Saturday as part of the Eager Beaver program.

The flurry of activity between 1963 and 1965 is difficult to comprehend even today. On a shoestring budget of $13,000, the Center—together with the Junior League volunteers and their families, the Boy Scouts, and other community-based volunteer groups—cut several beautiful hiking trails, built a small education facility still in use today for $6,000, grew a membership of 179 families, and hired its first naturalist, Duncan McDougall, who trained Junior League volunteer educators to teach nature programs in area schools and at the Center. Members of the Pomperaug Valley Garden Club rescued wildflowers and native plants from the planned route of Interstate 84. They transplanted them along the beloved 1965 Botany Trail, still cared for today by a new generation of the club.

The inaugural 179 members grew to 300 and hailed from Woodbury, Bethlehem, Southbury, Middlebury, Watertown, and Waterbury. While membership fluctuated over the following decades, the current average is 650 member households from some 30 municipalities, and many more nonmember participants. Many of the original programs offered at Flanders are still going strong, particularly the Christmas Sale, now an artisan market featuring wreath making and maple syruping. Flanders’s top volunteer for its maple program, Harry Gerowe, proudly states, “Flanders’s syrup is 100 percent traditionally made and 100 percent made by nature and volunteers.” During its first decade, Flanders was truly a community hub that brought together multiple generations who loved the outdoors, animals, plants, and nature-centered activities.

A 1966 grant to determine whether exposure to science through nature would broaden learning brought 300 Waterbury children to the Whittemore Preserve. Board Member Aldro “Buck” Jenks is shown with children from Webster School.

In 1973, Henrietta Manville, a fellow artist and friend of Van Vleck, whose property was in downtown Woodbury, gave the Center a significant 6.5-acre parcel of land. Now called the “Manville Kettle,” the parcel is a miniature example of a pristine geological kettle, formed by a glacial deposit. Flanders thus became a land trust that year and, over the next 50 years, was active in preserving open space not only in Woodbury but also in Middlebury, Southbury, and Bethlehem. Its biggest preserve, the Whittemore Sanctuary, began as a lease to Flanders to run school programs for the Waterbury public schools, given its proximity to the city. The majority of the acreage was purchased with the help of the state’s first Open Space and Watershed Land Acquisition grant after the program launched in 1998. Today, Flanders Nature Center and Land Trust is a twice-accredited land trust that oversees the preservation of over 2,400 acres and 17 miles of trails on seven preserves with public access 365 days a year.

The proliferation of land trusts in Connecticut peaked in the 1960s and 1970s. It led to the formation of over 130 land trusts, almost as many as there are towns in the state, as fears of overdevelopment and loss of wildlife and diversity spread. Seen as a way to safeguard open land for the future, land trusts are nonprofit organizations that can consolidate small parcels of open space under one umbrella and are typically run by a combination of volunteer and paid staff. Land trusts are therefore well suited for Connecticut, where almost all land is privately held. Connecticut ranks third nationwide in land trusts per capita; its land trusts conserve nearly 1 out of every 20 acres—a total of 215,000 acres or 85 percent of all conserved space—yet Connecticut is still seen as lagging behind other New England states and falls short of the 21 percent target set by the state in 1997 (New Canaan Land Trust, “The Positive Impact of Land Trusts”). A recent trend has been to merge smaller land trusts to strengthen them without losing their essential responsibility to safeguard holdings for future generations (Connecticut Land Conservation Council, “State of the Lands: Results of the 2023–24 Connecticut Land Trust Census”). Today, there are 117 land trusts in Connecticut that work together for this common goal.

The Trail House, built in 1964 with $6,000 raised exclusively by the Junior League of Waterbury to be a museum and learning center at Flanders.

Flanders remains a vibrant nature center focused on community engagement and youth education. With support from the Elisha Leavenworth Fund and the Barnes Foundation, it hosts all second graders from the Waterbury public schools for hands-on environmental science field trips. For over 60 years, Flanders has inspired generations through camps, school trips, and events, with many attendees crediting it for shaping their values and careers. Vincent LaFontan, the current executive director, likes to remind people that, straight out of military service, he learned to make maple syrup from two retired volunteers at Flanders to start a maple syrup program at the New Milford Youth Agency. The future is bright, as younger generations embrace holistic well-being and environmental stewardship, honoring the rich, purposeful legacy of founder Natalie Van Vleck.

Jeannette Purdy is the fundraising and development officer at Flanders Nature Center and Land Trust. She wishes to thank Anne Westerman and Virginia Hart for their contributions to researching this article.

Explore!

Flanders Nature Center and Land Trust, 5 Church Hill Road, Woodbury, flandersnaturecenter.org

Dawn C. Adiletta, “Saving Historic Family Farms,” Connecticut Explored, Spring 2021, ctexplored.org/saving-historic-family-farms