Part II of the Great Hollow Series (read Part I here)
At the time of Walter Gordon Merritt's passing, Great Hollow was a 1,440-acre wildlife preserve and it was willed to Wesleyan University under the condition that it would be kept as such.
Today, the property is comprised of a total of 827 acres. 88 acres of the property is located in Sherman and 739 acres is located in New Fairfield. The surrounding properties consist of single-family developments, a Connecticut State Forest, and larger wooded parcels of land. The land area lies in the Connecticut corridor of "The Highlands", which is a part of a 2 million acre band of Appalachian Mountain land that runs through Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Connecticut. It is also contains a vital watershed that feeds into the Great Swamp in New York and further south to New York City.
The streams Quaker Brook and Haviland Hollow begin in a large wetland in Pawling, NY and then circle clockwise through Sherman and New Fairfield before crossing back into the Great Swamp in Patterson, NY. The 7 square mile watershed area contributes runoff into the stream. The stream water of Quaker Brook and Haviland Hollow is so clean that it is used as a benchmark against which other streams in the region are measured. It is one of the best trout streams in the region and holds some of the cleanest water along the New York-Connecticut divide.
Protecting The Watershed
A watershed area is by definition an area or ridge of land that separates waters flowing to different rivers, basins, or seas. Protecting the watershed is of utmost importance to local groups such as the Naromi Land Trust in Sherman, the New Fairfield Land Trust, and Friends of the Quaker Brook Haviland Hollow Watershed, who work hard to protect and preserve our open space. According to New Fairfield physician, Sherman resident, and long time supporter of the watershed, Dr. Peter Rostenberg "the water is only as clean as you keep it upstream". The Friends of the Great Swamp, or F.R.O.G, work towards protecting the watershed on the Connecticut line and the discharge of Quakerbrook and Haviland Hollow near Route 22. The land on the south side of Haviland Hollow is protected by the Department of Agriculture. The brook's watershed lies primarily on private land, but there are at least two pieces of property within the watershed that are open to the public, one being the Michael Ciaiola Conservation Area.
Unfortunately immediately after being granted the remaining acreage of Great Hollow, Wesleyan neglected to file a letter announcing its status with the IRS as a tax exempt entity and the 600 acres of New York State lands were taken and turned into the conservation area. Hunting on the New York property is now permitted, which is something New Fairfield resident and neighbor of Merritt, Ward Moss, says is not something Merritt would have liked. "He loved nature, but he hated hunting", says Moss. In New York, part of Walter Merritt's Birch Hill property is being used as the Michael Ciaiola Conservation Area. A wireless radio relay tower on the top of Birch Hill in Patterson was completed in August of 1945. A paved road to service the tower was also constructed.
In 1969, Peter Burdyk created the Great Hollow Wilderness School, which served as a wilderness program for disadvantaged youth. It was a combination program of Upward Bound and Outward Bound. After the first successful year of the program, Burdyk developed a graduate course in the Wesleyan Master of Arts in Teaching program in outdoor education leadership. Burdyk was named Executive Director of the program and was responsible for the development and operation. In 1985, the Great Hollow Wilderness School was given approval to run a freshman orientation trip and the program continued into the 1990s. The school conducted workshops on the environment and led regional outdoor activity trips.
The Regional YMCA of Greater Danbury puts Great Hollow on the Market
In 1998, the Regional YMCA of Greater Danbury purchased the remaining 827 acres of land from Wesleyan University for $800,000, $400,000 of which came from a state bond.
The YMCA offered courses such as The Adventure Homeschool at Great Hollow Wilderness, which uses such exercises in the woods of New Fairfield to help students from 7 to 18 years old develop confidence, trust and team-building skills.
The program, offered by the Regional YMCA of Western Connecticut is for home-schooled children and operates on the premise that "experiential education" leads to individual growth. The YMCA opted last year to seek a buyer because the economic downturn forced the nonprofit agency to consider ways to streamline operations and the decision was made that Great Hollow would have to put up for sale.
Series' Originally Published in the New Fairfield and Sherman Citizen News, Photos Courtesy of the New Fairfield Historical Society