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CREATION OF PUBLIC LANDS

Marshall Hapgood believed that mountain land "should be absolutely reserved as public property, for combined watershed, game, scenic and lumber purposes."

In 1905 he approached the federal government, offering to sell at a low price a large tract of land near Bromley Mountain. A few years later Middlebury's Joseph Battell considered donating some 30,000 acres. In both cases the federal government refused the offers because there was neither authorization nor money.

Eventually the Hapgood and Battell parcels would become key parts of the Green Mountain National Forest, with Hapgood's parcel becoming the first to be acquired in 1932. Hapgood and Battell were pioneers in promoting the conservation of land for the public.

At century's end more than 1 million acres of Vermont are protected, about 16 percent of the state, either as state or national forest or park or because of conservation easements held by groups such as the Vermont Land Trust.

Another pioneer was James Taylor, whose frustration with the lack of hiking trails in the state led to formation in 1910 of the Green Mountain Club, which created the Long Trail, a 270-mile footpath from Massachusetts to Canada that is said to be the oldest long-distance hiking trail in the United States.