Upgrades at Willow Brook Farm: Support Our Work

Support us today so that Willow Brook Farm can continue to support us tomorrow.

For all that nature gives us—clean air and water, improved mental and physical health, diverse wildlife habitat, protection from heat waves and floods—it asks for little in return. When it does need our help, can it count on the Wildlands community? 

Few places anywhere pack the same wealth of cultural and natural resources into a suburban setting as Willow Brook Farm, a Wildlands Trust showcase preserve in Pembroke. Comprising 167 wild acres just 30 miles south of Boston, Willow Brook Farm epitomizes the globally rare ecological diversity of the Herring Brook Valley. Each year, over 20,000 people explore Willow Brook’s field, forest, and wetland habitats to learn about the human and natural communities that have come and gone from the region. 

“Willow Brook Farm is a special place,” said Wildlands President Karen Grey. “Whether you come here to walk your dog, go for a run, listen to the birds, or simply escape the stresses of daily life, Willow Brook has something for everyone.” 

After 27 years serving the people and wildlife of Southeastern Massachusetts, Willow Brook Farm needs upgrades to bolster its safety and value for future generations. Tasks include replacing Willow Brook’s 400 yards of boardwalk, building three covered picnic tables, expanding wayfinding amenities, restoring historic meadow habitat, and improving the parking lot. 

Unfortunately, improving public amenities in frequently flooded environments isn’t cheap: we estimate the restoration to cost $60,000. 

“For many years, Wildlands staff and volunteers have made repairs at Willow Brook in a piecemeal way,” said Stewardship Operations Manager Owen Grey. “We’re now at the point where proactively addressing the underlying issue—natural decay of aging infrastructure—will save us significant time and resources in the long run. It also gives us an opportunity to improve and expand Willow Brook’s built infrastructure to match its natural beauty.” 

Old cart path at Willow Brook Farm.

Historic field and boulders at Willow Brook Farm.

Historic path at Willow Brook Farm.

Boardwalk at Willow Brook Farm.

Grassy path at Willow Brook Farm.

Hardwood forest at Willow Brook Farm.

If you love Willow Brook Farm, we need your help! Wildlands Trust is seeking $20,000 in public donations to support this effort. An anonymous funder has agreed to a 2:1 match on every donation under $500 and a 1:1 match on all others, up to $40,000. That means you can triple your impact: a $50 donation will give us $150 to secure the future of this beloved preserve. 

“This campaign is an opportunity for the local and regional community to come together over a shared interest in nature,” President Karen Grey concluded. “When places like Willow Brook thrive, we all thrive. I hope you will consider supporting this work.” 

To donate, visit wildlandstrust.org/upgradewillowbrook. We also accept checks, stocks, and donor-advised funds. 

Multiply your impact by sharing this campaign with your friends, family, and neighbors! Sign up for our E-News and follow us on Facebook and Instagram for updates and opportunities to get involved as our work at Willow Brook Farm continues. 

Human History of Wildlands: Willow Brook Farm

By Skip Stuck, Key Volunteer

People gravitate to natural beauty and diversity, whether they’re trained ecologists or not. The popularity of Willow Brook Farm is evidence of this fact. 

As you will see, the history of this beloved Pembroke preserve is rich as well, and not without controversy. Before you read what follows, I want to highlight an issue that I suspect we'll see often in future editions of this series. In researching this piece, I am reminded that history is easy to write when one consults only a few sources. It becomes more difficult when we attempt to enlarge and diversify the pool of observers and accounts. In the case of this piece, you'll quickly find that history as told by the English settlers is very different from that told by the Mattakeeset, especially around the mid- to late 1600s, the time of King Philip’s War.  

There is little consensus among the viewpoints of Natives and settlers. Nor should there be. The war was a bitter thing. Although not well known today, it was a horrible period, with a larger percentage of Americans, both European and Native, killed than at any other time in our nation's history. Worse yet, both sides had been friends who trusted and depended on each other only a generation or two earlier. Each side saw the conflict from its own perspective. Any single retelling of history almost always favors one person’s story to the exclusion or even denigration of another’s. 

This is not to turn you off to history. Rather, it is to remind us that stories are easy to tell, but rarely as straightforward as they seem. I encourage you to examine some of the resources I've listed at the end of this piece. You might find that history has as many versions as it has tellers. 

On that note, please keep in mind that this account is far from comprehensive. A goal of this project is to start a conversation with the Wildlands community about the cultural pasts of our cherished natural spaces. If you or someone you know has information about Willow Brook Farm’s history, we would love to hear from you! Share your insight (and/or photos!) with Communications Coordinator Thomas Patti at tpatti@wildlandstrust.org.  

Willow Brook Farm needs your help! Wildlands Trust is seeking $20,000 in public donations to make major upgrades at this suburban sanctuary. An anonymous donor is doubling every donation under $500 and matching all others, meaning you can double or triple your impact on the land you love. Donate today. 

Native American history 

• The area surrounding Willow Brook Farm and the Herring Brook and North River valleys has been used by Native Americans for thousands of years. The ancestors of the Mattakeeset band of the Massachusett tribe (the People of the First Light) settled in this area to use the bountiful resources it offered. The word "Mattakeesset" means "place of many fish," and the Herring River area was, and still is, home to a large alewife and river herring run each spring. Additionally, plentiful waterfowl and the land's suitability for growing maize, squash, and beans helped the tribe prosper. 

• After the Pilgrims landed in Plymouth, the Massachusett tribe's generosity with resources to the settlers was crucial in the colony's survival. Relationships between the two groups started strong. 

Adah F. Hall House, built circa 1685. Learn more at the Pembroke Historical Society.

First European settlers 

• The land that was to become Willow Brook Farm was purchased in the early 1600s from Massachusett Sachem Wampatuck, known to settlers as Josiah Sagamore, by Major Josiah Winslow of Marshfield in what was known as the "Major's Purchase." 

• Among the earliest recorded English settlers of the Major’s Purchase land was Robert Barker, who settled in the vicinity of Herring Brook in 1650.  

• Relationships between the Native and English populations changed for the worse in the later 1600s, culminating in the King Philip’s War. During the war, the Mattakeeset band, although not involved in the hostilities, was forcibly removed from their lands and sent to Clark's Island in Plymouth Harbor, where it is estimated that half (possibly as many as 500) tribal members died from starvation, disease, and exposure by the war's end in 1676. 

• Purported to be the oldest house in Pembroke, the Adah F. Hall house, built around 1685 by Robert Barker Jr., abuts the Willow Brook property. 

• In the early 1800s, Robert Jr.’s descendent, Benjamin Barker, achieved significant agricultural production on the property and was reputed to be the wealthiest man in Plymouth County at the time of his death.  

• The property remained in the Barker family until 1914, when it was purchased by William Hurley. Hurley established Willow Brook Farm, a dairy farm and showplace for his Guernsey cows. The remains of a large dairy barn are still visible today as a foundation and milking stalls being taken over by brush and trees. Although the farm was taken out of use in the mid-20th century, its fields are still maintained by Wildlands Trust in memory of its agrarian history. 

Pembroke town survey map, 1831. The Willow Brook land is represented by the spot labeled Benj Barker. Click to enlarge.

Wildlands Trust preserve 

• In 1997, Wildlands Trust purchased Willow Brook Farm's 73 acres with funds from an anonymous donor. Shortly thereafter, it acquired Fleetwood Farm (20 acres), Gillette-Sherman (7 acres), Lower Neck (40 acres), Missing Link (24 acres), and in 2008, the Slavin Donation (3 acres) to create today's 167-acre preserve. 

• Wildlands restored the property by adding a visitor parking lot and more than 3 miles of hiking trails, including boardwalks through wetland areas, an elevated viewing platform, and an informational kiosk. Today, it is one of Wildlands’ most used and appreciated preserves. 

Learn More 

To learn more, please visit our preserve webpage at wildlandstrust.org/willow-brook-farm. Better yet, walk the trails and enjoy the preserve’s natural and historical beauty for yourself. 

An important note: History is part fact and parts perspective, personal experience, and even bias. One person's history is another's myth. Bear this in mind as you read these reference materials, especially as they relate to both Native and English histories. 

To learn more about the early Native American history of the Willow Brook Farm area, as well as the Mattakeeset tribe through the present, take time to read "Our Story Not Theirs," an account by the Mattakeeset tribe itself.  

Also: 

• The Pembroke Historical Society: pembrokehistoricalsociety.org 

• The Adah F. Hall House: pembrokehistoricalsociety.org/adah-f-hall-house.html 

• Peter’s Well, which lies just across Barker Street from Willow Brook Farm: pembrokehistoricalsociety.org/peters-well.html  

• History of Pembroke, Massachusetts: History of Pembroke Massachusetts | Access Genealogy 

A special thanks to Hayley Leonard, Wildlands Trust AmeriCorps member, and Rob MacDonald, Wildlands key volunteer, for substantial research contributions to this account. 

Remembering Herb Emilson

Center: Herb Emilson. Left: Herb’s daughter, Karen McArdle. Right: Wildlands President Karen Grey. Photo by Drew Lederman.

By Karen Grey, Wildlands President

When Herb Emilson retired in 1995 as President and Chairman of the Colonial Group, he found a second career: helping others and supporting the organizations that strive to improve people’s lives. On the South Shore of Massachusetts, where Herb and his wife Paulie focused much of their philanthropy, the name Emilson is synonymous with giving.  

However, it was more than simply “giving” that motivated Herb. Having befriended and worked alongside the father of modern business management, Peter Drucker, Herb was driven to help non-profit organizations improve their management and functionality. He had a knack for sniffing out solid organizations that needed a boost, both from his philanthropy and his business acumen. When Herb wrote you a check, he believed in you and your organization. 

Wildlands Trust was honored to be among the cadre of groups the Emilsons supported over the years. Their generosity protected several parcels of conservation land, including Willow Brook Farm, one of Wildlands’ most important ecological treasures. Herb died last month, two days shy of his 95th birthday, but not before being honored in Wildlands’ anniversary book, 50 Remarkable Years, 50 Remarkable People. We will miss him very much.

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Read more about the Emilsons’ impact on regional land conservation in our 50th anniversary blog series, “The Next Remarkable Chapter”: click here. Purchase our anniversary book, 50 Remarkable Years, 50 Remarkable People, at wildlandstrust.org/shop50.

Willow Brook Updates Begin

Wildlands stewardship staff, with the help of volunteers, begin improvements at Willow Brook Preserve in Pembroke last month. New split-rail fencing was installed in the parking lot, creating a clear outline of the lot and protecting the surrounding vegetation from vehicles and foot traffic. Funded by a grant through the Recreational Trails Program, the scheduled work will both improve the visitor experience at the preserve and the various habitats throughout the property.

Volunteers also spent time at Wildlands’ headquarters building 10 blue-bird boxes, which will be installed in the coming months in the fields at the 167 acre former dairy farm. Benches and bog boards will also be built and installed along the trail system. The bog boards will lift visitors up off of the more well-used portions of trail, allowing for the restoration of eroded sections and protecting the surrounding habitat.

Also keep an eye out for new educational signage along the trails which will provide information on different plants and animals found on the property. Visitors and groups will be able to lead self-guided nature lessons and have the chance to see the plants and animals while they read about them.

Together with the adjacent Herring Run Historical Park and Misty Meadows Conservation Area, these three contiguous properties comprise nearly 400 acres of public conservation land and provide habitat for a number of plants and animals. The beauty of this preserve makes it a popular spot to visit on the South Shore. We greatly appreciate the dedicated volunteers who have been helping us complete these projects and we are excited for visitors of the preserve to benefit from these improvements in the coming months.