Finishing Battell's wild legacy

The view from Camel's Hump's open summit is sublime. (At least it is on a clear day, it seems I've more often been there in clouds and cold drizzle.) Rain or shine, many thousands of Vermonters ascend to those rocky heights each year.

Romance Mountain, some 25 miles south, is less traveled. Hikers on the Long Trail near Middlebury Gap pass over it, but few will linger in the scrubby, spruce-fir thicket there. Few views, but wild beauty of a more subtle nature abounds.

Joseph Battell once owned, and later donated, both places-and went to his grave in 1915 believing that he had preserved Camel's Hump, Romance Mountain, and his other properties in their "virgin and primeval state." History partially thwarted his wishes.

Vermont's congressional delegation, by introducing legislation this April that would designate a new Joseph Battell Wilderness Area in the Green Mountain National Forest-encompassing Romance Mountain and the rugged country around it-has taken a large step toward completing Battell's conservation legacy.

Born to one of the state's most influential families in 1839, Joseph Battell served in the Vermont legislature, was a nationally known breeder of Morgan horses, published the Middlebury newspaper, and owned an inn in Ripton that later became Middlebury College's Breadloaf campus.

In 1911 he gave nearly two square miles on Camel's Hump, including the summit, to the state of Vermont to become a wild forest park, the genesis of today's expansive natural area. With the gift, Battell noted, "Trees growing on the land herein conveyed are not to be cut except those which it is necessary to remove in building paths or roads, and the whole forest is to be preserved in a primeval state."

During his life Battell amassed roughly 50 square miles of forestland in central Vermont, primarily in Addison County. Upon his death he willed cash, buildings, and these woodlands to Middlebury College, except about four thousand acres along the spine of the Green Mountains, which he gave to the federal government to become a national park.

There were no national parks in the East at that time, the National Park Service had not yet been created, and Congress declined the gift. That land was lumped with the residual estate and also went to the college.

In his appreciation for wild, unlogged forests, Battell was far ahead of his time. He described in his will a "desire to preserve considerable tracts of mountain forests…in their original and primeval condition." He made plain that his purpose would "be defeated by the cutting of trees on said lands.

Unfortunately, the Middlebury College committee charged with implementing the will had a more utilitarian outlook on forests. Today an outstanding small college but then a relatively obscure, cash-strapped institution, Middlebury soon began logging the property and later built its own ski area on land Battell had intended to remain forever wild.

In subsequent decades the college sold the vast majority of the former Battell lands to the U.S. Forest Service. The lands form the nucleus of the Green Mountain National Forest's northern unit. Some of the acreage was incorporated into the Breadloaf Wilderness but much was logged, and the sprawling Sugarbush ski resort, built largely on land leased from the Forest Service, now degrades the east side of the wild ridgeline Battell had envisioned, purchased, and donated for a national park.

Unfortunately, the still-undeveloped portion of those lands along the west flank of Lincoln Ridge was not recommended for protection in the Vermont Wilderness Act of 2006. It should be added to the legislation, along with other roadless areas ideal for wilderness designation such as the black bear-rich Lamb Brook basin, the pristine headwaters of Lye Brook, and remote lands to the north and east of Glastenbury Mountain.

Vermont Senators Leahy and Jeffords and Representative Sanders deserve thanks for working to expand wilderness in our national forest, and to complete Joseph Battell's intended wild legacy. Every Vermonter who appreciates Camel's Hump's leonine profile unscarred by ski lifts, or the modest wildness of Romance Mountain is a beneficiary of Battell's generous nature.

Tom Butler, of Huntington, Vermont is the author of Wildlands Philanthropy: An American Tradition, due to be published in 2007.