Sisters give Tyringham woodlot in memory of Walter Howard

Map by Alison Kolesar

At the close of 2001, the Howard family of Tyringham gifted 340 acres of conservation woodland to the Resources Council.

The gift was made in memory of Walter Howard by his sisters Sidney Howard Urquhart and Margaret D. Howard.

Walter Howard was, until his death in 1987, a director of the Berkshire County Land Trust & Conservation Fund, a land trust affiliated with, and since merged into, the Berkshire Natural Resources Council.

"Walter was a great friend of the Council in our early years, and we are most grateful to Maggie and Sidney for this wonderful gift in his memory," said George S. Wislocki, president emeritus.

The hillside woodlot, notable for productive forest soils, rich wildlife habitat and scenic value, is strategically located, abutting the Beartown State Forest and lying across a small valley from the Appalachian Trail corridor and Tyringham Cobble, which is owned by The Trustees of Reservations.

Earlier in 2001, with the assistance of the Resources Council, the sisters sold a conservation restriction to the Commonwealth's Division of Fisheries & Wildlife. The gift to the Council is subject to the conservation restriction.

The Howard and Urquhart families continue to own the working farmland in the valley bottom, where Walter Howard operated a dairy farm until the early 1980s.