One of the biggest surprises – and announcements – from Mayor Tom Henry’s State of the City address had little to do with city government at all.A Noble County woman recently donated more than 60 acres of forest and wetlands for the future formation of a nature preserve in remembrance of her late husband.
Officials with the ACRES Land Trust announced Wednesday its acquisition of the property from Kate Johnson of Albion. Johnson donated 62 acres of property near Merriam to become a nature preserve upon her death. This is the first donation of its kind this year.
Johnson, 77, has retained life estate rights to the property, and the property is not open to the public. Still, ACRES Land Trust officials are thankful for the donation, which brings the total acres donated to the conservancy to more than 4,600, according to Jason Kissel, executive director of ACRES Land Trust.
Kissel said the conservancy’s goal is to acquire 5,000 acres of land by the end of 2010.
“It’s a pretty significant donation when you look at the land value over there,” he said.
The donation from Johnson, which became official two weeks ago, is near Indiana 9 in Merriam, about eight miles south of Albion. An exact location of the property is not being disclosed until it becomes open to the public. It will be named the Kate M. Raber and James R. Johnson Nature Preserve.
Johnson said she came up with the idea to donate the property after reading a Journal Gazette article in July about donations to ACRES Land Trust.
“Up until seeing the article, … I was just fretting about (what to do with) it,” she said.
The land, which was used for farming until the 1950s, has been allowed to grow wild since then, Johnson said. The land was inherited by Johnson’s husband, James, who died in 2006.
“We didn’t want to break it up,” she said. “We wanted to keep the forest the way it was.”
That forest contains oak and hickory trees, along with some wetlands.
“It’s very, very peaceful. You don’t even know that civilization is around,” Johnson said. “I know that he would have approved of my decision.”
ACRES Land Trust oversees land donations in northeast Indiana – and as of last year, also northwest Ohio and southern Michigan. The majority of the conservancy’s 4,600 acres are in Indiana. Most donations to the conservancy are 25 acres or more, though exceptions have been made for property with significant resources, Kissel said.
“It’s always rewarding to see that people realize the security that ACRES provides; … trusting ACRES that we will take care of it forever,” he said.
For more information on donating and nature preserve locations, go to www.acreslandtrust.org.
