Newton’s pure water originates in the Quabbin Reservoir in central Massachusetts, yet the area around Quabbin is unfamiliar to most residents except for perhaps birding and fishing enthusiasts. Allen Young, land protection advocate and author of “North of Quabbin Revisited: A Guide to Nine Towns North of the Quabbin Reservoir” talks about the unique nine-town area known as the North Quabbin as well as the Quabbin Reservoir itself, and about exciting and sometimes difficult land protection and recreational opportunities there. It has relevance for the people of Newton who may appreciate the concept of saving the rural parts of the Commonwealth that are under so much development pressure.
Allen Young, journalist and author of 13 books, has lived for nearly 35 years in the North Quabbin Region, one of the most rural areas of Massachusetts. He settled to the town of Royalston (population about 1,000) in 1973 as part of the “back-to-the-land” movement, taking a job as reporter for the Athol Daily News, later working as the community relations director for the Athol Memorial Hospital. His most recent book is a collection of articles entitled “Make Hay While the Sun Shines: Farms, Forests and People of the North Quabbin.” Now retired, he cultivates a large vegetable and flower garden, and volunteers for the Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust, dedicated to protecting farms and forests in a 23-town area. He holds a masters degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and was even briefly a reporter for the Washington Post.
This Conservators lecture was held in March 2008.
