A Legacy In Letters and on the Land

Its Nov. 21, 2014, about 10 a.m., and Im heading up the Bill Hill trail in Thetford Center. The morning has been cold and squally, and right now fat snowflakes ride ripples of the shifting wind, settling onto ice that covers this opening bit of trail.

Im here to honor Noel (Ned) Perrin, the New York suburbanite who moved to Thetford in 1963 and taught at Dartmouth and worked and wrote on this 82-acre farm for over 40 years. Though Ned published 13 books, hes probably best known for his Person Rural essay collections, in which he described, often humorously, his experiences as a rural New England transplant and gentleman farmer. He died 10 years ago on this day, and as Ive done many times a year for the last decade, Im heading to the top of the hill, where his memorial is, to honor his influence on my life.

If any single place in the world is most identifiable with Ned, it is the land Im walking through. He loved this farm, put his heart into every acre of it. And his favorite spot would probably be right here: Bill Hill, a place he playfully called his in-house mini-mountain.

The hill was often a central character in his writing. In his 1977 essay, Grooming Bill Hill, he wrote about contributing to Vermonts pastoral beauty by fencing the top of hill, so cows could graze it and keep it open. He enclosed 18 acres with fencelines that still exist today. At the end of the essay he wrote: For the next half-century, at least, there will be one green grassy hill in Thetford Center, Vermont, to contrast with the dozen or so wooded ones. ... It will be no bad legacy to leave.

He was right. It wasnt a bad legacy to leave, and it was the first of many. He placed a conservation easement on his farm in 1984, and one of the last things he and his wife Sara Coburn did before he died was to create this public trail from his sugarhouse, near the Thetford Center covered bridge, to the top of the hill. Managed now by the Upper Valley Land Trust, its a popular Valley Quest destination, too.

All of this the farm, the hill, this trail, his essays had gotten me thinking, in the lead-up to this anniversary, about Neds legacy, the contours of it now, 10 years after his death. I knew how deeply he had affected my life: He had been a mentor and close friend, like a second father to me. And by serendipitous circumstances, Id had the privilege of living and working on this farm for several years after his death. But what couldnt I see of Neds influence that other friends of his could?

A couple of minutes up the trail I stop beside a stone wall overlooking the most beautiful pasture on the farm. Based on what Neds friends have told me, stone walls hold layers of his enduring legacy. Many people mentioned Neds love of walls and wall building, and the beauty that love produced. But the legacy went beyond that. Jeanie McIntyre, director of the Upper Valley Land Trust (UVLT), was reminded of a line Ned wrote about wall building in a 1990 UVLT publication: I love knowing ... that my touch on the land will stay awhile. It reminded her of how mindful he was of his environmental impact. She said, I think about how his touch was more a caress.

Other people mentioned that Neds stone walls provided life guidance. Thetford resident Cynthia Taylor said she thinks of Neds slow-and-steady approach to stone wall building whenever she feels daunted by the size of a new project; the thought helps her get started, or to persevere. Andy Rowles, a college advisee and long-time friend of Neds, has found life wisdom in a stone wall they built together on Andys land in Thetford. Working with Ned, he learned, one can choose any direction for oneself and not just let events and circumstances control our individual futures. That wall tells me this.

From what I heard, Neds influence had saturated the landscape both human and nonhuman elements like a kind of animism. Even though he was no longer around, his presence was immanent in the land.

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A Legacy In Letters and on the Land