FOHW's Annual Appeal Letter -- 2024

Eleven years ago, when three community volunteers teamed up to reopen an overgrown nature preserve along Princeton Ridge, we held to the premise: “Restore it, and they will come.” 

Today, people of all ages come to the preserve—not just for a peaceful walk among the trees but also for diverse events and activities that have breathed new life into Princeton’s first nature preserve. What was once abandoned is now a beloved place of community, discovery, and joy.

FOHW’s efforts to restore this special place go hand in hand with an innovative approach to stewardship and programming. In the cultural zone of Herrontown Woods–composed of the Veblen House, Cottage, and Botanical Art Garden–we go beyond a passive human presence to actively collaborate with the landscape in a way that is healing for both nature and people.

Through our rallying cry, “Incrementalism!”, we have made the critical links and preparations needed to take the next step in “restore it and they will come,” including at last the rehabilitation of the Veblen House and Cottage.

• Completed undergirding Veblen House for future public assembly, and began stabilization work on the Cottage, with detailed architectural drawings to rehabilitate and utilize both structures.
• To FOHW’s ongoing partnerships with Gratitude Yoga and the Princeton Public Library, built new collaborations with the Princeton Public Schools, ceramicists at the Arts Council of Princeton, and Grow Little Gardener.
• Hosted hundreds of visitors at the third annual FOHW Earth Day celebration, the autumn outdoor concert, and new events—Year of the Wood Dragon Festival and Fairyland Halloween—as well as hikes on history, plants, mushrooms, and geology
• Completed the Voulevarde—a scenic boardwalk and pergola crafted from wood milled on-site, which connects the Botanical Art Garden to the Veblen House.
• Established the Princeton Salamander Crossing Brigade, engaging students and community volunteers to protect amphibians crossing Herrontown Road during spring mating season.
• Strengthened stewardship with trail improvements and invasive species removal, hiring our first grant-funded summer interns
• Created a Tour of Trees.

One comment often heard is that Herrontown Woods is not a static park. Along with the dynamism of nature, changing through the seasons, there’s always something new to discover in the Botanical Art Garden, and now on the Veblen House grounds as well. Building community through stewardship, we continue to host the popular monthly May’s Café, where coffee and conversation blend in a forest opening filled with native wildflowers.

Our community of volunteers, hikers, donors, supportive local leaders, and a dedicated Board are on the way to realizing a vision that began with Oswald and Elizabeth Veblen. Your support will help us to restore and maintain the preserve’s trails and flora for posterity, teach and learn about its natural and cultural heritage, and build a center where people of all ages engage creatively with nature, art, and history.

Making a Table Out of Local Wood

Recently, a student at Princeton University named Frankie reached out. He had taken part in a tour of Herrontown Woods we gave in October to professor Andy Dobson's class on the Ecology of Fields, Rivers and Woodlands. Each student does a special project, and Frankie wanted to build a table out of local wood. He's from California, and has memories of a table his grandfather once made out of a slice of redwood. More than ten feet across, the slice had taken a day to cut by hand.

We arranged for Frankie to come on a day when our chainsaw virtuoso Victorino was working at Herrontown Woods. Lacking a car, Frankie took the 606 NJ Transit bus from Princeton University up to Princeton Community Village, then hiked through Herrontown Woods to meet us at Veblen House at 7:30am. 

Victorino first showed Frankie some tables he had made from a fallen maple tree. 

One invaluable service Victorino and his assistant Wilbur do at Herrontown Woods is to fell dead trees that pose a hazard along trails. After some discussion, it was decided to take a slice of wood from one of the many ash trees that unfortunately have had to come down.

The markings of insects added interest to the grain. The tree rings tell the story of the tree's life before it succumbed to an introduced insect, the Emerald ash borer.

With remarkable precision, Victorino cut legs for the table and discussed with Frankie various ways to attach them to the bottom. Having lived and traveled in various latin american countries, Frankie could easily converse in Victorino's native tongue. 

On a wintry day, brisk and bright, the whole adventure made us as happy as Frankie, as we gave him a lift back to the university with his freshly hewn table kit.