Marching On: 35 Years of the American Chestnut Land Trust
Hikers make their way through the new Holly Hill trails. 
Hikers approach the anniversary celebration at Holly Hill. 
ACLT executive director Greg Bowen addresses the crowd. 
Commemorative ornaments received by Volksmarch attendees.
By Molly Weeks Crumbley
It was a temperate Saturday morning in December, and the woods and fields were filled with hikers as far as the eye could see. The occasion: the American Chestnut Land Trust’s 35th anniversary celebration Volksmarch. Over a hundred people helped mark the anniversary and break in the brand new Holly Hill trails, marching from different trailheads from the north and south to converge upon the property for a music-filled celebration and lunch.
Formed on December 4, 1986, the ACLT has grown and flourished over the years and certainly has much to celebrate. It began as a fledgling movement by likeminded neighbors who wanted to save the Parkers Creek watershed from development.
“What was unique about the formative days of ACLT was that none of us had a clue about how to proceed, but we kept working at it,” says ACLT charter member Don Dahmann. “Initially, it was a random walk; only eventually did we discover a pathway to preserving open space.”
Charter member Gary Loew agrees, explaining that there were very few models of land trusts for the original group to model itself after. Learning on the job was a must. “The ACLT has progressed far beyond what I, or I suspect any, of the original founders envisioned when it was founded,” says Loew.
Former board member Peter Vogt adds, “None of us—a mix of teachers, lawyers, scientists, retirees, military—had even heard of local land trusts.” Nevertheless, a land trust was indeed formed, the first community created land trust in Maryland.
Incorporating was just the beginning, and the board of directors were then tasked with raising the funding necessary to purchase its first parcel of land. Vogt recalls the harrowing race to fund their first land purchase. “We had about six months to raise what today would be nearly a million dollars. We beat the bushes to persuade people to contribute money. It was a nail-biting 11th hour effort. The down payment was due around July 1987 and the last check brought us to the finish line just days before.”
Run entirely by volunteers in its first five years, ACLT eventually formalized its operations to include some paid staff to oversee operations. Maintaining a robust volunteer group and fundraising have been the biggest ongoing hurdles for the land trust. Though two-thirds of the operating budget of ACLT is covered by endowment and grants, the remaining third comes from the community in the forms of membership and donations. Funding is necessary to maintain the existing parcels within ACLT as well as looking toward future endeavors.
Executive director Greg Bowen says that the ACLT has “grown from a seed to a tall sturdy tree” over the course of 35 years, but that it still has more branching out and growing to do in the future. At the Volksmarch event, he told the enthusiastic crowd about some of the upcoming projects that the organization has in the works. In particular, the ACLT has an eye towards historical preservation and education in Calvert County
The newly buttressed double crib barn on the Holly Hill property is one of the most recent examples, boasting educational panels that illuminate Calvert life before the Civil War. “Historic structures really do matter. They bring context to history,” Bowen says. He also highlighted two projects to shed light on the histories of marginalized people in the community. In 2022, interpretive panels and website information about the Piscataway Nation in the area will be available to help educate the public about Calvert County’s indigenous people. Additionally, the ACLT is part of a partnership dedicated to preserving Brown United Methodist Church, the first African American Church built in Parkers Creek.
“One of the goals of ACLT is to understand and protect our cultural history,” Bowen told the gathered crowd. “We are working hard to understand the relationship between land and humans on this landscape and the relationships between different groups of humans on this landscape.”
More information about the ACLT can be found at acltweb.org and Facebook @AmericanChestnutLandTrust.