Daniel Webster Wildlife Sanctuary - Sanctuary History

Sanctuary History

In 1974, the Town of Marshfield began to consider the purchase of the Dwyer Farm. That year, the town’s advisory board referred the possible acquisition to a study committee, as the conservation commission, cemeteries and greens, and future school sites committees all had their eyes on the more than 350-acre (1.4 km2) parcel.

There was no doubt that Mr. Dwyer was ready to sell. As a young man, Edward Dwyer, a resident of Weymouth, Massachusetts, had excelled at early farming attempts, purchasing a pig for $3 at 12 years old in 1914. He soon graduated to cows, and as a sophomore in high school ran his own milk deliveries before and after school, outputting 13 quarts a day. By the time he earned his high school diploma he boasted a small herd, five of his own milking cows. He began purchasing land in Marshfield in 1931, adding parcels in 1938 and 1970. Although solely a dairy farm in its early years, Dwyer’s land also supported about 25 horses and more than 600 pigs. At the farm’s height, Dwyer and his farmhands turned out 4,000 quarts of milk a day and 30,000 bales of hay per year.

With three sons uninterested in carrying on the family tradition on the farm, Dwyer was looking for a buyer. “I’ve sat down with the Conservation Commission’s appraiser,” Dwyer told the town of Marshfield through the March 22, 1979 edition of the Marshfield Mariner, “and we each thought the other was crazy. As long as I get expenses out of it, I’ll keep operating it. It’s on the market, but I’m not pushing it.”

One woman in town, Dorothea Reeves, had already begun a one-woman campaign to raise the money – Dwyer was asking for $500,000, or $1250 per acre - to purchase the farm for the town, hoping one end result would be shared farmland for Marshfielders to grow their own crops. By September 1980 a growing army of conservation-minded citizens calling themselves the Committee to Preserve the Dwyer Farm for the People of Marshfield, joined her. About 70 people showed up to the committee’s first public rally on September 28 at the parish house of the First Congregational Church.

In an open letter to the committee, printed in the Marshfield Mariner on October 1, 1980, Wayne Petersen, then a school teacher in Hanover, but who would be on his way to a position as a field ornithologist for the Mass Audubon, outlined some of the important reasons why, for nature’s sake, the farm should be saved as open space. “The farm includes Red Maple swamps, dry hay fields, moist meadows, and protected backwaters and muddy river edges. This combination of habitats produces not only a remarkable diversity of birdlife, but also supports a few species generally uncommon or rare throughout southeastern Massachusetts.” He listed it as hunting grounds for various birds of prey, and nesting grounds for several species of ducks; as “critical feeding grounds” for the six species of heron, ibis and egret that then nested on Clark’s Island in nearby Duxbury Bay; and as home to several species of mammals, from rodents to foxes. “This combination of features all points to an area worthy of whatever means may be required to preserve it.”

On July 25, 1981, the people of Marshfield turned out in large numbers for the first incarnation of “Save Dwyer Farm Day.” Because the farm had not yet been purchased, the event took place in the Webster-Winslow Cemetery, at the end of Winslow Cemetery Road, with jitney rides in historical cars, hot air balloons and tours of the farm. Tied in with other fundraisers in 1981, Save Dwyer Farm Day raised $8000 toward the goal.

In 1982, the event expanded to include more fun and games for kids and demonstrations by the Marshfield cheerleading squads. Funds continued to trickle in, as Dywer, now 80 years old, held off developers, with the hope of seeing his farm remain forever as open space. On October 29, 1982, the committee released the stunning news that an anonymous donor had pledged $100,000 in support, and that Mass Audubon would undertake a study of Dwyer Farm’s wildlife and plant populations. On January 25, 1984, the committee announced that a deal had been struck, and that Mass Audubon had purchased the land.

Dorothea Reeves, the driving force behind the purchase for a decade, couldn’t have been happier. “This is paying off some of our debt to nature,” she told the Marshfield Mariner. “Nature doesn’t last for us if we take it for granted. We don’t look ahead enough. I have felt strongly for a long time there was not a sufficient portion of open land in the southern part of town. Now we have some saved.” About one month after the sale, Edward Dwyer died at 81 years old. Although setbacks and delays postponed the official sale for a few months, in that year of 1984 the Daniel Webster Wildlife Sanctuary came into existence, named for an earlier owner of the land, and an important figure in American history.