Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park is a United States National Historical Park in Woodstock, Vermont. The park preserves the site where Frederick Billings established a managed forest and a progressive dairy farm. The name honors Billings and the other owners of the property: George Perkins Marsh and Laurence and Mary French Rockefeller. The Rockefellers transferred the property to the federal government in 1992. It is the only unit of the United States National Park System in Vermont (except for the Appalachian Trail).
Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park was awarded the first Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification of a United States national park by the Rainforest Alliance's SmartWood program in August 2005. This certification made Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller only the second United States federal land to receive such certification for sustainable forest management.
Visitors can take guided tours of the 19th century George Perkins Marsh Boyhood Home, which includes displays of landscape paintings, highlighting the influence painting and photography had on the conservation movement. The gardens have also been restored.
Famous quotes containing the words national, historical and/or park:
“Success and failure in our own national economy will hang upon the degree to which we are able to work with races and nations whose social order and whose behavior and attitudes are strange to us.”
—Ruth Benedict (1887–1948)
“Historical! Must it be historical to catch your attention? Even though historicity, like notoriety, denotes nothing more than that something has occurred.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“Is a park any better than a coal mine? What’s a mountain got that a slag pile hasn’t? What would you rather have in your garden—an almond tree or an oil well?”
—Jean Giraudoux (1882–1944)