Hart’s Woods: The History of Our First Public Preserve
Some legacies are measured in decades. Hart’s Woods Preserve is measured in centuries. Tucked along New Britain Road in Doylestown, Hart’s Woods is Heritage Conservancy’s first preserve, and its story of protection predates our organization entirely.
In 1906, George M. Hart’s grandfather purchased this parcel of mature woodland with the intention to protect it from being logged. He recognized the value of these trees as something worth keeping natural, when others were eyeing them for timber. That decision, made more than 100 years ago, is the reason you can walk beneath a canopy of oaks, beech, tuliptrees, hickory, and maple today that were already mature before Doylestown was a borough, before almost anything we recognize about this region had come to be.
Through the decades, the property was passed down through the family with the purpose to continue protecting the forest. Beginning in 1958, George M. Hart started transferring the land to Heritage Conservancy in a series of installments, a process that would take over a decade to complete. Before it did, the woods faced a serious threat. In 1968 and 1969, plans to construct the Route 611 and Route 202 interchange would have repositioned New Britain Road, cutting directly into the property and destroying a significant portion of the woodland. Hart, David Benner (a horticulture instructor at Delaware Valley College), and a group of local residents and environmental advocates fought back, ultimately succeeding in having the planned bypass rerouted to the north and sparing the forest. In December 1970, Heritage Conservancy gained full ownership of the property. In 1974, an adjacent 1.28-acre parcel was added, bringing Hart’s Woods to its current 20.2 acres.
Creek at Hart’s Woods, January 1975
The trees at Hart’s Woods are believed to be 300 years old. Old growth forests like this one are unique, and scientists have found that they do some things better than younger forests, like storing carbon and maintaining the kind of ecological stability that takes centuries to build. Hart’s Woods also benefits from its location alongside Doylestown Township’s Central Park, whose adjoining 21 acres help support the contiguous habitat that makes the ecosystem here so biodiverse. In 2019, Hart’s Woods was designated as part of the Old Growth Forest Network, the national network of protected old-growth native forests in the United States. It is one of very few such forests remaining in Pennsylvania.
Fallen tree at Hart’s Woods
This May, during Leave a Legacy Month, the story of Hart’s Woods is worth reflecting on. Three generations of one family made decisions that protected this land at a time when open space in Bucks County was starting to disappear. The result is 20 acres of woodland in the middle of Bucks County that has never been developed, and continues to grow older every year. That is what a legacy can look like.
