Once, many years ago, then-House Speaker Tom Mcgee led a group of legislators on an outing to the Clark estate in Hamilton at the invitation of their colleague, Republican state representative Forrester “Tim” Clark Jr. It’s said that upon viewing the wide-open expanses surrounding Sagamore Hill, McGee, who hailed from the grimy precincts of West Lynn, exclaimed, “Why Tim, your yard is bigger than my entire district!”

Those rolling meadows and tree-topped hills with views all the way to the Atlantic Ocean will now be available to all the residents of an increasingly urbanized North Shore thanks to the efforts of the Essex County Greenbelt Association.

The 55-year-old nonprofit announced recently it has raised the $5.1 million needed to purchase 340 acres of land in Hamilton and Essex that will form the Sagamore Hill conservation area and be part of an even larger corridor of open space stretching along Route 1A from Wenham to the Great Marsh.

Noted Greenbelt president Ed Becker in a recent blog post: “A conservation effort of this magnitude is unprecedented in this highly developed and populous area of eastern Massachusetts.”

Read the Entire Salem News Article here