Wilcox Family Preserve’s long agricultural history

The rich soil of the Granby Land Trust’s Wilcox Family Preserve in the West Granby Historic District has been used for agricultural purposes at least since 1683, when an early colonist, Elizur Hill, was granted 25 acres here. It’s quite possible that Indigenous Americans farmed this land even before that, as it was already cleared when colonists arrived. Today, 340 years after Hill began to farm it, the field is tilled by Gary Cirullo of the Garlic Farm through a no-cost lease granted by the Granby Land Trust. Now that the GLT owns the land, it will be preserved as farmland and open space, forever. Photo by Rick Orluk