{"id":3149,"date":"2024-12-15T23:43:31","date_gmt":"2024-12-15T23:43:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bethanylandtrust.org\/?page_id=3149"},"modified":"2024-12-15T23:43:31","modified_gmt":"2024-12-15T23:43:31","slug":"mendells-folly","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/bethanylandtrust.org\/Test\/preserves\/mendells-folly-complex\/mendells-folly\/","title":{"rendered":"Mendell’s Folly"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Mendell\u2019s Folly, 125-acre tract of land Bethany and Beacon Falls, remains the \u201ccrown jewel\u201d among the preserves in the Land Trust\u2019s portfolio. As the centerpiece in Bethany\u2019s northwest corner greenway, Mendell\u2019s Folly provides hiking opportunities with trails that connect with three other preserves and is part of an area identified as a \u201cNature\u2019s Network Connector\u201d that resides between terrestrial and wetland core areas.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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The largest property belonging to the Bethany Land Trust, Mendell\u2019s Folly was given to the Trust in 1971 by Elizabeth \u201cTibby\u201d Mendell. One of the original incorporators of the Land Trust, Tibby and her husband Clarence Mendell, the former Dean of Yale College and Sterling Professor of Classics at Yale, had purchased the property and adjoining pieces in 1936.<\/p>

In all, the Mendells acquired 190 acres. Some of the land had been a cow pasture, some an apple orchard, some just plain Bethany woods. It\u2019s been said that one of Clarence Mendell\u2019s students, on seeing this wilderness of muddy fields and rocky hillsides, called it Mendell\u2019s Folly, a play on the name Seward\u2019s Folly given to the U.S. purchase of Alaska. After Clarence Mendell died, Tibby remained in Bethany on her \u201cFolly.\u201d<\/p>

Mendell\u2019s Folly includes heavily wooded hills, rocky outcrops and ridges, a charming brook, a marsh, beaver lodges and a dam, a ravine, and lots of wildlife and wildflowers. Hockanum Brook, or Lebanon Brook as it is sometimes called, flows into the wetlands westward from Bethany\u2019s Veterans Memorial Park, then through a magnificent gorge below the beaver dam toward Beacon Falls and eventually the Naugatuck River. The stream widens into a marsh in the middle of the property, where beaver have felled many trees and created a small pond behind a dam.<\/p>

Trails:<\/strong><\/p>

Mendell\u2019s Folly provides hiking on moderate to difficult trails that course through wetlands, pass the beaver pond and dam, climb up ridges and pass through other natural features on the property.<\/p>