Upper Paugussett State Forest

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880 acre State Forest formerly known as The Mullikin Tract. Bisecting the forest is a forest road named after Polly Brody, the woman who led the charge to get this tract of land preserved in back in 1965. In an email from 2007 she wrote:
"Mr. Mullikin (who lived in New Canaan) did have plans to develop the tract with 350 projected home sites, but there was NOT an organized "fierce opposition" to this, in the town. I was Chairman of the Conservation Commission at that time. We had finished providing the Open Space Plan for Newtown (one of the first to do so) following the State's enactment of P.A. 490.

Among the designated open space areas, the Mullikin Tract was our prime recommendation for purchase. Over a two year period, we took our proposal to TWO town meetings--one under a Democratic administration and one under a Republican administration! Despite the fact that our Commission obtained a promise of 50% funding from the federal Bureau of Outdoor Recreation (BOR), the town turned down purchase. By the way, we members of the Conservation Commission had payed for an independent appraisal of this property out of our own pockets! It valued the land at $800,000. I remember one person (a Realtor) saying at one town meeting: "the place is a worthless goat pasture!"

After butting our heads against the wall in Newtown, I took our proposal for preservation to the Nature Conservancy. They turned it down because the land was not considered to be ecologically "unique." Then I turned to the State. I had done a bio-assay of the land (its flora and fauna), and we paid privately, for a topographical overlay. I wrote the Governor, and rallied other persons in Hartford. Officials from the Forestry Department, and I think from DEP, walked over the land with me...I recall a great guy named Joe Ward. The Bond Commissioner found funds available, and endorsed purchase. Now it is a State Forest."