The 340 acre tract of the Schiff Nature Preserve is located in Mendham Township and Mendham Borough, Morris County, New Jersey.

The entire acreage of the Schiff Natural Lands Trust Nature Preserve is contained within the Ralston Historic District which is listed on both the New Jersey and National Registers of Historic Places. There are potentially four distinct cultural time periods present of the Schiff property.

Prehistoric Period

Native American artifacts have been found along the rivers and streams. The local Lenni Lenape probably used the sheltered valleys to provide trail corridors and a food resources. In the northwest area of the preserve, just above where India and Burnett Brooks join to become the North Branch of the Raritan River, a pile of rocks presents a hint of an encampment or shelter. It is possible that there were outlying hunting camps on the steeper slopes of the Preserve.

18th Century Period

A long standing oral tradition locates a Revolutionary War outpost on a hilltop in the northern section of Schiff. This outpost was supposedly utilized c. 1779-80 when the continental troops were in an encampment at nearby Jockey Hollow and may have served to protect the old Mendham-Gladstone Road through the Raritan River pass. A large pile of stones and low ridge of earth and stones extending along the hilltop ridge have not been verified as being part of such an outpost. The Old Colonial Road is another undocumented 18th feature of the Preserve. It allegedly served as a link between the Revolutionary War outpost in the area and the Jockey Hollow encampment. This historic wagon path is now little more than a broad hiking trail. It rises up a gentle grade from Roxiticus Road and the valley of the Raritan River.

19th Century Period

In 19th century atlases, the Colonial Road is listed as a private road with a 19th century house identified as the "Geo. DeVore Estate." Today evidence of cut and dressed stone foundations and cellar holes suggest that a main house occupied a 300 foot stretch along the South side of this roadway. The remains of a second 19th c. house are located in the river valley just north of the trail leading off of Union School House Road. A gristmill stone forms the base for a flagpole at the northeast end of the Great Meadow. It originated from a presumed 19th c. mill upstream from Schiff's main entrance.

20th Century Period

The main entrance bridge and four other false arch bridges with cut stone facings were constructed to correspond with the Eclectic Revival Style manor house, built by Richard H. Williams and visible as one approaches Schiff's entrance from the east. A second estate-era landscape element on Schiff was a racetrack for horses located in the Great Meadow. Other components of the 20th c. at Schiff are the Boy Scout era-buildings and the scout-made trails.

The present Nature Preserve is part of the original Schiff Reservation which was donated by Therese Schiff in memory of her son Mortimer Schiff. In 1931, Therese Schiff donated the funds to the Boy Scouts of America to purchase the property, then known as the Brookrace Estate, from the R.H. Williams family, who had acquired it in piecemeal fashion about 20 years earlier from numerous descendants of early settlers. Therese was the surviving parent of Mortimer who passed away while serving as National President of the Boy Scouts of America in 1931. His father, Jacob H Schiff had died ten years earlier, in 1921. Of the nineteenth century buildings that came with the property, only the River House survives today, at the comer of Pleasant Valley, Union Schoolhouse and Mosle Roads.

Dedicated in 1933, the Boy Scouts named the property the Schiff Reservation and developed it into its national Boy Scout Training Camp. From this location the famous "Green Bar" Bill Hillcourt, Scoutmaster of the Mendham Troop, and others worked on the Boy Scout Handbooks, Boys Life Magazine and numerous field manuals and nature guides.

The Dan Beard Cabin, named after the first National Scout Commissioner, was originally part of a Boy Scouts' Service Camp that was constructed for the 1939-40 New York World's Fair. At one time a film studio film studio was adjacent to the present location of this cabin. This film studio was, at one time, the largest film studio on the east coast. The studio was a gift of the artist Norman Rockwell and Thomas Watson of IBM. Norman Rockwell's famous paintings were on permanent display for a time and he was known to have used the Schiff Reservation as the scenes for some of his famous paintings. The Woodbadge Lodge, built in the 1960, the Marge Davidson Administration Building and the Dan Beard Cabin are the last Scout facilities remaining after the sale of the property in 1979.

More important than the famous personalities who have come to be associated with the property is the fact that the Schiff Reservation served the Boy Scouts of America for nearly 50 years, and in so doing became more than just another tract of land. It was the home of the Boy Scouts of America, a living monument to our youth and the importance of teaching our youth about the environment and the role they are expected to play in preserving it.

In 1979. the Boy Scouts of America moved their headquarters and national training center to Texas and the Schiff Reservation was sold to AT&T. Its goal was to build an international management institute for its executives, complete with a helicopter landing pad. The property was not zoned for this use and public opposition to the AT&T project was great. As a result, AT&T decided not to pursue this use of the property.

In 1984, in response to the public's interest in preserving the Schiff Reservation, the Trust for Public Lands (TPL), a California based national conservation organization, agreed to buy the property from AT&T with the intention of serving as an intermediary to sell the tract to any local, state or federal government agency willing to acquire the property.

When no public agency was found to be immediately willing to acquire the property, TPL sought to sell a minority portion of the tract to a developer to cover its acquisition and carrying costs, thus preserving the majority of the property for public open space to be managed by a local "not-for-profit" conservation organization: The Schiff Natural lands Trust, Inc. was thus formed to serve as steward of the remaining Schiff Reservation lands. Schiff Natural Lands Trust was then established in 1984 as the conservation steward of the property, seeking to guarantee this balance between development and preservation of open space.

TPL's initial conceptual plans for the property called for selling about 90 acres of the tract to a developer for the development for condominiums as well as the sale of about 28 acres of outparcels. Under this plan, all development activities were proposed to take place at the site's lower elevations in the vicinity of Lake Therese and those portions of the property on which development activities had generally taken place while the site served as the Boy Scouts' national training center, thus preserving the site's undisturbed areas. The public open space component of the project was proposed to be about 450 acres of contiguous open space. The Schiff Natural Lands Trust, Inc. supported this conceptual plan and looked forward to its role as guardian of the remaining open space.

TPL was not successful in finding a developer interested in building a condominium project. The Westage Development Group, of Somers, NY, however, was interested in constructing a single family home development clustered to preserve the majority of the site for open space purposes. Westage's earliest conceptual plans called for the construction of 66 homes on 95 acres of the tract, which was 573 acres in total at that time.

The Schiff Natural Lands Trust, Inc. recognized that there would be differences between the "conceptual" plans as originally prepared by TPL and an actual development proposal by a development company. Accordingly the Schiff Natural Land Trust was supportive of this proposal, feeling that, despite the fact that it disturbed a greater portion of the site, it was nonetheless consistent with the overall objective of preserving a large area of contiguous open space on the Schiff Reservation.

In early 1985, TPL and Westage had some initial meetings with the Mendham Township Planning Board and based on those meetings, TPL and Westage submitted a revised concept plan to the Mendham Township Planning Board to construct 71 single family homes. In addition 12 low to moderate income units were also included, as per Mendham Township's requirement. Again, the Schiff Natural Lands Trust was supportive of the proposal as consistent with their overall objective of preserving a large contiguous area of open space on the Schiff tract.

Then Mendham Township insisted on increasing the number of units by 5 in order to obtain additional tax ratetables and that the Township Planning Board was also insisting on lots greater than 3/4 acre was adjacent to open space so as to give the appearance of larger lots.

Mr. Starrett then notified the Schiff Natural Lands Trust that TPL and Westage opposed the additional units since their addition "...would be undesirable from an environmental point of view due to topographic and other constraints." They opposed the increased lot sizes as well. In addition Mendham Township also insisted on improvements to Pleasant Valley Road, again over the objections of TPL and Westage. TPL 's and Westage's position was that the improvements would be excessive and "...may well be undesirable from the point of view of local residents." Despite TPL' s and Westage' s opposition, the plans ultimately approved reflected these changes.

Throughout the local application review process, more and more changes and modifications were made, including the addition of yet more units with the reduction of remaining open space. The decision was also made to construct a subsurface wastewater disposal field in the Great Meadow as an alternative to discharging the sewage treatment plant's effluent directly into McVickers Brook as it previously had been.

The final plan included single family homes on lots averaging well over one acre, major improvements to Pleasant Valley Road, and the construction of a major wastewater disposal facility in Great Meadow. The total land area required by the development was 186 acres plus an easement for the Great Meadow acreage required for the wastewater disposal facility and an easement of about 1.8 acres for water tanks. This plan was approximately double the size originally proposed by TPL and Westage. The remaining open space was correspondingly smaller, less suitably configured for open space uses, contained less valuable natural habitat areas, and was encroached upon by wastewater disposal facilities.

In early 1987, prior to receiving preliminary approval from the Township, TPL and Westage modified their agreement to give title to the entire parcel to Westage with a conservation easement to the Schiff Natural Lands Trust to operate the remaining open space.

Westage received final approval to begin construction on Phase I of the project on March 29,1989. By this time, however, the economy had begun to fail, and West age found that it would not be in its financial interest to proceed with the construction of the project at that time.

At some point thereafter, the bank financing the project and Westage apparently agreed that the bank would take back the property in the form of a joint venture with Westage. Then, in late 1992, the bank and Westage sold the property to a subsidiary related to the bank. WDG Mendham. Inc., which then became the sole owner of the property.

Since neither Westage nor WDG Mendham, Inc. chose to post the required performance bond by March 31, 1993, final subdivision approval was not received by that date and, under the terms of TPL's agreement with Westage, TPL had an option to buy back the property. When TPL did not buy back the property, an agreement was entered into with a new developer, David Jackson.

Jackson Homes stepped in to begin completion of the project in 1993. The firm purchased the land with its existing zoning restraints, which established a balance between building and open space. Over several years, David and Suzanne Jackson succeeded in broadening their building plan while, at the same time, meeting many of the conservation goals which had delayed and, ultimately, defeated Westage.

The victory for open space was significant but not complete. Most of the land was spared; but it abuts on three sides what is now a clustered, new 185-acre community on the southeastern portion of the original tract. Around this pocket of 86 homes, now known as the Brookrace development, a dozen attached dwellings for owners of limited resources spreads the Schiff Nature Preserve. This is maintained in its natural state by the trustees and officers of the Schiff Natural Lands Trust, with the assistance of resident naturalists and stewards.

In 1998, when Schiff Natural Lands Trust took title to 310 acres of the original 500, the original boundaries of the reservation on the east were shifted farther eastward toward the borough of Mendham with the addition of 40 acres, donated by the Farrelly family. The adjoining private land donated by the Farrelly family had increased the trust's holding to about 350 acres. These were declared permanent open space by the Schiff trust, to be kept in a natural state for the public to enjoy in perpetuity.

The names of those who strived to save Schiff from development have become legendary in the stewardship of open space. Catania, Davidson, Farrelly, Hayden, Parker, Porter, Thomas, Willemsen - these stand out. Their individual efforts were supported by the far- sighted involvement of the Mendham Township Committee and Planning Board. Mix in the grassroots work and public-relations efforts of scores of individuals in the area. These were the major resources which braked and redirected an intrusive development plan to privatize 500 acres.

Nature-oriented presentations and field hikes are offered to the public, free of charge, throughout the year. And, during the summer, the preserve hosts a nature day camp for children, charging a moderate fee for weekly sessions. Quiet hikes, however, through an undisturbed spread of open, natural space on about seven miles of trails and paths are the preserve's major attractions.

The management agenda includes wildlife-habitat improvements, a self-guided nature trail, butterfly and wildflower gardens and exhibits in the Schiff Nature Center at the Marge Davidson Building, enabling visitors to enjoy the Schiff Nature Preserve indoors as well as outdoors.