Eleven acres and a dream. That was how it all began in 1959 when Henry Beetle Hough and Elizabeth Bowie Hough bought the old ice house property in Edgartown and launched the Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation with its mission of land conservation, stewardship and education. Nearly a quarter century later, when asked to define the foundation that he and his wife had created, the editor and publisher of the Gazette had a ready reply: “We’re free and independent and we act,” he said.

The same could be said of the extended Hough family, which has so generously contributed to an array of land conservation efforts on the Vineyard through the years, especially at Cedar Tree Neck, the spectacular north shore sanctuary in West Tisbury. The sanctuary was the first expansion acquisition by Sheriff’s Meadow and was founded partly in memory of Betty Hough, who had died in 1965. In February of 1967, Mr. Hough began a grass roots campaign to save about a hundred acres of land from development at Cedar Tree Neck. Eight months later, he had raised one hundred and sixty five thousand dollars, much of it from small donations, and the purchase was completed. Archives at the Vineyard Gazette include a folder of handwritten letters that contributors sent with their checks of ten, twenty-five or a hundred dollars, most remarking on the rare and unspoiled beauty of the land and their wish to see it preserved.

Today the Sheriff’s Meadow holdings at Cedar Tree Neck have grown to nearly four hundred acres, more than ninety-three of them donated by the Hough family. The most recent donation was announced this week: thirty-one acres of upland and coastal forest donated by the Hough family that will connect the section of the sanctuary known as Fishhook with the top of Indian Hill. The Fishhook land was also donated by the Houghs some years ago. Fittingly, the new preserve will be named the George A. Hough Preserve.

The Vineyard owes a large debt of thanks to the forward-thinking members of the Hough family for continuing to carry out the mission of the Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation. Their legacy of conservation is a story for the ages.