30 acres purchased in Marlboro Township adding to Freneau Woods Park.

Marlboro and Aberdeen Townships – Monmouth Conservation Foundation (MCF) announces the acquisition of a 30 acre parcel.  The piece is the last in a set of properties acquired in furtherance of a new Monmouth County regional park called Freneau Woods Park.  The property was purchased as a collaborative effort by the Monmouth County Park System and the Monmouth Conservation Foundation.  To date, 154 acres have been purchased, being acquired like pieces of a puzzle, that with future acquisitions will one day become a 250-acre regional County Park.

The property was funded collaboratively by MCF and the County of Monmouth.  MCF contributed $200,000 of the total purchase price of approximately $1.4 million, $100,000 of which is Green Acres funding awarded to MCF.

Located at the headwaters of Matawan Creek, including Lake Lefferts, this and surrounding properties are rich in both environmental and historical importance.  Local non-profits and government officials have long touted the importance of protecting the land that surrounds this unique coastal wetland that also provides a habitat for a diverse set of local species.  Keeping the headwaters safe from development is vital to the future water quality.

“MCF is proud to have facilitated this acquisition and its recent predecessor for Monmouth County and to have provided funding toward both these magnificent and ecologically significant additions to Freneau Woods Park.” Said MCF’s Executive Director, Bill Kastning.

During the American Revolutionary period, the land was part of a larger area owned by the Freneau family.  Freneau was an influential poet and newspaper writer whose works were clearly influenced by the natural beauty of the area.  In the July 4, 1795 edition of the Jersey Chronicle newspaper Freneau remarks, “I frequently walk into the fields over the cultivated farms and through the little forests that lay beyond the two rivers…What most of all disgusts me in these excursions is that men seem too much to have strayed from the grand simplicity of Nature…”

Monmouth Conservation Foundation, founded in 1977 by Michael Huber and Judith Stanley-Coleman as a 501(c)(3), is an accredited land trust dedicated to preserving open space and farmland in Monmouth County.  Monmouth Conservation Foundation has directly preserved more than 6,500 acres while collaboratively preserving 16,000 acres throughout Monmouth County.  MCF has been steadfast in saving invaluable farmland and open space, protecting waterways, preserving ecosystems, creating and/or extending parks and greenways for the past 38 years.