Through the Trees to the Tower: Generations on Laurel Hill

By: Robert Sedgwick

The first time I can remember climbing Laura’s Tower was with my great uncle Alexander “Shan” Sedgwick, a New York Times reporter who took a shrapnel hit to the shoulder while covering the Battle of El Alamein during World War II. As we neared the summit, he told me how his mother Lydia Cameron Rogers Sedgwick had gifted the mountain, now part of the Sedgwick Reservation, to the Laurel Hill Association in 1932 in memory of her late husband (and my great-grandfather) Alexander (Aleck) Sedgwick. I was seven at the time and I would hear many stories in the years to come about my family’s connection to both Laura’s Tower and Laurel Hill which have served as twin sanctuaries from the everyday grind of civilized life.

There were tales of elaborate picnics featuring multitudes of wine, and family hikes and card games played on tree stumps, and lofty speeches delivered from the stone rostrum on Laurel Hill. There were skeet shooting contests among cousins and even poetry readings that took place on Laura’s Tower, and a story told to children about a not-so-friendly forest elf who inhabited the spring house (now long gone) that once abutted the trail. I myself added to the family lore by proposing to my wife one blustery fall afternoon from the top of the iron fire tower that graces the mountain’s summit. I had hoped that the spectacular panorama from up high would make up for the fact that I didn’t have an engagement ring. It didn’t.

Laurel Hill or the “little hill” as it was originally known was purchased in 1834 by Theodore Sedgwick II, the eldest son of my fourth great-grandfather Judge Theodore Sedgwick, for the tidy sum of $450 with the explicit intent to preserve it in perpetuity and make it available for public use.

Sedgwick Trail Sign

It has been suggested by LHA’s very own Pat Flinn and others that this action on the part of the Sedgwick family marked the beginning of the public land trust movement in the United States. Yellowstone National Park, the country’s first official national park didn’t open until 1872, and the National Park Service didn’t exist until 1916, so an argument can be made that the Sedgwicks were well ahead of their time in this regard.

Then in 1878, the Sedgwick family deeded Laurel Hill to the Laurel Hill Association, which had been established 25 years earlier by Mary Hopkins Goodrich. The deed specified that the property be “…dedicated…to the use benefit and pleasure of the public intending that the same be protected and preserved forever for that purpose.” This transfer is believed to be the first of its kind in the United States.

Since that time, Sedgwicks have continued to maintain a strong connection to Laurel Hill and the Laurel Hill Association serving as board members, presidents and benefactors. Henry Dwight Sedgwick II (my great-great-grandfather) served as president for twenty-two years, from 1881-1903 followed by his son Aleck Sedgwick who served from 1905-1925. More recently, Arthur W Schwartz, who is descended from Theodore II, was president from 1993 – 1995 and I currently serve as vice president.

As a boy, hiking up Laura’s Tower was always a thrilling experience. On misty summer mornings there was something magical, almost mystical about walking across the old stone bridge that spans the Housatonic before traversing the railroad tracks on the other side of the river. Just up the hill from the tracks, the trailhead seemed to be a gateway into a whole other world where one’s imagination could just run wild. And sometimes even to this day I wonder if that woodland elf is lurking behind a tree or a rock as I make my way up to the tower.

Photos: Robert Sedgwick