The Man Who Designed Forest Park

BY ROBERT DASHEVSKY

Whileit’s fair to say there’s an “Olmstedian” aspect to the Forest Park landscape, credit for the crown jewel of Springfield’s park system necessarily goes to another man – a man largely forgotten by history. His name is Justin Sackett.

Sackett – at the behest of city authorities, but without any written plan – began in the mid-1880s to selectively drain marshes, channelize streams, and build the carriage roads, pavilions, ponds and grounds that formed the core of Forest Park, even as additional land parcels were donated. Forest Park was the culmination of Sackett’s long and varied career.

His previous projects include Springfield’s Court Square, Oak Grove Cemetery, Calhoun Park, the racetracks and dike at the former Hampden Park, the grounds of Northampton State Hospital, as well as Springfield Hospital. For nearly a decade, he was Springfield’s superintendent of streets, charged with constructing both streets and sewer lines. Privately, he owned real estate and built houses.

Born in Westfield in 1814, Sackett as a boy hired himself out to a local farmer before going to work at the “new” Springfield Cemetery in 1840. His first executive position was in St. Johnsbury, VT, where he laid out a new town cemetery, gaining experience and skills for larger contracts later in Springfield.

An 1891 article in the New York-based journal Garden and Forest identifies Sackett as a “local landscape-gardener,” who, “without any definite plan,” proceeded to develop Forest Park with a “happy-go-lucky piecemeal method” that, despite limited municipal funding, “proved much more satisfactory and pleasing than might have been expected from an unstudied scheme.”

It may be more accurate to characterize Sackett’s work as an inspired synthesis of disparate land parcels, donated over time. Somehow, Orick Greenleaf’s 70-acre gift of pristine woods, wild ravines and trickling streams had to be integrated with Everett Barney’s manicured estate – 175 acres including gardens, lawns, exotic plants and lily ponds (which may have been installed by Sackett in previous, private work for Barney).

Sackett’s obituary in the Springfield Republican (March 4, 1897) summarizes his career and says this about his role in Forest Park: “His idea in regard to the planning and development of Forest Park was to run a narrow cultivated strip through the park, leaving it in close juxtaposition to the wilder and rougher parts …” Sackett died peacefully, age 83, at his Spring Street residence. He was eulogized as having lived “a life devoted in the most part to the development of the beautiful …”

Along the Pecousic Brook from Porter Lake to the Connecticut River, and in other parts of our vast and versatile park, Sackett’s design legacy continues to serve the public for which it is held in trust.

Justin Sackett was Springfield’s own Frederick Law Olmsted.

Editor’s note: The Springfield Parks commissioned Frederick Law Olmstead, Jr. to provide park designs in 1914 and again in 1923.