Enjoying and Saving the Environment

IN 1962 THE SMITHS ADDED public campsites on their land adjacent to the farm fields and the ocean. The campground was called Recompence, named for the river that ran through the farm on an eighteenth-century map, today called Little River. It would add revenues for the farm, but there were deeper purposes. Not only organic farmers, the Smiths were also committed to conserving open space, which both the farm and campsites were helping them do; to preserving the environment; to public access to the ocean, fast declining; and to the preservation of historic buildings and landscapes. The campground brochure encouraged campers to enjoy the water and the woods, and to be aware of the history all around them, from the time of Native people to the early shipbuilders, farmers, and millers. “Much remains undamaged by change,” it said. The camp continues today as Wolfe’s Neck Oceanfront Camping.

It was also in the early 1960s that the Smiths made major legal news. The Central Maine Power Company, without permission, sprayed chemicals to control growth under their powerlines in the woods and along Wolf Neck Road through the farm. It was anathema for a farm dedicated to keeping its land and its product free from chemical fertilizers and pesticides. LMC took the power company and the Reynolds Tree Expert Company to court. CMP offered to settle out of court, but LMC refused; he wanted a judicially ordered injunction for the public record. After just one day of hearings, Cumberland

County Superior Court Judge Francis W. Sullivan awarded an injunction. CMP was not to spray again on the farm or on any land owned by the Smiths. The Smiths were awarded $1,000 in damages. CMP went on record saying its policy was not to spray when any landowners objected. As part of the settlement, the Smiths would take over the clearing of brush and trees in the right of way. The president of the Nature Conservancy, Richard Goodwin, wrote LMC his congratulations, saying “this is a real milestone in the rights of the individual with regard to pesticide trespass.” The Philadelphia Inquirer called it one of the first environmental lawsuits against a utility company in the country. It remains today a landmark case.