Martin-Beland-Miller Memorial Woods Plant Preserve

The Martin-Beland-Miller Memorial Woods was donated to MNA by Otto Miller and Mary E. Frolich Miller in 1996. The sanctuary honors the last names of Otto Miller’s ancestors who had owned the property beginning in 1839. After the initial ownership by John C. Martin—the brother of Otto Miller’s great-great-grandfather — the property was eventually transferred to Otto Miller’s grandfather, Fred Beland, and then Otto Miller’s parents, James and Florence (Beland) Miller.

The Millers prided themselves in the stewardship of the property in the family’s 160 years of ownership; the land was never pastured, and only light timber harvest was ever conducted. The only known timber removal was in 1910, when Fred Beland cut timber exceeding 21 inches to build a nearby house.

The sanctuary is a fragment of southern mesic forest which has been exposed to very light past disturbance. Mesic southern forests are dominated by American beech and sugar maples and found on flat to rolling topography with predominantly loam soils. Natural disturbances in these forests are characterized by gap-phase dynamics; mesic southern forests experience frequent, small windthrow gaps, which allow for the regeneration of the shade-tolerant, canopy species. These forests tend to be multi-generational, with old-growth conditions that last for many centuries.