Delaware Wild Lands permanently protects 160 acres in Sussex County

Editor's note: This article has been updated to correct the name of the grandfather who owned the property. His name is George Massey Gum.

A large chunk of forested wetlands along the eastern edge of the Great Cypress Swamp has been in Catherine Smoot-Haselnus’s family for as long as she can remember.

As a young girl growing up in a much more rural Delmarva, the Salisbury, Maryland, resident learned how to drive on the back roads winding through her grandparent’s 160-acre property as her grandmother, Catherine “Kitty” Gum, offered guidance from the passenger seat of a stick-shift Chevrolet Corvair.

“I remember going out and driving around on the dirt roads and you would see a logging truck coming at you – one time I was so scared I tried to bail out of the driver’s seat,” said the 62-year-old, laughing at the recollection of her grandmother’s startled reaction. “It was fun, and I was probably only 11 or 12 years old. Kids don’t have that kind of opportunity anymore. It’s too congested now, and it’s pretty illegal.”

Instead of cashing in on the 160-acre property inherited by Smoot-Haselnus and her four siblings after their mother died in 2016, they decided to preserve their family’s legacy of environmental stewardship by donating the land to Delaware Wild Lands for permanent preservation.

“We felt blessed and honored to make that happen,” Smoot-Haselnus said. “I think my mom would be delighted, as would my grandparents, to see it preserved in its wild state.”

For her younger brother, Aubrey Smoot III, the wooded swamp – which the kids called “Burnt Swamp” because of a local legend of underground fires smoldering in the marsh – invokes memories of learning to hunt, with lessons in firearm safety taught by his grandfather recalled as a rural right-of-passage.

“My grandfather was a very, very avid sportsman, and he was adamant that we would learn to respect firearms,” the 58-year-old said of his late grandfather, George Massey Gum. “This opportunity – and Catherine gets the credit here – to provide this to Delaware Wild Lands is perfect because it preserves the land and gives it a vibrant purpose going forward. It allows us to transition it in a way that’s kind of warm to the heart.”

Smoot-Haselnus said there was some room for the potential development of the property, but that she and her siblings didn’t really consider that as an option.

“There are always options,” she said. “I can say that on behalf of all our siblings, we’re glad this can be a legacy for the state of Delaware.”

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Kate Hackett, Delaware Wild Lands executive director, said the family’s conservation-focused decision marks one of the largest donations the organization has received in recent history.

“Being able to keep this parcel – 160 acres – intact and not developed in an area that’s developing so rapidly is a wonderful success story,” Hackett said. “In Delaware, we have lost so much of our wetland and forest resources that anything we can continue to protect is of tremendous value.”

The parcel, valued at more than half a million dollars, will be preserved as part of the 10,600-acre Great Cypress Swamp that spans across a large portion of southern Delaware into Maryland’s Wicomico and Worcester counties.

There, Delaware Wild Lands has worked to restore native plant and wetlands species, improve habitat and learn more about the ecological and cultural resources provided by the marsh.

Hackett said not only does the addition expand the protected resources of the Great Cypress Swamp, but it also provides an opportunity to preserve the family heritage of the property.

“Nancy [Smoot] grew up and loved that land, and passed a conservation ethic on to her kids,” she said. “Protecting those stories about our past and cultural history through a piece of property like this is a big deal.”

Permanently protecting the family legacy – as well as ensuring unique habitat for a variety of wildlife – was at the root of the Smoot family’s decision, Smoot-Haselnus said.

“We all have ownership of our planet, and we need to be good stewards in whatever way we can, whether that means donating a big piece of land or picking up trash somebody else threw out there,” the Delmarva native said. “It’s a privilege to be on this beautiful Earth, and we want to preserve it.”

Contact reporter Maddy Lauria at (302) 345-0608, mlauria@delawareonline.com or on Twitter @MaddyinMilford.