The 450-acre Hall Tavern Farm sits along the bank of the Deerfield River in Franklin County, Massachusetts. Jay Healy, whose family has owned the property since the early 1900s, has managed the farm for the past 50 years, following the work of his father, Winston, and his grandfather, John. Once a dairy farm, Hall Tavern Farm has been part of the American Tree Farm System since 1949, making it the oldest privately-owned certified tree farm in the state, according to Healy. The farm has won the Massachusetts Forest Alliance’s Tree Farm of the Year award twice.
The woodlot is 400 acres, mostly white pine and mixed hardwoods that include black cherry, red oak, and white oak and is managed for timber production. The remaining 50 acres are in agriculture: some vegetables, hayfields, and pasture for beef cattle. The Healy family used to keep more livestock and chickens but has focused mainly on the woodlot since the 1960s. Jay Healy grew up working on the farm and in the woods, and his family’s long legacy here guides his stewardship of the land. “My father would roll over in his grave if he saw us making poor forest management decisions,” he said. Healy works closely with his business partner Jared Bellows and forester Toby Carter of Bay State Forestry to manage the land. Long-term income from sustainable timber harvesting – primarily pine and some oak – and protecting water quality are priorities. Maintaining biodiversity and wildlife habitat are also important to Healy, so they manage for a variety of mast trees and substantial riparian corridors as well.
Healy attended Williams College and Suffolk University Law School. After graduating from law school, he was elected a Massachusetts state representative in 1969, succeeding his father Winston to represent the 1st Franklin district, which he did for 23 years, followed by another 10 as commissioner of agriculture. During this time, he spent at least a few days each week in Boston. But he also worked in the woods and on the farm throughout those years, squeezing in that time during odd hours and on weekends. Healy had seen his father manage the balancing act of running Hall Tavern Farm and working in the state legislature, and he was prepared to do the same. He took over management of the property from his father in the 1970s.
In the 1960s, the family harvested veneer-quality oak logs and sent them to Canada, where they were milled and sent back to be sold in the United States for a much higher rate. After he took over, Healy questioned the logic of sending away logs – and cutting into meager profits. “It seemed sacrilegious. We talk about local products for agriculture, but why don’t we talk that way about wood? I would argue that forestry is a stepchild to society’s vision of investing in rural communities,” Healy said. He looked around at the tall, straight white pines on the property and realized if he could complete more of the work on the property, it would better serve both him and the local economy. He has been working toward this goal ever since.
Throughout Hall Tavern Farm’s transition from John to Winston to Jay, the principles have remained the same over the years: to maintain the ecological integrity of the land and to derive enough income from it to be able to fulfill the first goal. Both goals require good forest management, and for Healy, this starts with knowing the land and paying attention to the natural rhythms. Since taking the helm, his focus has been on fostering healthy, productive white pine stands. “We’re out here with our binoculars, looking at the treetops to see the amount of pine seed,” Healy said. “We always work in concert with Mother Nature.”
After careful selection of seed trees, they time a harvest of 10 to 15 acres to coincide with a good seed year, typically every seven or eight years. In leaving the best trees behind, their restraint is repaid down the line in good regeneration.
Along with his right-hand man, Jared Bellows, Healy employs a couple of people on a part-time basis. There have been hiccups along the way, whether it’s needing to spend $75,000 on a skidder or “kerfuffles,” as Healy calls them, with loggers. Healy has learned the hard way how long it takes the land to come back after high grading. About 50 years ago, a logging company took numerous veneer-quality oaks that weren’t marked. Armed with photo evidence of stumps that were left, Healy took the company to court for timber trespass. “We won the case, but it was stressful. Now we really make sure we take the time to hire the right people, because we’re still recovering from that,” he said.
In 2006, Healy purchased a Chase semiautomatic sawmill, which has allowed Hall Tavern Farm to reinvest income from the pine boards they mill and to sell back into equipment and the woods. Healy has able to spend more on ensuring successful pine regeneration, including scarification and seedbed prep. In addition to the mill, they have dry kilns (one with a capacity of 9,000 board feet and an older model with a capacity of 1,000 board feet) and a forklift to load them.
Because everything is processed within a mile of where it’s cut, the farm is also more insulated from the impacts of weather and pests. “If there’s a big blowdown or other disaster, we can salvage all that before rot, bugs, or blue stain sets in,” said Healy. He strives to use the whole tree, with sawdust used for animal bedding and bark and wood shavings for landscaping. The kiln and the boiler in the house run mainly on wood waste, and solar panels provide most of the mill’s energy, making the whole process more affordable and more sustainable. “They have a unique and incredible timber resource and are able to manage for a market specialty of large-dimension, clear pine boards,” forester Toby Carter explained. “Because they waste nothing, they take a low volume out of the woods annually.”
Healy proudly attributes “being lousy marketers” with keeping things local: most of the business is word-of-mouth and comes from within a 50-mile radius of the farm. Seventy percent of the milled products are from the property’s woodlot, with 30 percent from logs brought in by customers. Many of the outside orders are for people who have harvested a few trees from their own property for home renovation projects. Hall Tavern Farm will saw, kiln dry, and turn them into flooring or beams or siding to the customer’s specifications.
Future plans include purchasing a newer mill with a built-in turner, which will make maneuvering the logs less strenuous. Now almost 80, Healy relies more on Bellows, who is a few decades younger, knowledgeable, and dedicated to the woodlot and business. Eventually, Healy would like to restore the 100-year-old dairy barn that’s been standing empty, but he accepts that there might not be money for that anytime soon. “We’ll see how we end up. We’re in good shape for at least another 20 years past when I topple over,” Healy said. “It’s like doing a relay race and handing off the baton: if you’ve run well, you’ve done the best you can. You just hope the handoff is good, but you don’t have a whole lot of control about the rest.” Healy has placed a conservation restriction on the land through Franklin Land Trust, ensuring that the property will remain undeveloped regardless of who owns it next.
He still loves working on the land and gains special satisfaction from seeing a pine he tended to decades ago doing well and growing tall. “I get to do right by the land and the forest, and even though my father and grandfather are long gone, that’s a good feeling,” Healy said. “This work sort of imbues you with the value of what’s really important.” Although the view looks close to the way it did when he was a kid, he thinks often of the history there. He’s found arrowheads from when the property was the site of Taylor Fort during the French and Indian War in the 1750s and ’60s, old coins from when the tavern for which the farm is named was operating in the early 1800s, and salmon bones from before the Deerfield River was dammed in the early 1900s. “The history is a part of the landscape – there’s a flow to it that’s not interrupted,” Healy said. “By caring for the land, I get to be a part of that story.”