Mary Cummings Park in Woburn, Massachusetts
210 Acres of Green Space and Recreation Land North of Boston
Oct 16, 2009
Mary Cummings Park is a 210-acre parcel of conservation land that bridges Woburn and Burlington (about 10 miles north of Boston, MA), making it the 12th largest park in the metropolitan Boston area. Left in trust by Mary P. C. Cummings to the City of Boston in 1927 as a "public pleasure ground", the park is threatened by development that contradicts Mary Cummings' express wish to keep her land open to the public.
A trail map prepared by the Friends (reprinted with permission from the Friends of Mary Cummings Park) is available below, illustrating the diverse habitats and extensive walking trails exhibited by this rare open space close to Boston.
Mary Cummings' Will Unambiguously Bequeaths Her Land As a Park
Mary Cummings' Last Will and Testament, which is on file at the Middlesex Probate and Family Court in Cambridge (Massachusetts), states "To the City of Boston, Massachusetts, I give [my land] in the City of Woburn and Town of Burlington, Massachusetts ... for the following purposes and uses: To hold and keep ... forever open as a public pleasure ground, and to maintain and care for the same in a suitable manner in accordance with that purpose".
In the event that the City of Boston refused to accept her land, or was unwilling to hold the land in trust as a public park according to her wishes, Mary Cummings wrote that her land should be left to the Playground and Recreation Association of America, under the same conditions.
Clearly, Mary Cummings intended her estate to enrich the general public as green space and recreation land, not to aid in residential or industrial development.
How the City of Boston Has Failed to Fulfill Its Obligation to the Cummings Estate
"In recent years, the City of Boston has tried to discourage public access and has investigated selling the park to help fund the Rose Kennedy Greenway", accuses the nonprofit organization Friends of Mary Cummings Park.
The Friends of Mary Cummings Park organization presents several pieces of hard evidence to back up their claim that Boston is shirking its responsibility towards Cummings Park. For example:
- In 2007, $13,000 from the trust fund was used for "legal services" (with no further details provided) and approximately $4,500 was paid to the professional surveyors company R. E. Cameron and Associates. No trust fund dollars were spent on maintaining the park.
- In 2006, fully $140,000 from the trust fund was paid to surveyors and legal advisers who filed plans with the registry of deeds to build residential subdivisions on Mary Cummings Park land.
- In 2003, the City of Boston erected large "No Trespassing" signs near entrances to the park, including pedestrian-only entrances. These signs were paid for using almost $3,000 from the Cummings Trust Fund, according to the Friends of Cummings Park.
Boston is Actively Discouraging Use of Cummings Park
In 2007, the Friends of Mary Cummings Park spent $3,000 dollars of donations on large wooden signs reading "Mary Cummings Park" and erected these signs near park entrances. Within hours, the signs were ripped out, leaving just holes in the ground to mark where they had been. Concerned about the possibility of vandalism, the Friends of Mary Cummings Park reported their disappearance to the police. However, Kytja Weir of The Boston Globe reported that the City of Boston actually removed the signs and would only return them to the organization if they were not re-posted.
Park Maintenance is Completed By Volunteers
Although Mary Cummings intended for the income from her trust fund be used to maintain her land as a park, the evidence clearly shows that Boston is not spending sufficient money to keep up the park. Instead, volunteer organizations such as the Woburn Residents' Environmental Network (WREN) and the Friends of Mary Cummings Park help by removing trash from park trails.
The Future of Mary Cummings Park
Properly maintaining the park and making it more accessible to the public would be a major step forward. In 2008, the Friends of Mary Cummings Park sent a letter to the Massachusetts Attorney General's office stating that Boston has "misapplied charitable funds" (that is, the Park's trust money), requesting that the City of Boston be removed as the park's trustee. The Friends are also requesting that Boston return $118,000 to the trust which was withheld in 1930, plus the interest and appreciation that sum of money would have accumulated since that time, a total of nearly $15 million dollars. This money would then be used to properly maintain the park and ensure that Mary Cummings' bequest stays open to the public for recreation, as she intended.
As of October 2009, this letter has not yet borne fruit. However, the Friends of Cummings Park continues to educate the Woburn and Burlington communities about Mary Cummings Park, and helps local residents see the unrealized potential of this threatened green space.
References
Friends of Mary Cummings Park, http://cummingspark.org. Web page viewed on October 15, 2009.
Kytja Weir, "Burlington Mystery Solved: Boston Confiscated Park Signs", The Boston Globe, December 13, 2007.
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