PEACE DALE, R.I. — The South Kingstown Land Trust has acquired a conservation easement for nearly 21 acres of forest, fields, and wetlands along the eastern bank of the Saugatucket River.

The property will be preserved thanks to the generous donation of landowners David and Teri Gregg and grants from the Rhode Island Agricultural Lands Preservation Commission and the Natural Resource Conservation Service.

As the executive director of the Rhode Island Natural History Survey for more than 20 years, David Gregg has a deep knowledge of land stewardship. Accordingly, he and his family have taken great care of the fields and forests on the 20.76-acre property through rare species habitat enhancement and invasive species management.

This donation ensures the land will remain protected for future generations.

“This arrangement is a dream come true for us,” the Greggs said. “This land has been a farm for over 300 years and important to Narragansett people long before that. After all that time and all those people, we couldn’t have lived with ourselves to see it developed.”

Known in the 19th century as the Rowland F. Gardiner Homestead Farm, the land had dairy cows through the middle of the 20th century and ever since has been mown for hay to feed cows.

One previous owner was an experimental horticulturalist who put in a range of exotic trees including bald cypress, Japanese maple, metasequoia, and stewartia. He also planted all the common farm plants such as apples, peaches, pears, raspberries, and blueberries. There are now healthy stands of hickory and walnut, as well as pecan, Chinese chestnut, and persimmon.

The Greggs added tree swallow and wood duck boxes and mitigated deer browse that was impacting several rare plant species. Thoughtful renovation of the barn means it retains large colonies of barn swallows and big brown bats.

Several vernal pools support wood frogs, spring peepers, American toads, four-toed and spotted salamanders, and endangered spotted turtles.

The property also preserves nearly half a mile of riverbank on the middle reach of the Saugatucket River. Because of its history of mills, people think of the river as industrialized, but it has well-preserved headwaters and good streambank vegetation that support a healthy population of increasingly rare wild brook trout, plus otters, fisher, mink, wood ducks, mallards, and beavers.