NEFF Directors meeting in New Hampshire (1945). Back row, left to right: Unknown, Hugh P. Baker, William P. Wharton, J. Milton Attridge, Nathan Tufts, James L. Madden. Front row, left to right: Farnham W. Smith, Ralph C. Hawley, Harris A. Reynolds.

NEFF spent much of 2019 celebrating its 75th anniversary, and on this page, you can explore a number of the historic materials we shared throughout that momentous year and read stories about NEFF’s history.

NEFF’s 1953 Progress Report

As NEFF approached its 10th anniversary, its Committee on Finance distributed a progress report in the form of an open letter to the wider NEFF community. Its charmingly forthright opening paragraph is included below, and the entire letter is available here as a PDF.

“In 1943 the Massachusetts Forest and Park Association appointed a committee of woodland owners, representatives of leading forest industries and foresters to study the problems of small woodland owners. The New England Forestry Foundation is the result of that study. Started in 1944 with no money, no experience and as just an idea, it has developed in nine years into an organization with fourteen foresters in ten Management Centers, and has done work on 321,000 acres for over 1,000 owners, and has supervised the cutting of nearly 60,000,000 board feet of timber. There still remain on the lands of these clients 400,000,000 feet, worth over $7,000,000 at the average price of $17.65 obtained last year.”

Historic Photos

Anniversary Blog Posts