The original 129-acre Hudson and Nancy Winn Preserve was gifted to MHLC in 1997 by Nancy Winn and her son Merle in memory of Hudson Winn, a SUNY biology professor, and the preserve later grew through additional land acquisitions to 208 acres. Nancy Winn, an Albany Symphony Orchestra cellist, and her family had spent weekends exploring these woods and studying birds with Hudson Winn’s ornithological expertise. The preserve was endowed by Ed and Mary Driscoll, parents of Dan Driscoll, a charter board member of the Conservancy. Its most striking natural feature is a continuous limestone bedrock known as pavement, where acidified rainwater dissolved the stone over time to form cracks or fissures as much as 16 inches wide and 20 feet deep, sometimes creating a checkerboard pattern. This limestone pavement, common along the top of the Helderberg Escarpment, appears here with extensive rock outcrops, cliffs, and massive limestone blocks called chimney stones. Because little or no soil covers the cracked limestone, liquids can flow unfiltered into the water table and potentially contaminate nearby wells, the area’s primary drinking water source, so the Town of Knox designated much of this area, including portions of the preserve, as part of the Knox Land Conservation District, where only public recreation is permitted. Mature hemlocks and maples form most of the forest canopy, mosses and ferns are common on the forest floor, and specialized mosses grow within the limestone cracks. The preserve also supports many bird species that require deep forests, including wood thrush, hermit thrush, and many warblers. MHLC preserves these natural resources while honoring the legacy of the Mohican and Mohawk peoples, who stewarded this land since time immemorial, and the preserve is open to the public for hiking and outdoor recreation.