Long before the Jays bought the property from the Budd Family in 1745, indigenous men and women of the Weckquaesgeek tribe called this vast expanse home, and there's substantial archeological evidence to suggest that they had a settlement in this very meadow thousands of years ago. Countless projectile points (arrowheads), chert flakes, pottery shards, and nutting stones (stones with indents in the middle that Native Americans used to crush nuts for food) have been found on the property. As you stand on the meadow, try to visualize yourself in a Weckquaesgeek settlement. Imagine them walking down the same trail to the waters of Milton Harbor (in what is now the Marshlands Conservancy) to fish. Try to see them gathering crops or hunting deer in the meadows. Imagine the annual burning of the meadow which attracted new plants and animals and kept the land open. Your time at the Jay Estate, a place where history and nature come together, cannot be complete without this.

With that in mind, there are ways for that visualization to happen. Former JHC speaker Eric Sanderson explains in this TED Talk how he undertook a similar project with Mannahatta -- later Manhattan -- using the study and technology of geoecology. Fortunately, the Jay Estate is likely similar to Mannahatta in terms of that geoecology, so that way of visualizing is a possibility here as well. Thus, imagine an open meadow filled with fields of the "Three Sisters," (squash, corn, beans) with streams (there was one by the ha-ha wall), with distinct ecological communities and populations, with black bears, and bobcats, aspens, and willows. Visualize what this place used to be. In time, with geoecological technology, all will get the opportunity to.