Wadsworth/Kerste deBoer Arboretum

The Wadsworth/Kerste DeBoer Arboretum is a relic of a long-ago design by the Olmsted Brothers Landscape Architects. Over a period of several years in the early 1900s, the firm provided the design of a boulevard lined with a double allée of mostly native forest trees. The route, formerly a dirt road, bounded the State of Connecticut Girls’ Industrial School, a site now owned and mostly cleared by Wesleyan University. The plans for the boulevard with planting details is in the Olmsted Archives in Brookline, Massachusetts, Job # 3359.

The driving force behind this forested boulevard was Colonel Clarence Wadsworth, who had inherited a historic property in downtown Middletown from his mother. When he built his country estate, then known as Long Hill (now the Wadsworth Mansion at Long Hill Estate), he wanted a carriage route from downtown to the new estate that properly reflected the grandeur of his new Newport-style mansion.

While the boulevard within the arboretum has been reduced to a two-lane road, the trees remain. The Middletown Urban Forestry Commission is steadily replanting to fill in gaps where 120-year-old trees have been removed or destroyed in storms. The arboretum is currently being mapped using GIS technology and will soon be searchable on the City of Middletown’s website.