The property is accessed by a bucolic, barely two-lane road that winds its way through a canopy of trees, occasionally revealing hardy corn stalks on each side reaching for the rural Menard County sky. An inconspicuous sign near a private residence marks the spot where Abraham Lincoln’s first sweetheart, Ann Rutledge, died in a log cabin 190 years ago. It’s about as pastoral a setting as you can find in Illinois, and Harry Schirding wants to make sure it stays that way.
“I don’t really want to legislate from the grave, but I like the idea of being able to feel like it’s going to continue to be farmed,” Schirding said as he looked across his land north of Petersburg. “That’s really the best use for it.”
Schirding has 830 acres under a conservation easement with the Sangamon Conservancy Trust. The easement limits what the land can be used for both now and in the future. Schirding and his three siblings inherited the land from their late aunt, who looked into an easement before her death.
“She had it as a farm and that’s the way she wanted it to be kept,” Schirding said. “We want to restrict what future generations can use it for.”
Schirding’s property is part of a growing number of acres under conservation easements through the Sangamon Conservancy Trust (SCT), which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. The trust is a nonprofit organization formed in 2000 to help support the goals and objectives of the Sangamon County Soil and Water Conservation District. Since then, the CST has become one of a limited number of land use trusts available in Illinois, and has 4,200 acres currently under conservation easements.
The CST recently held a 25th anniversary celebration at Jubilee Farm, a 164-acre center for ecology and spirituality operated by the Dominican Sisters just west of Springfield along Old Jacksonville Road. The sisters placed their property under a SCT conservation easement several years ago.
“Having wild places is essential for our own humanity, our understanding of who we are in relationship to the rest of creation,” said Jubilee Farm cofounder Sister Sharon Zayac. “From the very beginning, we looked for a way that would ensure that this land be preserved from development and that it would be kept for habitat.”
Zayac said the Dominican Sisters explored different ways to establish conservation easements, but they initially found that their relatively small tract of land wasn’t large enough for many groups that could hold those easements. Then, they discovered the SCT and have been pleased with the arrangement that protects their land in perpetuity.
“We have a variety of soils and woodland, woods and pasture areas with Illinois native wildflowers and grasses which we have been restoring,” said Zayac as Jubilee Farm’s llamas and alpacas grazed nearby. “The easement is a way to respect the integrity of the whole earth community.”
A conservation easement is a voluntary and legally binding agreement between a landowner and a land trust like the SCT, or between a landowner and a government agency. The easement permanently limits uses of the parcel, and the land trust is responsible for making sure that the landowner adheres to the terms of the agreement.
The landowner retains legal title to the property and determines what type of land uses will be allowed what uses will be restricted. Subdivisions, commercial timber cutting, landfills, surface mining, billboards, animal confinement feeding operations, wind turbines and solar fields are examples of prohibited uses on conservation easements.
The Sangamon Conservancy Trust has a primary coverage area consisting of Sangamon, Christian, Macon, Logan, Menard, Cass, Morgan, Macoupin, and Montgomery counties. Farmland and natural areas in other counties can be considered by the SCT on a case-by-case basis.
Sangamon Conservancy Trust Chair Barb Mendenhall has been involved in the trust since its 2000 inception.
“I was the executive director of the Sangamon County Soil and Water Conservation District and we saw an opportunity and a need for an organization that would do conservation work,” Mendenhall said. “We accept easements and also receive grants that wouldn’t be available to the soil and water district.”
Although conservation easements are donated at no charge to the trust, landowners incur some expense through the procedure. Land appraisals must be performed to determine the fair market value of the property, and the SCT charges a conservation fee to help fund the annual compliance inspections that must be done as part of the easement.
Easements come with a possible federal income tax benefit, and land in a conservation easement can be sold, bought or inherited. But easements do not remove the property from local tax rolls, and the property is still subject to eminent domain.
Mendenhall said it’s all about protecting the land as it exists now.
“A lot of land has been sold for development, and we want to make sure that farmers who want to farm can keep their land in farming forever,” Mendenhall said. “We can also help keep natural areas intact according to the property owners’ wishes.”
Tom Skelly of Springfield is one of the original SCT board members.
“We see prime farmland in particular being used for a lot of solar development, and it’s just not the best use for prime farmland,” Skelly said. “That’s always been an issue with the trust and is one of the main reasons we exist.”
Bob Komnick owns more than 500 acres in Sangamon County’s Curran Township and his easement with the SCT will keep the land as it exists now, a combination of farmland and natural areas.
“My dad told me before he died, ‘Don’t break it up or sell it,'” Komnick recalled. “I’ve got one son who farms but none of his children want to, so I’m going to keep it all together as one chunk and it will be taken care of.”
According to the American Farmland Trust, between 2001 and 2016 approximately 2,000 acres of farmland and ranchland were lost each day to development in the U.S.. The 2017 Census of Agriculture for Illinois revealed that there were 2,436 fewer farms since 2012.
Most of the easement acreage overseen by the SCT consists of prime farmland, and that’s why current board member Ted Megginson plans to place much of his southern Sangamon County land into an easement with the SCT.
“We have kids coming in behind us and hopefully they will have the same feelings about the land as we do,” Megginson said. “I enjoy being a part of the Sangamon Conservancy Trust. It’s good to see it growing, and it seems like we’ve got a farm or two on the docket all the time. It’s really rewarding.”
This article appears in Fall Guide 2025.
