MacIvor Woods Nature Preserve

MacIvor Woods in Marysville, Ohio is a 57-acre nature preserve that was once home to Dr. Malcolm MacIvor, renowned Marysville doctor and Union County Coroner, and his family. Located on the west side of town, the woods were taken care of by Dr. MacIvor and his family for fifty-two years. Dr. MacIvor was also an avid gardener and loved spending time in his greenhouse and taking care of the various plants he had collected from around the world. In 1998, Dr. MacIvor donated a conservation easement on the main wooded area to the Humane Society Wildlife Land and Trust. This trust remains today and keeps the wildlife living there undisturbed and the land itself from being developed, though there has since been significant development in the surrounding area. The land and easement were transferred to the city of Marysville in 2004.

Since the passing of Malcolm MacIvor in 2002, the area surrounding the woods has changed drastically. The woods have remained untouched in the heart of West Marysville for some time, but recently there have been some major changes that involved the preserve itself. The Residences of Bethel Woods is a housing development that immediately abuts the preserve. A back road in the development is one of only two entrances to MacIvor Woods, on the south side. Because there is no designated parking, only curbside along Emmaus Road, there are limited spaces at this entrance.

In the summer of 2015, Marysville's new and larger Kroger Marketplace was built, right down the road from the old one. The new store was built directly in front of MacIvor Woods. The only way to enter the woods from the north is off the side of the Kroger parking lot. The store donated an easement to Marysville for parking for the nature preserve. There is an ongoing fight by residents of Marysville to keep MacIvor Woods protected. With the continuous development and construction in West Marysville, concerns for the woods have grown. When the Bethel Woods development was being planned, there was some community pushback against how close it would come to the preserve. Last year, a vote was tabled on the possible rezoning of 14-acres next to the preserve. A motion was introduced that would amend the previously proposed legislation and instead require a 25-foot conservation easement. As far as I can tell, this issue has yet to have been voted on.


In the summer of 2018, the MacIvor Woods nature trail was opened to the public. Running through the woods is a 1.2-mile path. The path is unpaved and winds in a figure-eight through the trees, with bridges going over a small creek in a few places and gradual hills. There is a retention pond at the north entrance off of the Kroger parking lot. The path is very well covered with pines, oaks and hickory trees. Various birds can be spotted, mostly in the summer months, including many different types of woodpeckers and warblers. There are signs before each entrance and a memorial marker for Dr. MacIvor just inside. The MacIvor Woods Facebook page often updates with pictures of the flowers and wildlife that live in the preserve. Though it is right next to a housing development, stores and even a busy highway, the untouched nature of the woods lends to them feeling very secluded and separate from the town, despite the ever-present sound of cars in the background.

Into the Woods

When I step onto the unpaved path at the entrance to the woods, I am immediately transported somewhere far away from the housing development I was just in. It takes me less than a minute to fall in love with this place. Spindly trees with bright yellow leaves surround me and make me feel like I am deeper in the woods than I actually am. The scent of dead leaves hits me and makes me smile; it's one of my favorite things and is what the season of autumn smells like to me. I take a picture of the path unfolding in front of me, one of my favorite types of photo to take when I go to a new park. I snap a quick picture of the memorial marker for Dr. MacIvor that greeted me, make sure my baby's blanket is tucked around him, and we are on our way.

For maybe five minutes, the woods are silent, the only sound the crunch of leaves and twigs under feet and stroller wheels. I stop every once in a while, to take a few pictures of particularly beautiful trees. It's mid-October and the only flowers left are small, white asters, though even they are beginning to wither. After some time, my husband and I discuss how happy we are to have found this little piece of (relatively) untouched woods, and how amazed we are that we have both lived in Marysville our entire lives and just now heard of it. Our town doesn't have many areas like this and the local park we used to go to has been overrun by pre-teens and construction. These woods feel like a small, green oasis in the heart of a town that is constantly growing.

We otherwise don't talk much, enjoying the relative silence and feeling of isolation the woods brings. That is, until about fifteen minutes into our walk, when we gradually begin to hear the sounds that the nearby highway brings. I'm disappointed. We'd recently stopped going to my favorite park from childhood because the best path to go on with a stroller runs right next to an extremely busy road, and we had agreed on how much we hated the sound of cars honking while trying to enjoy a beautiful space in nature. We stop walking and listen. It's really not that bad. The trees still surround you enough to make you feel far from the rest of town and they do a decent job of muffling the noise. We continue walking and eventually the sounds of cars and semis fades into a kind of white noise in the background.

It doesn't strike me as odd until I'm home later, but I really don't hear any birds while in the woods. In fact, the only animals at all are two squirrels that dart past too quickly for me to get pictures of them. Later, I find a website on birding in Ohio with a page on MacIvor Woods. There seem to be a variety of birds spotted in the woods throughout the summer, but no information past August. I guess it had been getting colder recently, but didn't consider that it was already cold enough for birds to start migrating. For most of the walk, my family and I are by ourselves. At some point, we pass a trio of teenage boys, and then pass them again when reach a crossroads in the figure eight path and loop back.

The trail gradually goes up and then comes back down again. There is a skinny creek running next to us at parts, though it doesn't flow. We come to a stop on one of the bridges that crosses over the creek to make sure the baby is warm enough and take a good long look around. My husband points to a spot in the creek behind us. "See how that tree has fallen, how it looks like the water eroded the bank under it? There's a little story there." I am suddenly very aware of just how many little stories have taken place in these woods. How many animals have made their homes here, how long have these trees grown? The research I've done on the internet starts the story with Dr. MacIvor and his family, but whose property was this before it was theirs? Did Shawnee tribesmen once find shelter under these trees? I think of these things for a short minute before we continue along the path.

As I walk, I keep my eyes peeled for signs of the creatures I know must make their homes among these trees, but I am unlucky. No sign of mushrooms, birds, deer, racoons. I don't even see any insects, not even the crane flies that were swarming around me right outside of the woods. Only the two squirrels that flit by before disappearing over broken tree limbs. The trees are another story, seeming full of life despite the fact that they are losing their leaves. Acorns litter the ground all around, big hickory and oak leaves a carpet beneath them. There is a section of trees that are particularly mossy. My husband quizzes me about which direction moss grows on trees. We both agree that we thought it was to the north, but these trees have moss all around their bases. I look this up when we get back to the car and learn that this is somewhat true, but because these trees are fairly shaded and damp most of the time, moss tends to grow on all sides. There are fallen branches and split tree trunks everywhere. When we get closer to the end of the path, we see a bundle of large branches that are in the triangular shape of a tent. It is very obviously not natural, and this is our first and only sign of the human touch off of the path. The woods have a strict "take nothing, leave nothing" policy, and while I can't speak to the take nothing part, nothing seems to have been left. I spotted not a single piece of trash on the entirety of the trail. I'm impressed and pleased by this, and hope that everyone who comes here in the future has respect for the sanctity of the woods.

As we near the end of our journey, we pass a man with a backpack and a walking stick. I wonder what this man's story is, if he is a regular visitor to these woods, if he will be looking for the nonexistent birds. We circle back to entrance, and I stop to look at the memorial marker for Dr. MacIvor once again. I'm grateful for this man and his family for caring enough about this space to try to preserve it. We exit trees and go back to the car. It was a dreary, grey day and we had been worried about rain on the car ride over, wondering if we would actually be able to go on our walk. As we get back in the car, we see that it had rained a little while we were in the woods; the tree cover must have been thick enough to protect us from getting wet. This adds to the feeling that when you are inside the woods, you are transported somewhere else, away from the town they reside in. We drive away, once again talking about how glad we are to have learned of this place, planning to come again. It's been fairly rainy since then, so we haven't been back yet, but I'm excited to return and see what it looks like in the winter, covered in snow. It makes me happy that there is even a small pocket of nature so close by.

Sources

"Bar Charts - eBird." eBird. https://ebird.org/barchart?byr=1900&eyr=2060&bmo=1&emo=12&r=L11403803.

"MacIvor Woods." Birding in Ohio. https://birding-in-ohio.com/union-county/macivor-woods/.

"MacIvor Woods Debate Continues." News Break. https://www.newsbreak.com/ohio/marysville/news/1432675983571/macivor-woods-debate-continues.

"MacIvor Woods Fact Sheet." Marysville Ohio. https://marysvilleohio.org/DocumentCenter/View/3019/FactSheetMacIvorWoods?bidId=.

Images

All photos were taken by myself.
The map comes from here.