People and conservation · Medford
Jeanne Woodford and the promise that kept Cedar Run wild
Documented conservation work · First-person interview
The Woodford refuge began as a family retreat. Jeanne Woodford helped care for its first injured animals, then worked to make sure the forest around their lake would remain protected after the family’s stewardship.
An owl in the family kitchen
In a 2014 interview published by Cedar Run, Jeanne recalled that her parents bought the Stokes Lake property in 1951 as a summer home. Betty and Jim Woodford began banding birds for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1956, and school groups soon came to learn around Cedar Run Lake. Then a friend brought the family a young great horned owl. Jeanne remembered feeding it with her parents and releasing it near their home after it recovered. Other injured animals followed. Her account places a child and young woman inside the work often summarized as her parents’ project; it is a recollection recorded decades later, rather than a contemporary diary of the owl’s arrival.
Protecting the land beneath the refuge
Animal care and school visits depended on the forest staying intact. Jeanne told Cedar Run that her mother had wanted the property kept from development and that she wrote the Green Acres application in 1997 to carry out that wish. The Pinelands Preservation Alliance’s 2013 profile credits Jeanne with permanently preserving about 170 acres and describes a substantial financial sacrifice. The accounts differ in how they date the final transfer or protection: Jeanne dates her application to 1997; later reporting describes a 1998 land donation. Without the deed and grant file, the application year should not be mistaken for an independently verified closing date.
That decision is the hinge in Cedar Run’s story. Wildlife rehabilitation treats animals harmed today; land protection keeps the habitat that future animals and people will need. Jeanne later served on the refuge’s board and, in 2012, the Pinelands Preservation Alliance inducted her into its Pine Barrens Hall of Fame for conservation and education. The refuge history follows the larger Woodford family and the public site.
Read the refuge on foot
Use the Nature Center entrance at 4 Sawmill Road, Medford. Cedar Run warns that navigation apps can misroute drivers, and its wildlife hospital at 6 Sawmill Road has a separate purpose. From the visitor center, the refuge’s marked trails move from pine-oak uplands toward lake and cedar-swamp habitat. Those are the landscapes Jeanne sought to keep together. Check current admission and hours and stay on the visitor routes; the family home is not a tour stop.
Sources and research limits
- Woodford Cedar Run, Tales from Cedar Run, fall 2014, p. 3 — Jeanne’s first-person recollections of the purchase, bird banding, owl, education and Green Acres application.
- Pinelands Preservation Alliance, Inside the Pinelands, February–March 2013, pp. 3–4 — Hall of Fame profile, preservation and leadership.
- Cedar Run, History — Founding chronology and present protected refuge.
- Cedar Run visitor directions and hours and pricing — Current public approach.
Birth and death dates are not established here. The Green Acres application and final protection may have occurred in different years; no deed or grant closing record was reviewed. The public pin marks the Nature Center area, not a family residence or an owl release site.