If Nancy Cohn of Deep River meets Prince William of Great Britain, they will have something to talk about: elephants, or more specifically the worldwide efforts to prevent elephant poaching. Prince William has long been outspoken about the need to protect African wildlife. Last May he made a video that was shown at a 200-nation conference in Bangkok appealing for a stop to the illegal trade in ivory and rhinoceros horns.

Nancy, a trustee of the Deep River Historical Society, is a vice chairperson of the Nov. 9 and 10 program "Deep River and the African Elephant," jointly sponsored by the historical society, the town of Deep River, and the Deep River Rotary Club (see "Endangered Elephants Subject of Deep River Program" on page 14). Peter Howard is the chairperson of the program, and Charlotte Lazor is the other vice chair.

"Deep River was built on the ivory trade, on dead elephants. Now is the time to give back," Nancy says.

During the 19th century, Pratt, Read & Company in Deep River and Comstock, Cheney & Company in Ivoryton were the primary American manufacturers of ivory keyboards to fill a growing national enthusiasm for piano ownership. At one point, Pratt Read consumed 12,000 pounds of ivory a month to satisfy the demand for pianos.

"People then didn't think about what would happen. They didn't know they would exterminate elephants," Nancy says. "Now we know better."

Some estimates put the number of elephants killed annually between 25,000 and 35,000. Poaching exists today, Nancy says, because of the demand, primarily from China, to supply the millennia-old tradition of ivory-carved figurines.

Nancy became passionate about elephants after a trip to Africa in 2000 to see wildlife. Her love of animals had prompted the trip.

"I never could go to see animals in a zoo," she says. "I had to see them running loose."

On the trip, as their vehicle approached a mother elephant bathing her calf, the mother put her trunk over the baby to protect him from the intruders. That gesture of maternal caring made a deep impression on Nancy, who keeps a framed photograph recording the moment.

It is, however, more than a memory. It turned Nancy into an elephant advocate. She joined the David Sheldrake Wildlife Trust, an organization in Kenya the cares for baby elephants, abandoned often because poachers have shot their mothers.

She showed a visitor snapshots of the orphan elephants whose foster care she sponsors with the enthusiasm of any parent displaying photos of a newborn. Multiple donors sponsor each elephant, so the cost to an individual is $50 a year.

Nancy and her husband, Fred Brightman, moved to Deep River from New York City nine years ago. Fred, then a Manhattan chef, now a musician, never had a weekend off so they took short trips as their schedules allowed. They visited this area repeatedly.

"Finally I said, 'Let's go house hunting,'" Nancy recalls.

The ambiance of Deep River was a big draw.

"We're from New York. Nobody says hello to you. Here everybody says hello-the postman, kids on the street. How could we not fall in love with it?" Nancy says.

Still, for the first five years Fred lived in Deep River full time and during the week, Nancy commuted to her job in the city as a grants specialist with the New York State Council on the Arts.

"It was tough having a foot in both worlds," she says.

At the Council on the Arts, Nancy was in charge of grants to renovate or expand the physical facilities of arts organizations. That involved not only traveling all over the state to inspect facilities, but it also often required skills not normally associated with grant writing, like good balance and an ability to scale high ladders without fear.

She recalls inspecting a theater in Poughkeepsie at which she needed to climb 50 feet on a ladder to inspect a faulty roof truss. She let the theater officials know where things stood.

"I told them if I fall, they don't get the grant," she remembers.

On another occasion, when there was a gap between the ladder she was climbing and the roof she needed to inspect, Fred, on the ground, shouted up some advice to her.

"He yelled that I was not paid enough to do this," Nancy says.

Since her retirement, Nancy who has a bachelor's degree from Barnard College and a master's from Syracuse University with a focus on arts funding, has been working on a novel about Deep River. It was inspired by finding a secret room in her Deep River house. She and Fred found it quite by accident when he tripped trying to get some blinds down. He fell on a wall-mounted bookcase, which rose up a few inches and then slammed back down.

The couple found hinges on one end of the bookcase, lifted it, and found and L-shaped room behind it. Often, in New England, such rooms were used to hide escaping slaves traveling North through the informal network known as the Underground Railroad, but Nancy says her house, on which she has done research, was built too late to have been an Underground Railroad stop.

Still, she was fascinated by the connection between the secret room and the Underground Railroad and is now writing a novel in which both the room and the railroad figure. It is set in Deep River on a fictional 20-acre apple orchard bordering the Connecticut River.

Though she has not yet finished the first novel, Nancy already has plans for another book. The second will be based on her father's reminiscences of working as an undercover agent to infiltrate pro-Nazi groups in the United States at the outbreak of World War II. She knew nothing of his activities until, hospitalized in his final illness, he told her the story.

"I want to explain what makes an average person do something heroic," she says of her plans for the book.

Although Nancy loves history, she put off joining the Deep River Historical Society until she was living in town full time. At one of the first meetings she went to, she heard about the planning that has led to the upcoming program on Deep River and the African elephant. It dovetailed with her own interest in preserving elephants.

"Isn't it a wonderful, ambitious project? The historical society is really a public-spirited organization," she says.

History, she adds, should not be a static recital of the past.

"The town changes; history changes," she says.

Showing ivory artifacts such as the ones the historical society has, she believes, is not sufficient to portray the precarious situation of the African elephant today.

"There is escalating government awareness of the problem," she says. "If we don't do something now, in 10 years there could be no African elephants left."

Deep River and the African Elephant

Saturday, Nov. 9 at 7 p.m, Deep River Town Hall

Speakers include Brenda Milkofsky, Congressman Joe Courtney, Dan Ashe of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Paula Khumbu of Wildlife Direct.

Speaking on the ivory trade and the plight of the African elephant.

Sunday, Nov. 10 2 p.m. Deep River Town Auditorium

National Geographic Society film Battle for the Elephants (not recommended for children younger than 10)

3:15 p.m. Deep River Historical Society Carriage House

Student art and essay elephant projects displayed; winners of contest announced.

Tickets ($20 for adults, students free with student identification) are available at the town clerk's office in Deep River Town Hall and the Whistle Stop Café. A portion of the ticket price goes to benefit Save the Elephants.

For more information, call Nancy Cohn at 860-526-4407 or visit www.deepriverhistoricalsociety.org.