The Mink Brook Nature Preserve, along with nearby smaller parcels owned by the Town of Hanover and the Upper Valley Land Trust, share a common history with roots reaching back to the earliest days of Hanover and Dartmouth College. Royal Governor Benning Wentworth reserved 500 acres for himself when he chartered the Town of Hanover on July 4, 1761, including these lands. The offer of these lands (along with nearby acreage in both Hanover and Lebanon) later persuaded Rev. Dr. Eleazar Wheelock to choose Hanover as the site for Dartmouth College.
In the next century, the Benton family (1840 brick homestead still standing nearby) farmed the land, and it later became part of the Stone family dairy farm until 1949, when the Barrett, Ransmeier, and Granger families purchased the land. MORE
Grazing near Mink Brook, c. 1959
At left: Fullington’s prized Guernsey cows grazing along Mink Brook (Photo by Frank J. Barrett)
The Fullingtons – owners of the Dartmouth Dairy – pastured about 40 heifers each summer on the Barretts’ pastures along Mink Brook during the 1950s.