Lands – Page 8

50 Years of Conservation in Hanover

April 22, 2020

Earth Day 2020 – 50 years of conservation

We at the Hanover Conservancy are proud of the progress we’ve helped our community make in protecting natural lands and clean waters. By the time of the first Earth Day in 1970, we had protected the summit of Balch Hill and conveyed the Tanzi Tract to the Town of Hanover with conservation restrictions. Beyond Hanover, we’d also assisted NH Fish and Game in acquiring Lyme’s 43-acre Wilder Wildlife Management Area and the New England Wildflower Society in protecting a 35-acre riverfront preserve in Plainfield.

These maps tell the story of then and now.

Today, we own and protect 450+ acres of natural areas and hold permanent conservation easements on another 550+ acres. The Hanover Conservancy has also assisted other partners with saving nearly 1700 more acres in Hanover and elsewhere in the Upper Valley.

Earth Day turns 50!

April 22, 2020

2020 marks the 50^th anniversary of the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970 – and the beginning of the environmental movement that has inspired so much healthy, positive change in how we treat our home planet. Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson, US Senator from Wisconsin, came up with the idea after witnessing a massive oil spill in California. It was the Vietnam Era; Sen. Nelson hoped to infuse the energy of anti-war protests with an emerging public consciousness about air and water pollution to force environmental protection onto the national political agenda.

Organizers chose April 22 (between Spring Break and final exams), for an event that drew 20 million Americans — 10% of the total US population — to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment in massive coast-to-coast protests, uniting groups fighting against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife. Earth Day 1970 achieved a rare political alignment, gaining support from Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor, urban dwellers and farmers, business and labor leaders. Congress soon passed the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species Acts and created the US Environmental Protection Agency.

Since the first Earth Day…

April 20, 2020

In 1970, the Hanover Conservancy (then the Hanover Conservation Council) was 9 years old. We had already protected Balch Hill and the Tanzi Tract and helped protect Lyme’s 43-acre Wilder Wildlife Area and Plainfield’s 35-acre New England Wildflower Society preserve. As for the rest of town…what a difference 50 years can make!

Spring Trips Postponed

April 17, 2020

We’re disappointed to postpone our trips until we can safely get together again. Look for a new self-guided Hike of the Month in our May e-news.

If you’re headed out, please remember:

Enjoy your companions from a distance
Leash your dog – uncontrolled dog meetups can make things unsafe for their owners too
If a trailhead parking is full when you arrive, have a Plan B for a trail less traveled
Leave higher elevation and muddy trails until they’ve dried out
The Appalachian Trail is closed for now

Childs Farm Loop at Trescott Lands

February 1, 2020

Childs Farm Loop full PDF

Driving directions

From Downtown Hanover and the Green, drive E on East Wheelock St. and up the hill 1.7 miles to the junction of E. Wheelock, Grasse, and Trescott Roads. Continue straight on Trescott Rd. and
drive 2.4 more miles to Etna Rd. Turn L and head N on Etna Rd. 1.3 miles to Dogford Rd. Turn L; follow 1.2 miles to parking on L after sharp bend and pond.
Park at the marked trailhead parking area near the kiosk.

What you should know

Today’s hike is a loop on lands owned by the Trescott Water Company (Town/Dartmouth).
This is a great route for confident backcountry skiers.
The route follows two 18th century roads, visits two cellar holes, and returns on a new trail (2019).
As of 2019, all trails described here are blazed with yellow and marked with brown and yellow signs, thanks to the Trescott Recreation and Hanover Trails Committees.
Dogs must be leashed while on the Trescott Water Supply Lands and waste must be picked up and
carried out in order to protect drinking water.

Brief Hiking Directions

Start on the Poor Farm Trail that begins at R of the trailhead kiosk.
The trail soon reaches an historic road; turn R and continue.
Follow the Poor Farm Trail E as it turns R off the old road.
Continue to Knapp Road and turn R.
Turn R on the Child’s Farm Trail for 0.6 miles and return to your car.

The Full Story

Welcome to your water source! Drinking water for much of Hanover and Dartmouth College comes from these lands, so special rules apply for recreational use. Take a moment to check the kiosk display to acquaint yourself with these rules and pick up a trail guide.
Start at the path to the R of the kiosk; a few steps in, a sign at L identifies it as the Poor Farm Trail East, 0.6 miles to Knapp Road. The easy trail parallels Dogford Road before swinging R at a distinctly raised, flat spot that is the site of the old Wright place. Snow may obscure it today; the photo below gives you an idea of what you’re missing. Wright was raising sheep on this land in 1855; by 1892, J.W. and W.D. Chandler had taken over his farm.
As the trail swings L again, note blue tubes on both sides of the trail. These protect young tree seedlings from deer browse. The foresters managing this land are working hard to re-establish native trees in a place with a dense deer population – the water supply lands had essentially been a deer sanctuary for half a century while people (and hunters) were fenced out. Deer prefer to browse the northern hardwoods like maple, birch, beech, and oak that make a healthy natural forest and therefore a pure drinking water supply. This is one reason why deer hunting is strongly encouraged on these lands.
Soon the path joins the wide old Wolfeboro Road, with its graceful stone walls and venerable sugar maples. Today, the Hanover emergency services folks insist on a different name to avoid confusion when attempting a rescue, so this section is now called Poor Farm Trail East.
Governor John Wentworth

Royal Governor John Wentworth ordered the cutting of this road in 1770 in hopes of traveling over it from his home in Wolfeborough, NH, to attend Dartmouth College’s first commencement in 1771. A committee of Hanover citizens was appointed to “…run a line from near the southwest corner of Hanover to the Great Pond, or Governor’s seat, at Wolfeborough, and view the situation of the land and convenience for a highway, and make return the first Monday in October next.” Members were paid four shillings and sixpence per day and spent ten days surveying the route. Hanover landowners were assessed a penny and a half per acre to raise the 120£ needed to complete the road. The road wasn’t finished in time, however, and the Governor had to travel by way of Haverhill to attend the first commencement, but by 1772 it was ready for the second ceremony.
Wentworth, appointed in 1766 by King George III to take over management of the colony of New Hampshire from his infamous uncle Benning, helped Eleazar Wheelock secure the charter for Dartmouth College. Here he appears as quite the dandy, but indeed he was an eager outdoorsman and leapt at any chance to go camping and rusticating in his colony’s abundant wilderness. While he was on the trail happily getting dirty and sleeping on the ground, his wife was planning her fancy ballroom at their estate in the Lakes Region.
The Wolfeboro Road was probably only the second road in Hanover to be properly laid out, mapped, and recorded. Like many early roads, over the years its location has shifted. The entire road remained in use through the 19th century until construction of the Fletcher Reservoir in 1893 interrupted its path. Today many sections, including this one and the stretch that goes bravely up and over Moose Mountain, are Class VI roads. No wonder Emergency Services gets confused.
Follow the wide old road gently down the slope. A bit over 10 minutes from your car, your route swings R as the old road plunges toward what is now the Parker Reservoir, an area now off-limits to the public. Note the map posted on a tree at R. As you near the bottom of the hollow, note the gleaming golden bark of yellow birch at R, a most handsome tree.
20 minutes from your car, cross a stream headed for the Parker Reservoir. Pause to look upstream – at this season, with leaves off the trees, you get a good view of a well-laid stone wall running along the hillside above. One of Mr. Wright’s creations?
Climb up and out of the little valley. At the top, the trail bears L and flattens out.
At R note a plantation of small red pines, thigh-high at this writing. The Trescott lands experienced major blowdowns during the 2007 Patriot’s Day Windstorm, and two million board feet of logs and 3,100 cords of pulp were salvaged. This storm hit heaviest in the plantations, leaving natural stands largely unaffected. While the forest management plan for the Trescott lands calls for creating more natural, uneven-aged stands rather than even-aged plantations, this area is an exception to keep the slopes from becoming overrun by invasive buckthorn and other non-natives.
Proceed along the level trail, catching glimpses of Parker Reservoir below at L through the trees.
30 minutes from your car, arrive at Knapp Road, identified by a sign just across the way and a map posted at R. Turn R and follow this historic road up the hill. Knapp Road was laid out Nov. 13, 1793, named for Lt. Peter Knapp of Hanover’s Revolutionary War-era militia. The cellar hole of his homestead is just below where this road meets another part of the Wolfeboro Road. In the late 1700s, that was a busy intersection!
A minute’s walk up the hill brings you to a sign at L interpreting the history of the Town Poor Farm, which once stood in the field beyond the road. That’s a great place to explore in spring.
Ms. Hadden’s 7th Grade group “Power of We”

Continue to the top of a small rise and look for a small cellar hole at R in a circle of pines. Here is what seems like the remains of a very small house. Actually, most early homes had cellars under only a part, as a cellar was not easy to dig and was needed just for storage of apples and other supplies, not for the many purposes to which we put basements today. This was the home of P. W. Durkee in 1855, and by the 1880 census, government workers recorded the four Hewitts here – Elbert, 36 years old, a farmer; his 34-year-old wife Augusta, keeping house; their 12-year-old daughter Mary and 10-year-old son Charles, who both attended the District #4 one-room schoolhouse at the bottom of the hill. (Thanks to Ms. Hadden’s 7th grade group at the Richmond School, who researched this site and helped clear it of brush for their “Power of We” project in 2019.) In 1903, it was owned by Newton Frost until the Water Company bought his place and demolished it along with nine other farms.
Continue up Knapp Rd another 100 paces to a sign at R for the Childs Farm Trail. From here, it’s an easy 0.5 miles back to your car. Before turning onto the trail, look back down the road, noting the pines ringing the cellar hole at the edge of your view. This must have been a beautiful place to live.
Back to the mundane – is your dog still on its leash? There are porcupines nearby. Indeed, the next trail up the hill is named the Porcupine Trail for a good reason.
1892 map showing Childs farm

In the 1880s and 90s, the northeastern part of the Trescott lands were part of the home farm of Joseph Childs, his wife Christiane, and their children Arthur, Mabel, Myrtle, and Marcellus. Joseph was a major landowner with 500 acres, including a sugar orchard of 800 trees and an apple orchard of 200 trees, plus 10 cows, 12 horses, and 200 Merino sheep. The 1892 map at right shows Joseph’s location; he had set his son Arthur up in the next place north.
Strike out through the meadow on the Childs Farm Trail. The yellow-blazed trail is mostly flat and follows the contour, except where it dips when crossing a few small drainages. You’re now passing above the most recent plantation you saw from below, and have a better view of earlier plantings and a pine-backed ridge.
15 minutes after leaving Knapp Road, cross a second small stream and then climb gently to a small height of land. A low stone wall angles in at L; it may be barely visible in the snow. This is one of over a quarter million miles of stone walls built in New England and New York in the early-mid 19th century, largely in response to the rise of the Merino sheep industry (left). When the landscape-altering wool textile industry eventually went south, much of the human population went west, and the forest returned to cloak the hillsides where hundreds of sheep once grazed. In the mixed-age, mixed species forest surrounding you today, larger stumps are evidence of a previous harvest of trees that got their start a century ago.
5 minutes later, you emerge into an open meadow that has been partly planted with young pines. At your appearance, finches erupt from feeding on seed heads in the scrub.
As your car comes into sight, a trail joins at R – a glance over your shoulder confirms it’s the Coyote Connector, an alternative route to Knapp Road.
As you approach the parking area, enjoy the view of Muscle In Your Arm Farm on the slope across Dogford Road, another part of the former Childs Farm. Its open sheep pastures, laced with stone walls lined with sugar maples, echo the view that you would have encountered a century ago on the lands you have just explored.

This Hanover Hike of the Month
has been generously sponsored by

Brook/River/Garden Loop

November 1, 2019

Hike Direction and Map – Full PDF

Driving Directions

From Downtown Hanover, drive S on S. Main St. for 0.3 miles
Parking area is on R just before electric substation and bridge over Mink Brook.

What You Should Know

Start your hike AFTER 11AM if you’d like to do the loop and visit the garden. Bring binoculars and a bird book!
Today’s hike takes you along lower Mink Brook on a flat, ADA accessible path with benches. You can retrace your steps OR
For a more challenging hike, continue on the banks of the CT River on a narrow, sometimes steep path and climb to the neighborhood tucked behind downtown. Return on quiet streets, visiting a small meditation garden that glows in fall.
Dogs are welcome if under your control. Please pick up after your pet.
Foot travel only.

Brief Hiking Directions

Take the gravel path down through the gate and bear R along Mink Brook.
The gravel path ends across from the Water Reclamation Facility. Turn around here OR
Stay straight on a woods path; turn R at river’s edge
Follow path along river to wood steps
Climb wood steps to gate at Maple St./Downing St.
Walk down Maple St.; turn R on Pleasant St. and R on School St.
Follow School St. to sharp curve; visit Li Graben Meditation Garden
Continue on School St. (becomes Huntley Ave.)
Turn R onto S. Main St. and return to your car.

The Full Story

Walk toward the electric station, bearing R before its parking lot, and go through the gate (better ADA access is from this lower lot). Bear R onto the packed gravel path along the water. You’ll notice that the trees are alive with birds at this season, stocking up on seeds and berries before launching themselves into the great migratory stream of wings that flows south along the Connecticut River flyway in fall.
The Town of Hanover undertook an ambitious project in the summer/fall of 2019 to create a 3,700 foot fully ADA compliant, accessible path along this beautiful stream (marked in red on aerial photo). Benches beckon visitors to stop and enjoy the views, reflections, and especially the waterfowl that frequent this area.
Note the blue and white tags identifying this as Town Conservation land. Working with the Town, the Hanover Conservancy (then the Hanover Conservation Council) contributed half the purchase price for the 15.7 acre former Edgerton property on Mink
Brook and the river in 1973. With protection of the Conservancy’s Mink Brook Nature Preserve just upstream in 1999, nearly 2 miles of the stream are now protected and open to the public.
Fall is the perfect time to enjoy the foliage and feathered things here. The flame of maples may be winding down, but the oaks are golden bronze and we can (if grudgingly) enjoy the brilliant foliage of burning bush, an invasive garden escape. Note the sewer covers along the path – you and the wastewater piped under your feet are both traveling in the same direction – toward renewal! Thankfully, the Water Reclamation Facility (once known as a wastewater treatment plant) to which it is headed has restored Mink Brook and the Connecticut River from the ugly open sewers of the 1960s back to the beautiful waterways they are today.
Lower Mink Brook, so close to the Connecticut River flyway, is known for its waterfowl. On the day we scouted this route (Oct. 30), two male hooded mergansers (R ) were bobbing their bright white mops of head feathers and croaking in attempts to impress the less gaudy females with them. Further downstream, a dozen Canada geese rested on a fallen log (below). Occasional broad stone slabs and more formal benches invite you to stop to watch.
At the first bend you’ll see pink flagging marking a patch of Virginia waterleaf (L), a plant of moist woods and floodplains, considered threatened in NH. It is protected here.
As you proceed, note the steep slopes at R, decorated with evergreen Christmas fern.
Like similar slopes at the Rinker-Steele Natural Area and Kendal Riverfront Park, these are remnants of Lake Hitchcock, which flooded this area as the glacier receded.
The brook bends, its original channel filled with river water backed up behind Wilder Dam just a short distance downstream on the Connecticut. Before the dam was built in 1950, this would have been a narrow but obviously flowing stream, probably small and shallow enough to wade through at this time of year.
Soon the Water Reclamation Facility comes into view. 20 minutes’ walk from your car, and opposite the plant, the ADA path ends. Here you can choose to turn around and see what new birds might have alighted in your wake, or continue on.
To continue, proceed straight ahead on an un-blazed woods path across a wet area and up a knob. At the top, turn L for a short way to where the path ends at the mouth of Mink Brook. Take care on the hemlock-clad point – the clay soils are slippery when wet. The brook may be narrow here, but it is the largest in Hanover, draining an 18 sq.mi. watershed from the ridge of Moose Mtn. through Etna and along Greensboro Road.
Return to the intersection and stay straight down a short hill, following the river for <15 minutes to another viewpoint. The path narrows as it passes another inlet. Stay L along the water as several paths join at R. The trail is narrow and benched, and passes a small island that was part of the shore before Wilder Dam flooded the area. Sinewy stems of ironwood or musclewood trees lean toward the water. Across the river a short section of railroad bed is visible, but beyond the sounds of I-91 and yard work in the neighborhood above, you might as well be 100 miles from civilization.
The trail, unmarked but easy to follow, skirts another backwater and rises to another point of land. Watch for bald eagles – on our scouting day, an immature and an adult were perching overhead. Eagles have made a substantial comeback in the last 10 years, with dozens of nests along the Connecticut where there was only one in 1995. Some overwinter in this area, where they fish in the open water around Wilder Dam.
The view S from the point includes the pine and hemlock-clad South Esker, another natural area purchased by the Conservancy and Town in 1971. See our Hikes of the Month to visit those trails. Across the river appear benches and trails at the Montshire Museum in VT.
The trail passes over a steep-sided ridge with water on both sides. A few minutes later, take the R fork through a cut in a large log and head up a set of wooden steps. The trail swings R, edged with sections of cut log, and then curves up more steeply among the homes on the ridge above. Wood steps are your guide.
7 minutes’ hike up from the eagles’ point, arrive at the top of the ridge and a gate (walk around) at the junction of Maple and Downing Streets. A handsome new kiosk displays a useful map and signs remind that the trail is open from dawn to dusk only. Parking for this part of the trail is at the other end of Maple Street.
Start down Maple St.; opposite the junction with River Ridge Rd,, look for the entrance to Nathan’s Garden at L. This beautiful secluded natural area (R ) is open to the public (dawn to dusk) through the kindness of the landowner. Make a note to come back in spring and summer.
Continue on Maple St. Can you spot the bear family on a weathervane? For all the civilized look of this neighborhood, it’s prime bear territory, or at least it was until the neighbors took in their birdfeeders and covered up their compost piles, and the bears went elsewhere.
This part of the hike (<½ hour) makes you wish you’d brought a field guide to historic architecture along with your bird guide. Turrets, porches, eave decorations, fanciful shingles, and even stained glass panels evoke the 1860s-1920s when this neighborhood grew up. It’s a pleasant mix of Italianate, Second Empire, Stick, Queen Anne, Shingle, and Colonial Revival styles. Bright-leaved barberry and burning bush decorate front yards, more appropriate habitat than streambanks.
Turn R on Pleasant St. and enjoy the view out over the Mink Brook valley as it curves to the L.
Turn R on School St. If you are pressed for time, turn L on Ripley and R onto S. Main St. to return to your car.
You’ll be glad you continued on School St., passing the pretty forested section at L, and over the brook at R.
Just before the street curves L, watch for a small sign at R welcoming you to the Li Graben Meditation Garden, open noon to sunset. Follow the short stone path and turn R onto a wooden deck path that leads to a tiny covered seating area. Here, you can contemplate the brook below and a peaceful scene created by stones arranged in a gravel bed. Azaleas will be bouncing with color in spring, but at this time of year, you’re treated to the brilliant yellow feathery blossoms of witchhazel (L)! Sit for a bit to enjoy the silent company of a public-spirited landowner who provides this space. In the shelter, discover a journal of poems left by visitors, including one who declared, “the river is Byootyefl!”
Return to School St. and follow it down as it becomes Huntley Rd., marveling at this neighborhood arranged on the challenging terrain left by glacial Lake Hitchcock.
Turn R onto S. Main Street. Your car is close, but the fun is not over. Just as the small parking area comes into view, note the Greek Revival style brick cape that sits across the road on your L. This house was built in 1840 by Ruben Benton, a Hanover selectman at the time, when his earlier home burned. In 1852, Ruben’s son Charles added a massive barn (131’ x 45’, four stories high) that was a landmark in town for a century. In 1885, the Benton Farm included 150 acres of land in Hanover and 174 in abutting Lebanon, 140 Merino sheep, and a sawmill. That land included the brook side area you’ve just explored plus the Mink Brook Nature Preserve and much more.
The Benton Farm – view N to Hanover village across Mink Brook c. 1865
After Charles Benton’s death, his family sold the farm to Dartmouth College for $4,500. Five years later in 1903, the college traded this farm for Charles Stone’s farm on the Wolfeboro Road in the future Trescott Water Supply lands to make room for the new Fletcher Reservoir. Stone milked his dairy herd at the Trescott lands in the morning, herded them down Reservoir and Lyme Roads into town and down Main Street, and milked them in their new barn that evening.
The Stones later sold off pieces of their farm to the electric company (1928), to the town to re-route S. Main Street, to the hydro power company to allow Wilder Dam to flood the lower brook, and for residential development on parts of Buell St., Mourlyn, and S. Main, among other things. Finally, in 1949, the Stones sold the remaining 169 acres to three families who developed the residential area around Brook Road, and the landmark barn came down.
Time to return to your car at R.