Eastman Living Online Magazine

BY CRAIG MCART

A namesake of Robin Hood’s Sherwood Forest can be found in Grantham just a short ride up Miller Pond Road from Eastman. It was damaged by the 1938 hurricane and logged heavily by a Claremont lumber company that purchased it from the Draper Corporation. Earlier, Draper had selectively harvested the forest’s rock maple for its bobbin mill operation at Eastman Pond. Sherwood Forest was given its borrowed name by Ken and Ramona Flewelling, who acquired the land in 1947. Ken’s membership in the Robin Hood Society at The New York State College of Forestry may have had something to do with the moniker. Before coming to Grantham, he was employed with the National Park Service as a park naturalist at Kings Canyon, Bryce, Zion, and Sequoia National Parks, as well as Pinnacles National Monument. While here, Ramona taught at Lebanon High and served as secretary for the Grantham Conservation Commission.

The couple used a portion of their Sherwood Forest as a popular, recreational campground. Visitors paid to stay at a choice of tent and trailer sites near the entrance and along the shore of Miller Pond. There was also a log cabin available for privileged guests. The Flewellings, themselves, lived in a larger log house they built on the property a short distance in from Miller Pond Road. The 850-acre forest – as large as Manhattan’s Central Park – wraps around most of Miller Pond’s 31 acres and extends northeast to the old Leavitt Hill Road.

In 1989, the Flewellings decided to ensure the long-term health and beauty of the forest regardless of who owned the property in years to come. They placed their property, excluding a five-acre owner’s lot, under strict conservation easements through the Trust for New Hampshire Lands and the NH Land Conservation Investment Program. The state purchased the easements for 46% of their value, with the Flewellings donating the remaining 54%. The easements protect Sherwood Forest from future development and make it available for future generations to enjoy as open, undeveloped land. Grantham’s Conservation Commission was given responsibility for monitoring the easements.

The monitoring plan that was developed involved establishing a fund to provide for required professional services, promoting accepted multiple-use forest management concepts, walking and blazing the boundaries every five years, making an annual site visit, and including the monitoring results in Grantham’s Annual Town Report. It recommended providing information and public awareness of the proper care and allowed uses, also soliciting services of snowmobile clubs and others to maintain trails for snowmobiling (only on Fay Road) as well as skiing and hiking. Understand that the easements, while preventing development, do allow for commercial logging to take place. The present owner is a Swedish family company headed by Christina and Anders H.glund along with their two boys. Their intention is to restore the forest on the property and make it a sustainable, working forest. They are, for example, planting trees protected by green-colored grow tubes where logging opens the forest.

To reach Sherwood Forest, proceeding north from Eastman’s Draper Road entrance on Route 10, take the first left onto Miller Pond Road and continue 1.4 miles, parking at the town’s Fisher Meadow lot on the left side. Check out the kiosk there before walking approximately 330 yards to the well-marked Sherwood Forest entrance up the road. During hunting season, hikers and dogs should wear something that is blaze orange. Also, as a caution, keep a distance from working equipment during ongoing forestry operations.

After passing around the gate at the entry bridge over Skinner Brook, there are several choices of trails to explore. The first is a short one to the left from the entrance driveway, about 60 feet from the bridge. It provides views over the abandoned site of the Clough Mill, which replaced Grantham’s first sawmill this side of the mountain, one run by Skinner and Peck. A much longer Canyon Trail is accessed from a logging road branching from the other side of the driveway at the edge of the private lot below the owner’s log house. It curves right before descending, just beyond a second culvert, down to Skinner Brook. Stretching along the brook from there, this out-and-back, mile hike offers spectacular views from beside and above the water as it drops through a narrow, rocky canyon. The nature of the brook changes dramatically with the seasonal volume of water flow, from a torrent to a trickle.

Walking up the paved driveway, through the owner’s fiveacre private lot containing the log house and a large garage, takes you to a junction of old Fay Road and the Red Trail, formerly called Red Line Road. Needless to say, the privilege of using this private access must not be abused. Starting out on the Red Trail leads you past spurs to former campsites and along the shore of Miller Pond, where a patch of huckleberries ripens in mid-August. Just as the trail veers away from the shore, there’s a path rising up to the ruins of the small log cabin. Taking the Bluff Trail at the next junction takes you past impressive, granite outcrops and to an easy, loop return on Fay Road. Following either the Red Trail or Fay Road all the way to Leavitt Hill Road and then returning on the other, makes for a much more ambitious hike of 3.14 miles. This loop takes you past stone walls and cellar holes remaining from the former settlement on Leavitt Hill.

Many of the trails through Sherwood Forest will give you glimpses of Grantham’s early history preserved in the landscape. At the same time, you’ll see modern forestry management of harvesting and planting in progress. Thanks to the Flewellings’ generous gift, we are able to enjoy access to this large tract knowing that it will be forever free of development. And don’t be surprised if your innocent foray into Sherwood Forest kindles some of the venturesome spirit of Robin Hood and his Merry Men.

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Craig McArt is active on the Woodlands & Wildlife Committee and Grantham’s Conservation Commission.

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