Photo Update: Human History of Willow Brook Farm

Andrew and Ann Dee Pelley (left) met with Skip Stuck (right) to share historical photos and other documents connected to the Willow Brook Farm property.

By Skip Stuck, Key Volunteer

Over the last year, I have completed nine "human histories" of Wildlands Trust's preserves and the communities that surround them. With each one, I am reminded of the near-impossibility of creating a truly accurate and clear-cut account of past people and events. History is always "in the eye of the beholder." History from the perspective of Native Americans will often be at odds with that of colonists. Farmers, academics, industrialists, religious leaders, the wealthy, the poor, the young, and the old will view the same events in different ways, colored by their cultures, experiences, hopes, and biases. "Accurate" history is a laudable, yet usually unreachable, goal. 

Pictures can bring us closer to that goal. While I've discovered many written narratives on local human history, pictures, paintings, maps, and illustrations have been much harder to find. That is why I was excited a few weeks ago when the Trust was contacted by Willow Brook Farm neighbors Ann Dee and Andrew Pelley, who wanted to share some historical photos of Wildlands’ Pembroke preserve. They saw the history that we published last April and its request for more information, especially pictures. After some intensive research at the Pembroke Historical Society, Ann Dee and Andrew visited us at our Plymouth headquarters, accompanied by some amazing pictures and documents.  

Before you read further, I encourage you to revisit the original April 2024 entry of “Human History of Wildlands: Willow Brook Farm.” Click here.

Barker & Pleasant Street Houses

The Barker House was built sometime between 1783 and 1810 and burned down in 1915. Photo courtesy of the Pembroke Historical Society.

The Pleasant Street House was built in 1777 by Israel Turner. Photo courtesy of the Pembroke Historical Society.

In 1877, the Pleasant Street house was moved to Barker Street on the Willow Brook Farm property, where it remains today. It is said that it took a team of oxen six weeks to move the house. Photo from 1979, courtesy of the Pembroke Historical Society.

Above are two of the earliest dwellings on the property. The Barker house, owned by Benjamin Barker and his family, burned down in 1915. 

The property continued in Barker and relatives’ hands until 1914, when it was purchased by William Hurley. Hurley established the Willow Brook Dairy Farm, which became renowned for the quality of its Guernsey cattle.

“1st prize Breeder’s Herd | Springfield, October, 1917.” Photo courtesy of the Pembroke Historical Society.

“IMP, Cherry’s Memento, No. 27562 | 1st Prize and Grand Champion, Brockton and Springfield | October, 1917.” Photo courtesy of the Pembroke Historical Society.

Until the early 1950s, the farm thrived, adding a large barn, milking station, and many acres of pasture. 

William Hurley, owner of Hurley Shoe Company in Rockland, purchased the land in 1914. Thereafter, he built this dairy barn in the middle of the property. Photo courtesy of the Pembroke Historical Society.

Willow Brook Farm milking station. Photo courtesy of the Pembroke Historical Society.

Today, many reminders of that time remain, including the foundation of the milking station, numerous stone walls, falling fence posts, and open pastures, maintained as part of Wildlands Trust's commitment to preserving Willow Brook Farm’s agricultural history. 

We want to thank Ann Dee and Andrew Pelley for providing us with a richer understanding of the human history of Willow Brook Farm through their pictures. 

For others who have information of any kind that can help us refine our understanding of the human history of Wildlands, please contact Communications Coordinator Thomas Patti at tpatti@wildlandstrust.org or 774-343-5121 ext. 108. We may feature your insight in future “Human History” editions. 

And finally, please visit our online property description and trail map of Willow Brook Farm and explore its trails in person. 

Human History of Wildlands: Rochester Preserves

Leonard Farm; now the Hiller Farm on the Trustees of Reservations’ East Over Reservation in Rochester. Via the Plumb Library.

By Skip Stuck, Key Volunteer 

Wildlands Trust is fortunate to have three preserves in the town of Rochester: two “showcase” preserves, Stephen C. L. Delano Memorial Forest and Rounsville II Preserve, and one “community” preserve, Lincoln P. Holmes Memorial Woods, which, along with an adjacent Town-owned parcel, is known as Doggett's Brook Recreational Area. Together, these preserves comprise nearly 300 acres of protected woodlands, wetlands, streams, and vernal pools. 

Like most of Southeastern Massachusetts, Rochester has a rich human history, dating back more than 10,000 years to the retreat of the last glacier and the Native Americans who soon followed to hunt and eventually settle this new land. In what would become Rochester, they found a heavily forested and reasonably flat territory with soils relatively easy to work, but better suited for forests than farming. Nonetheless, the area was well populated by Native peoples who hunted, fished, and farmed small plots by the time of first contact with Europeans. By the early 1600s, the Natives were a band of the Wampanoag Tribe who called themselves Sippicans and the area Menchoisett (or Sippican to the English). 

Map of Old Rochester Territory. In Mattapoisett and Old Rochester Massachusetts: Being a History of these Towns and also Part of Marion and a Portion of Wareham (1907).

Old Rochester 

When originally settled by the English, Old Rochester included the present towns of Rochester, Mattapoisett, Marion, and a portion of Wareham. More on this later. 

The first documented description of the area comes from two sources, both members of the 1602 expedition to the area by Bartholomew Gosnold, who attempted to establish a settlement on nearby Cuttyhunk Island. As they traveled up Buzzards Bay, crew members Brereton and Archer noted seeing many shell middens, small harbors, and "open woods, kept open of underbrush by the Indians." Paradoxically, the "wilderness" often described by early European explorers was from its earliest times a land fully utilized and carefully sculpted by human hands.  

Rochester's first property grant from Governor Bradford of the Plymouth Colony was made in 1640. However, it only allowed settlers to negotiate with the Natives and purchase the property from them. Although there was much negotiation, there is little evidence that much land was actually purchased for the next 38 years. Nonetheless, settlers trickled in, first occupying the harbors, ponds, and river bottoms to trade and fish. This all changed following the Natives' defeat in King Philip's War (1675-78), when Indigenous lands became "open by conquest." In 1679, the Colony approved the "Rochester Township Grant," which permitted the small settlements to come together and incorporate a town. Once this finalized in 1686, family farms increased in the area. In 1704, the first corn mill was established in this part of the Colony by the Handy Family.  

Fishing, trading, whaling, and shipbuilding also grew in importance, causing rapid growth of the sections of town on Buzzards Bay. Meanwhile, the inland portion of town benefitted from logging and timber production. The Town of Wareham split off from Old Rochester and was incorporated in 1739. 

A prosperous area by 1775, Old Rochester gave early support to the campaign for American independence from England, voting to sustain the Continental Congress and support the revolution. In fact, Rochester provided a greater proportion of its men to serve in the war than any other town in Plymouth Colony. One notable Rochester son born in 1792 was Joseph Bates, who went on to found the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Yet Rochester suffered a significant setback in 1816, when its 1,500 residents were hit hard by an epidemic of spotted fever epidemic, a disease associated with typhus and several tick-borne infections. 

Town Common, 1880. Via the Plumb Library.

The birth of Rochester Town 

The success of the coastal sections of town soon resulted in other areas following Wareham’s lead and splitting off from Rochester: Marion in 1852 and Mattapoisett in 1857. Without these areas, Rochester became a landlocked community and turned its focus to forestry and farming, an agricultural identity it largely retains today. Cranberries, and to a lesser degree livestock and corn production, prevail. It is also a "Right to Farm" community, qualifying with zoning and tax incentives to preserve its farming history.  

In keeping with the Town's desire to retain its rural history and character, several families chose in recent years to preserve their properties from development and protect their natural beauty. In 1987, the family of Lincoln P. Holmes donated to Wildlands Trust 100 acres of woodland, which in combination with the Town of Rochester's Doggett Brook property became the Doggett Brook Recreation Area. Less than two miles away, Wildlands acquired two other parcels. In 1985, Susan Delano donated 111 acres of retired wood lot to become the Stephen C.L. Delano Memorial Woods. In 1994, Winnifred Rounsville donated 43 acres to create the Rounsville II preserve. These properties, in addition to the Trustees of Reservations’ Eastover Reservation, combine to make Rochester a great place for hikers and all nature lovers to visit. 

Memorial stone at Stephen C. L. Delano Memorial Forest.

Learn more 

Visit wildlandstrust.org/rochester to view the full descriptions of our Rochester showcase preserves. Then, explore them for yourself! 

Resources for this piece include the Rochester Historical Society, the historical photos collection of Rochester's Plumb Library, and especially the book Mattapoisett and Old Rochester Massachusetts: Being a History of these Towns and also Part of Marion and a Portion of Wareham, published 1907 by Grafton Press. 

A brief aside: although the event was mentioned only briefly in this piece, Rochester and surrounding communities played a large part in the most devastating conflict of colonial times, King Philip’s War (1675-1678). I strongly encourage readers to learn more about this event, which has been mentioned in other Wildlands Trust histories. A good starting point is Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War by Nathaniel Philbrick. 

Human History of Wildlands: Halfway Pond Conservation Area

By Skip Stuck, Key Volunteer

We have all played with jigsaw puzzles at one time or another. We select one based on a picture on the box that displays what the puzzle should look like when complete. Opening the box, we see pieces of color that bear no resemblance to the finished product. The work is in their reassembly. In many ways, land preservation is like a jigsaw puzzle—identifying and assembling small, seemingly unrelated pieces until they reveal a larger, cohesive picture. This is especially true in areas as long occupied as Plymouth, Massachusetts. 

Until about 12,000 years ago, this land was covered by a glacier, up to a mile thick. Over the next 2,000 years, the climate warmed and ice retreated, creating a land surface composed of rocks, gravel, and sand that had been carried in the glacier. This "outwash" plain created the topography we see throughout Southeast Massachusetts, Cape Cod, and the Islands, featuring rocky hills and kettle ponds formed by huge pieces of melting ice. One of these kettle ponds, Halfway Pond, lies amid a concentration of such ponds in Plymouth, known collectively as the Six Ponds. The others include Bloody Pond, Little Long Pond, Long Pond, Gallows Pond, and Round Pond.

Early human history 

Native peoples soon followed the retreating ice and utilized these new forests, ponds, and rivers to supply their food and shelter needs. For thousands of years, they and their cultures flourished. Especially important were the spring runs of blueback herring and alewives from the Agawam River, which outflows from Halfway Pond, and the Manomet (or Monument) River, which flowed from Herring Pond. These people, forebears of the Wampanoag Tribe who occupied the area at the time of European settlement (and still today; see Herring Pond Wampanoag Tribe), have been identified in historical documents by many names: the Patuxet, Comassakumkanit, Manomet and Pondville Indians. In fact, Halfway Pond got its name because it was halfway between the Dutch and Indian trading posts at Aptuxet (now Bourne, MA) to the south and the original Plymouth English settlement to the north. A trail known as the Indian Path or the Herring Way was a well-used route from Herring Pond to Halfway Pond. 

While the geography suited the Indigenous people’s lifestyle of hunting, gathering, fishing, and subsistence farming, the English were slow to move out of the original colony at Plymouth Harbor. The earliest mentioned settlement at Halfway Pond is that of Nicholas Snow, who in 1637 was appointed to repair and manage a fish weir on the Agawam. Others followed, but not immediately in great numbers. 

Above: The Old Douglas Homestead. In Plymouth’s Ninth Great Lot and the Six Ponds, 1710-1967, A Chronicle. “John Douglas was born in Middleboro in 1752 and married Lydia Southworth. He became a schoolteacher in 1786 and moved to Plymouth and settled in the neighborhood known as Halfway Pond. He bought the sawmill from Belcher Manter, Morton and Jonathan Wing for $750. … He built a house on the Agawam which became ‘the old homestead’ to many generations of the Douglas family until it was destroyed by the hurricane of 1938” (10). For much of the 20th century, descendants of the Douglas family lived and worked on Davis-Douglas Farm, which they sold to Wildlands Trust for our headquarters in 2012.

Cutting the puzzle pieces

When the Pilgrims arrived in Plymouth, the lands of the new colony were controlled by a group of English investors known as the Adventurers, who funded the initial colony. When their contract ran out, a new patent was granted to Governor William Bradford in 1629, giving the colony freedom to divide and sell their lands. By 1710, about 30,000 acres of land claimed by the colony was still undivided. These lands were cut up into the 10 "Great Lots." Halfway Pond and the five other aforementioned ponds lay at the center of the Ninth Great Lot. In 1713, a meeting was held that created 18 divisions of the Ninth Lot. Those granted land abutting Halfway Pond included John Harlow, Jonathan Snow, John Churchill, Nathaniel Thomas, Jabez Shurtleff, and Deacon Thomas Clark. There is no record—and it is highly doubtful—that any members of the Wampanoag Tribe were consulted in this matter. 

At this point, English settlement of the area accelerated. The Halfway herring run provided an increasingly important resource for food, fertilizer, and trade. Sawmills and stave mills appeared on the Agawam River, including one built in 1781 owned by Belcher Manter and another built in 1847 owned by Thomas Pierce. In 1786, as the settlement known as Halfway Village on the pond's southwest side grew, John Douglas established a grammar school, at one time serving as many as 50 students.  

By the mid-19th century, general family farming in the area began to shift toward cranberry growing. The ample water, flat lands around Halfway Pond, and availability of sand were quite agreeable to this new agricultural pursuit. As often happens, the success of the small farmers attracted investors. By the 1890s, LeBaron Russell Briggs and his brother-in-law, George Gardner Barker, had purchased most of the land surrounding Halfway Pond. George Barker soon built the family homestead, Wyanoke, on the pond. His son LeBaron Barker was a very successful grower, reputed to be the largest independent cranberry grower in America by the turn of the century. He built his mansion on a hill adjacent to the pond. For the next 80 years, all of the lands surrounding Halfway Pond remained in private hands, as cranberry bogs or increasingly as forested land. 

Assembling the puzzle 

Red pines on Gramp’s Loop in Halfway Pond Conservation Area. Red pine stands were planted extensively across New England between 1930 and 1960 as a timber alternative to white pines, which are susceptible to insect and fungal pests. Now, many red pines are dying due to red pine scale and pine bark beetles.

With the protection of the adjacent Myles Standish State Forest in 1916 (with improvements by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s), a vision emerged of what Halfway Pond could become if the separate holdings could be protected and united. It would take time and strategic collaborations, but the fledgling Plymouth County Wildlands Trust and its board believed it could be accomplished. In 1982, the family of LeBaron Briggs donated, with assistance from the Nature Conservancy, 242 acres called the West Shore. On the pond's east side, the Briggs family also gifted 56 acres at Gallows Pond in 1982. In 1986, Irene and Saul Taylor gifted an additional 61 acres abutting the West Shore. In 1987, the Conant family gifted 27 acres to string together more of the eastern shore. In 1998, the Nature Conservancy donated land on the east side of Halfway Pond that today encompasses the Big Point section of the property. From 1999 to 2022, a series of land purchases bolstered the protection of Halfway Pond’s western shore, including the former estate of LeBaron Barker, now the site of the Stewardship Training Center.  

Wildlands could not have done it alone. MassWildlife proved to be an important partner, purchasing and protecting much of the eastern and southern shoreline. In addition to the Nature Conservancy's support in the acquisition of the West Shore property, it also owns and protects Halfway Island, home of rare old-growth forest. Finally, the AD Makepeace Company, the area's largest cranberry grower, agreed to take three of its bogs adjacent to Halfway Pond out of production, ending the danger of fertilizers and pesticides entering the pond. 

All of the puzzle pieces fit into place, and the result has been the protection of 85 percent of Halfway Pond's shoreline, including over 500 acres of adjacent buffer land that now make up Halfway Pond Conservation Area. The Conservation Area, together with Myles Standish State Forest and additional protected lands, now represents the largest contiguous open space assemblage in Eastern Massachusetts. The project took over 40 years. But important things take time. 

Learn More 

Please visit Wildlands Trust’s online property description of Halfway Pond Conservation Area at wildlandstrust.org/halfway-pond-conservation-area—or better yet, visit its many trails yourself. 

In addition, see the following resources that were used to prepare this history. 

• Plymouth's Ninth Great Lot and the Six Ponds, 1710 -1967, A Chronicle by Ruth Gardner Steinway. 

• The Herring Pond Wampanoag Tribe website: herringpondtribe.org 

• The North and South Rivers Watershed Association website: nsrwa.org 

I also wish to thank Scott MacFaden, Wildlands’ Director of Land Protection, and Thomas Patti, Wildlands’ Communications Coordinator, for their assistance and feedback. 

If you or someone you know has information about Halfway Pond’s history, we would love to hear from you! Share your insight (and/or photos!) with Communications Coordinator Thomas Patti at tpatti@wildlandstrust.org.

Human History of Wildlands: Crystal Spring Preserve

From left: Sister Chris Loughlin, Wildlands President Karen Grey, Wildlands Director of Land Protection Scott MacFaden, and Sister Barbara Harrington.

By Skip Stuck, Key Volunteer

On May 6,1949, Sister Bernardine wrote a letter to Mother Margaret Elizabeth of the religious order of the Dominican Sisters.  It starts: "Dear Mother, I am really much too excited to write... We have just returned from visiting and touring the grounds. Mother, do please come up to see the place. I can't do justice in writing about it, but I'll try." Sister Bernardine was writing about the property we now know as Crystal Spring Preserve in Plainville. Her excitement runs through the nearly three-page letter, in which she praises the property’s beauty and marvels at the opportunity it presents the order to fulfill its educational and spiritual mission. The next day, the property owners, the Toner family, began drawing up the papers to transfer the land to the Dominican Sisters. 

Although the human history of Crystal Spring Preserve certainly does not begin here, perhaps its spiritual history does. 

Plainville: Natural & cultural history 

Grandfather Rock, a glacial erratic boulder at Crystal Spring Preserve. Photo by Rob MacDonald.

The town of Plainville, like all of Southeastern Massachusetts, was covered by ice and snow during the last glaciation that ended about 12,000 years ago. A prominent reminder of this period is a large glacial erratic boulder on the Crystal Spring property known as "Grandfather Rock." The retreating ice revealed land with few glacial deposits aside from moraines and kettle ponds to the south and east, and rather thinner soil and more scraped and exposed bedrock. Nonetheless, the area was soon settled by early Native peoples who followed the ice sheet's northward retreat, hunting and foraging on the newly exposed land. When first noted by Western settlers in the early 1600s, the Plainville area was inhabited by the Wampanoag people but lay close to the home territories of neighboring Narraganset and Nipmuc tribes. 

Near Crystal Spring Preserve is a feature known as the "Angle Tree." European settlement of our region started in the early 1600s with the founding of Plymouth Colony. Shortly thereafter, the Massachusetts Bay Colony was founded to the north. Despite sharing a homeland, the two colonies remained separate and somewhat culturally distinct for the next century, with the Angle Tree providing an important border landmark. 

Crystal Spring: A spiritual oasis 

Meadow at Crystal Spring Preserve. Photo by Jerry Monkman.

Crystal Spring, named after the dependable and clean local water supply, was farmed for the next 200 years, into the early 20th century. It was known for its lush pastures, feeding cattle, sheep, and horses, but also for its apple, peach, pear, and crabapple orchards comprising over 750 trees. By the 1940s, the property included 84 acres of mixed woodlands and fields. 

In 1949, Sister Bernardine and other Dominican Sisters of Peace saw Crystal Spring as a gateway to a better appreciation of the value of human interaction and spirituality with nature. In 1998, under the leadership of Sister Chris Loughlin, the property was renamed to the Crystal Spring Center for Ecology, Spirituality, and Earth Education. Among other activities, the Center opened an elementary school, provided support to homeschooling programs, established a women's justice center, and operated a summer camp. They built and maintained trails and other outdoor features to illustrate the value of our lives in concert with nature. One of the most impressive is the "Cosmic Walk," a spiral of stones in a trailside forest clearing that traces the history of the universe from its beginning to the present time. (Talk about History!)  

Cosmic Walk stone spiral at Crystal Spring Preserve. Photo by Rob MacDonald.

Along the way, the Center became deeply concerned with wildland preservation—not only relating to their own lands, but to those of religious communities across the nation. Sister Chris was instrumental in the creation of the Religious Lands Conservancy, in partnership with the Massachusetts Land Trust Coalition, which has grown beyond Massachusetts to assist religious communities in New York, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Louisiana in protecting their properties. 

In the early 2000s, concern from Sister Chris, Center board member Kathy McGrath, Sister Barbara Harrington, and others over the future of the Crystal Spring property prompted them to initiate discussions with Wildlands Trust. In 2008, the Center granted a Conservation Restriction (CR) on the remaining 33.5 acres to Wildlands Trust, protecting most of the campus. In 2023, the property was donated outright to Wildlands Trust, creating Crystal Spring Preserve. The Attleboro Land Trust accepted the CR to facilitate this transfer. Enhanced trails, a new kiosk, and improved parking herald the preserve’s public opening ceremony this November. The Trust is committed to ensuring that the sisters' dream and vision will continue in perpetuity. 

Crystal Spring Preserve. Photo by Jerry Monkman.

Learn More 

Please visit wildlandstrust.org/crystal-spring-preserve to learn more about Crystal Spring Preserve, including directions and parking. 

A special thanks to Sister Barbara Harrington, who has been an amazing resource in the development of this history. She provided us with invaluable primary resources related to the history and operation of the Crystal Spring Center, including the May 6, 1949, letter from Sister Bernardine; letters from Crystal Spring summer campers; a teaching pamphlet about the Cosmic Walk; and the Center newsletter, “Streams.” 

A final thanks to the Plainville Historical Society for research support. 

Human History of Wildlands: Tucker Preserve and the Indian Head River Trail

The Indian Head River in Hanover. To the left: the Waterman Tack Factory and breached dam. To the right: Tucker Preserve. Photo by Rob MacDonald. 

By Skip Stuck and Rob MacDonald

It's a cliché that a picture is worth a thousand words. In the last installment of the “Human History of Wildlands” series on Stewart/Person Preserve in Kingston, I was disappointed that despite a great deal of written information, I could find few pictures to illustrate the changes that people brought to the property. In this installment, pictures will help tell a story that words alone could not.  

Wildland Trust's Tucker Preserve consists of 78 acres of forested hills and riverside in Pembroke, part of the larger, 325-acre Indian Head River Trail (IHRT) extending into Hanson and Hanover, as well. It lies very close to Wildlands' Willow Brook Farm.  

Known as the Wampanoag Canoe Passage, the Indian Head and North Rivers connecting with the Taunton River watershed and eventually Narraganset Bay was a 70-mile super-highway used by native peoples for thousands of years. As a result, Tucker Preserve shares much of its pre-colonial history with Willow Brook Farm. 

As Europeans arrived in the 1600s, they quickly realized the value of these rivers, not only for transportation and trade, but as a source of energy to propel burgeoning industry. Here lies the main reason why these scenes... 

Photos by Rob MacDonald.

...became these scenes:  

The story begins with the first mention of the property in 1632, when the Massachusetts Bay Colony governor, John Winthrop, crossed the Indian Head River at Ludden's Ford (also known as Luddam's Ford, now the site of the Elm Street bridge). 

Initially, settlers farmed the land. Although it was good for livestock grazing, much of it was too rocky to produce grains and vegetables. So, they relied on the river for its abundant runs of fish (including alewives and shad for food and fertilizer) and on the surrounding forests for fuel and building materials. 

Plaque at Luddam’s Ford. Photo by Rob MacDonald. 

The river soon drew the settlers’ attention as a power source, with the first mention of a water-powered sawmill in 1693. Thus it began. In the 18th and 19th centuries, unlike at neighboring Willow Brook Farm, people in the Tucker Preserve area looked not to agriculture but to industry, on a scale that dramatically and irrevocably altered the landscape. The saw and grist mills were joined by an iron furnace in 1702, Smith's fulling mill (to clean and thicken wool fiber) in 1726, the Waterman and Perry tack factories in 1830, and others.  

In the late 18th century, the Curtis Iron Works grew as well, supplying the needs of farming and shipbuilding. A local story relates that the factory produced the anchors for the USS Constitution. However, a factory in Hanover makes the same claim, neither town ceding the honor. By the 19th century, industry was fully in control of the area, with the Clapp Rubber Works a major employer, followed later by National Fireworks. Soon, these industries became busy enough to warrant a railroad connection known as the Hanover Branch Railway. The woods were thus transformed into a significant industrial area. 

Hanover Branch Railway. The Indian Head River Trail runs along the same rail bed today.  The building on the right is the Waterman Tack Factory, and the pond was formed by the dam behind Waterman, which breached in the 1938 hurricane.

So much industry sharing such a small area for two centuries came with inevitable consequences. By the early 1900s, industry in the area peaked. Afterwards, factories were closed, abandoned, and razed, and dams were breached and removed. The area returned to woodlands. Crumbling, overgrown foundations are still visible today as a reminder of the land’s industrial past. Less visible, yet even longer lasting, is the pollution remaining in the area’s soils, especially at the river bottom. Each successive industry thus left its signature on the landscape. In the 1980s, the area surrounding and downstream of the fireworks factory was identified as a potential Superfund site, and a major concern for mercury pollution. 

Dam at State Street, prioritized for removal by the North and South Rivers Watershed Association’s Indian Head River Restoration Project. Photo by Rob MacDonald. 

The good news is that federal, state, and local stakeholders have come together to start reversing the damage. In 1993, Sidney and Harold M. Tucker donated the Tucker Preserve property to Wildlands Trust. Together with groups like the North and South River Watershed Association, the Mattakeeset Massachuset (also known as Massachuseuk) tribe, and state and federal agencies, Wildlands helped form the Indian Head River Coalition, which created the Indian Head River Trail, a 6-mile trail network through the attractive woodlands and river you see today. 

In June 2021, another coalition working to improve the Indian Head River area, the Fireworks Site Joint Defense Group, presented its report to the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, outlining their recommendations for remediation planning. Discussions are ongoing. 

Future work notwithstanding, Tucker Preserve and the IHRT now present a reasonable facsimile of its pre-industrial beauty. As you can see, however, a quick look back in time reveals a more complicated history. Without the foresight, generosity, and collaboration of concerned individuals and groups, this serene and stunning landscape could have looked very different. Figuratively and literally, its alternative outcome lies just below the surface. 

Photo by Rob MacDonald. 

Learn more 

To learn more, visit the Tucker Preserve property description here, or visit the preserve yourself. 

Also, stay informed on the Indian Head River recovery efforts via the North and South Rivers Watershed Association website: 

• Indian Head River Restoration Project Update 

• Ludden's Ford Park, Hanover 

Please also view the Town of Hanover and Pembroke Historical Society websites: 

• hanoverhistoricalsociety.com 

• pembrokehistoricalsociety.org

Thanks to Rob MacDonald for many of the photographs used in this piece. To see more, visit his photography website here.