Claremont
Arthur Shurtleff proposed, among other things, a network of roads to allow greater public access, and the state forester at the time recommended planting red and white pines that could be harvested in about 60 years to produce revenue for the town.
Now, as the city prepares to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Moody’s roughly 175-acre gift next month, today’s park visitors probably are eternally grateful that a key piece of Shurtleff’s plan was never implemented.
The network of roads with additional park entrances from the east, west and south was never constructed; instead, Moody Park has a single narrow dirt road from the main entrance on Maple Avenue. It cuts through the towering pines near the park entrance then climbs to an open hilltop with a stone picnic pavilion and sweeping views to the north and west, including of Mount Ascutney.
Access to the more remote areas of the park is along 7 miles of hiking and mountain bike trails through the mostly forested landscape that has been allowed to grow almost unchecked for the last 100 years.
In his 1995 book, The Landscape of a Community: A History of Communal Forest in New England, author Robert McCullough devotes a couple of pages to Moody Park and Shurtleff’s plan.
Shurtleff was from Boston and went to work for Olmsted in 1896 before opening his own firm in 1905, McCullough wrote. Shurtleff’s wife was from Cornish, and he became acquainted with the artists and authors of the Cornish Colony, including sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens and American author Winston Churchill, who was active with the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, according to McCullough.
Those connections likely landed him the Moody Park commission. With the help of state forester Alfred Hastings, Shurtleff developed his long-range plan for the park. Shurtleff wanted a landscape that was carefully managed — the opposite of what Moody Park became over the years.
It is believed that the expansive view of Mount Ascutney was part of Moody’s motivation for donating the land. He had made his money in the shoe industry in Boston and southern New Hampshire before returning home due to poor health.
Shurtleff saw the value in that view as well.
“Protection of vistas, both from hilltop and through ravines, was critical to his plan,” McCullough wrote. “He recognized that scenery would become a public attraction and considered a network of connecting roads to be essential.”
The plan also urged the thinning of hard woods in the park’s deep ravines in the northwest section. Furthermore, since most of Moody’s donation in 1916 was open farmland at the time, Hastings recommended regular planting of red and white pines that could be harvested in about 60 years.
“Claremont’s park was generally developed according to plan and has remained a densely wooded reserve with picnic areas and footpaths,” McCullough wrote.
But he also noted that the connecting roads were never built, and land to the south, which continues to rise beyond the hilltop picnic area, was never acquired as recommended by Shurtleff.
“(A)s Shurtleff feared, neglected overgrowth has blocked vistas and scenic ravine areas are not easily accessible,” McCullough noted.
In fact, it is the dense overgrowth, the very thing that Shurtleff hoped to prevent, that has come to define Moody’s character and provide the solitude many seek out.
A winter logging operation undertaken a couple of years to create a healthier forest and raise revenue angered a number of park users.
They were not happy about the thinned-out woods, where damaged and mature trees had been removed on the west and north facing slopes leading to the picnic area — or about the debris left behind by the loggers.
But the timber harvest reopened the view of Mount Ascutney existing when Moody, who died in 1925, made his donation.
Revenue from the sale of timber has been used to construct new mountain bike and hiking trails and improve existing ones, including the Indian Trail that runs along the eastern boundary to the picnic area and now has wooden foot bridges over wet areas.
Parks and Recreation Director Mark Brislin, who heard more than his share of criticism of the timber harvest, said many critics have had a change of heart and recent comments are mostly positive.
“I have talked to some who have done a 180 degree turn,” Brislin said, pointing out that some poplar trees are now 10 and 12 feet tall. “They have been up there enjoying the trails and they like what they see. The regrowth is happening.”
The actual park boundaries don’t include an abutting parcel of city-owned land to the west that includes much of the trail network, but that could soon change. The City Council is expected to approve a resolution in June that would make that property part of the official park.
“We want to maximize the use of the park and preserve that area for years to come,” City Manager Guy Santagate said. “There will never be any development there. We feel good about it.”
The action, Santagate said, is more administrative than anything else because the city owns the land.
The deed transferring the land to the town is dated June 26, 1916, a little more than three months after voters approved the donation at Town Meeting that year. In recognition of the 100th anniversary of Moody’s gift, the parks and recreation department and other organizations have scheduled a number of programs, including group mountain bike rides on Wednesday evenings, group runs on Tuesday evenings, a bird walk on June 18 and a look-back on Moody’s gift on June 25 at 1 in the community center.
A complete list of events is available at www.claremontparks.com.
Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com