LES HUBBARD TRAIL
The Mill Pond Nature Sanctuary’s trail system is named in honor of Les Hubbard, former chairman of the Walpole Conservation Commission
and founder of this sanctuary. Walking the loop from the parking lot to the woods road and back is a moderately easy hike of about one hour.
• Trails are open to the public year-round to enjoy hiking, photography, nature study, birding, etc.
• We ask that you do not destroy the plant life, and to please stay on the trails during mud season to avoid erosion.
• Except for snowmobiles, all motorized vehicles are prohibited.
HUNTING
Private, County and Municipal Lands
80% of New Hampshire’s forestland is privately owned. Most private lands — especially larger tracts — remain open to hunters, unless posted
against hunting. New Hampshire Fish and Game recommends that each hunter contact landowners and seek permission to hunt. Even posted
land can be accessed by contacting the owner prior to hunting. Please respect all landowners wishing to keep their lands posted.
DIRECTIONS
From Route 12: Head south on Turnpike Road (junction is about 1.6 miles north of the blinking yellow light at South Street). Follow 0.5 miles to the pond.
From Walpole Center: Follow Turnpike Road north 0.75 mile to the pond.
Trail begins at the parking area.
ABOUT MILL POND NATURE SANCTUARY
From “Mill Pond Conservation Area” brochure, designed and produced by Cheri Phillips in cooperation with Hooper Institute and the Walpole Conservation Commission, 1991.
Sometime around 1800, when Walpole was barely 50 years old, a gristmill was built on the north bank of Mill Pond Brook, west of Turnpike Road. Records
show that in 1818, Thomas Bellows granted to the owners of the mill an indenture to “turn the water in Sikes Brook (Blanchard Brook) near the Sikes place,”
so that it flowed south to fill the Mill Pond and power the mill.
Soon a clothing works appeared downstream, and a sawmill was added to the gristmill. in 1850, Uriah Newton reported sawing 1,500 logs – all by water power
with one up-and-down saw – and grinding 12, 520 bushels of grain with nine run of stone (pairs of millstones).
In 1879, John Selkirk had a “dredging bee” here, his friends and neighbors turning out with a dozen yoke of oxen to spend all day dredging Blanchard Brook,
ensuring a steady flow of water to the pond. What a tired and muddy crew must have returned home that evening!
In addition to sawing timber, grinding grain, and making cider, Selkirk started an ice business on the pond in 1887. The Colburns added more ice houses
and expanded the business in the 1890s. Ice was cut from the pond in winter by men using large saws, and stored for months in sawdust to keep it from
melting. In 1895, the Colburns stored 650 tons of ice.
Of course, Mill Pond was also a favorite for recreation, fishing in particular – in one week in February, 1895, over 700 pickerel were caught!
By 1913, changing times saw the gristmill fall into disuse, and the ice business soon faded away with the advent of refrigerators. The last surviving
water-powered sawmill in town was here at the Mill Pond in the mid-1900s. Now, hardly a trace is left to speak of the pond’s industrious past.
As early as 1922, a movement was afoot to preserve the pond and surrounding land as a natural area. In that year, Copley Amory established the upper
end of the Mill Pond as a bird sanctuary, which he hoped would be part of a larger sanctuary to include his adjoining farm and the Hooper farms.
His dream was realized in 1977, when gifts and purchases from R.N. Johnson, Lottie Kilburn, Hubbard Farms, and later Robert Galloway made up
the 86-acre Mill Pond Nature Sanctuary.