Join us for a walk in the Harold Parker State Forest.  It was recognized ass one of the twelve nicest hiking trails in Massachusetts.  It actually has many different trails--we will do one off the Jenkins parking lot.

After being logged extensively around the turn of the century, Harold Parker State Forest was acquired by the Commonwealth between 1916 and 1934 from dozens of pasture and woodlot owners under a provision authorizing the purchase of “waste” woodlands at a rate “not exceeding an average cost of five dollars per acre”. It was one of the first state forests, and was named in honor of the state’s first Chairman of the State Fores Commisssion who died in 1916. Reforestation began immediately. In 1930, the Department of Conservation employed “emergency unemployment crews” of 30 to 80 men, who worked to plant trees, build roads and combat gypsy moths. Beginning in 1933, the Civilian Conservation Corps, a federal jobs program, had two camps here. Thousands of CCC workers planted pine plantations, and built many of the man-made ponds, dams and park structures that remain to this day. The young men lived in barracks and earned $1 a day, most of which could be sent home to family.

Of the eleven ponds at Harold Parker, nine are man-made. Bear Pond and Berry Pond are natural kettle hole ponds. Up until 1983 the series of man-made ponds and spillways in Andover were used as a fish hatchery. All of the ponds are now open to fishing and boating, and Berry Pond continues to be stocked with trout.