Monson Village, Milford
Size: 215 acres
Recreation: Nature walks, restored Colonial era house, old cellar holes, archeology, birding.
What you didn’t know: Before it was protected in 1998, the land was threatened by a planned 28-lot subdivision.
What to look for: History, history, history! Monson Village was New Hampshire’s first inland pioneer settlement.
The inside scoop:
“New Hampshire,” State Archeologist Gary Hume once said, “is a museum whose exhibits are its landscape.”
Hume made that statement to the Boston Globe in 1996 – when a maelstrom of media attention descended on this place that had been more than two centuries abandoned.
The newspaper stories followed the public realization that much of Monson Village was in danger of being bulldozed to make way for a subdivision.
But the long and nearly-tragic story made short is this: Russ and Geri Dickerman donated 125 acres of their own land adjacent to the threatened tract to save this place. A grassroots fund-raising drive that included donations from five dollars and up secured the remaining acreage, making this landscape a permanent exhibit in New Hampshire’s collection.
Russ Dickerman can trace his ancestry to the very first settler here, Margaret Nevins, who came to this wild outpost around 1736. Her son, Thomas, was born on the ocean voyage from the old country. Monson Village had been the first inland settlement of Europeans in what is now New Hampshire. In 1770, it was divvied up between Milford and Hollis.
Russ and his wife, Geri – and their tiny poodle, Nikki – spend nearly every day here. They keep the fields open and the stone walls clear of brush. They plant flowers, build and maintain trails and benches and historic markers at the cellar holes.
Russ Dickerman (who calls himself a “henhouse carpenter”) brought back from near-ruin the last standing house at Monson, which had been home to his aunt and uncle. It now serves as a tiny museum.
The Dickermans lead tours and retell the history of this place to all comers.
“It’s nice that the youngest ones are learning it now,” says Geri Dickerman. “So maybe they’ll remember.”
