Assabet River NWR Final CCP - U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Chapter 3: Refuge and Resource Descriptions
The Lent Farm, located along Honey Brook was associated with a saw mill
and a summer camp. This property contained about 92 acres. The Sarvela
Farm, also known as the Haynes Place, earlier belonged to a Puffer and
was known as an old farm. This farm, located both in Stow and Maynard,
contained about 43 acres (Boothroyd personal communication).
The two major roads going through the refuge, Puffer Road and New
Lancaster Road, date back to early colonial times and predate the Great
Road. Also, there are two cranberry bogs, one belonging to the Luarila and
the other the Huikari farms. The bogs are associated with 19th century
agriculture and landscape use (Boothroyd personal communication).
The Paananen Farm, originally owned by the Hendrickson Family,
contains the foundation remains of the barn, silo and two wells. The Olila
farm was close to Puffer Road. Early Colonial history suggests that there
may be small pox graves south of the Rice Tavern on this property. The
Matson Farm was on the corner of Davis Lane. The Matson’s are said to
have worked at Maynard Mills. The Nelson Farm was a dairy farm with a
mill house, greenhouse, and was a very old farm; in the 1850’s it was a girls’
private boarding school run by Miss Hannah Blanchard Wood, youngest
daughter of Dr. Jonathan Wood. At that time, the farm was owned by her
sister married to Henry Brooks (Boothroyd, personal communication).
Assabet River NWR provides a good opportunity to analyze early
American farmsteads. Because the military allowed the land to regenerate
after they acquired the property, soils have remained intact in areas that
were not disturbed by military training. There are both prehistoric and
historic resources that have the potential to add to our understanding of
human history in this area. Further research is necessary to understand a
comprehensive history of the refuge. The refuge has the potential to yield
significant information about land use history and cultural landscapes for
this part of Massachusetts because of the proximity to Boston and lack of
modern development.
Before the military acquired the refuge area, lots were also beginning to be
developed as vacation homes next to Puffer Pond. Many of these lots were
not yet developed at the time of the purchase. While occupied by the
military, the land was used in several ways which included the construction
of weapons storage areas, an elaborate railroad construction to transport
ammunition between the weapons bunkers and Boston, weapons training
areas, chemical testing areas, and other military activities. At times,
portions of the Sudbury Annex (the refuge property) were leased out to
private companies to develop items that will be useful to the military. The
military also allowed the land to regenerate itself from pasture and farm
land (Gallagher et. al. 1986). Most of the old farmstead houses were
demolished by the military and the most of the fields were allowed to revert
through natural succession to forest.
Comprehensive Conservation Plan - 41 -