Monson Center: A New Hampshire Ghost Town

Monson Center, located in Southern New Hampshire, is one of the state's so-called "ghost towns." Once abandoned and forgotten, the site is now preserved for the public to visit. Monson was the earliest inland settlement in Massachusetts territory that would later become New Hampshire. A 17,000-acre settlement created by six families starting in 1737, the pioneering town was abandoned in 1770. Why it was abandoned is unclear but guesses range from difficult living conditions to political discord on the eve of the American Revolution. The property was absorbed into the neighboring communities of Milford, Hollis, Amherst and Brookline. The inhabitants never got around to creating a schoolhouse, meeting house or church. The only public structure was a cattle pound. Today the 269-acre Monson Center site with seven stone cellar holes lies in the towns of Milford and Hollis. For more than two centuries it was a forgotten place until 1998 when a developer proposed a 28-home subdivision. A group of residents felt the property was worth preserving and a grassroots effort led by Russ and Geri Dickerman raised money to purchase the property. They also donated 125 acres of their own land. The site was purchased by The Society for the Preservation of New Hampshire Forests in 1998. Access is at 508 Federal Hill Road in Milford where a roadside sign identifies the site and a parking area for a half dozen vehicles. Hikers can visit the town on well-defined trails that incorporate the settlement's original dirt roads to access the stone cellar holes. Placards at each site tell the stories of the Colonial families who once lived there and the souls who may still linger. East and West Monson Roads form a 2-mile loop trail that visits six of those sites, as well as a small pond that has a heron rookery and a variety of waterfowl. There are benches for visitors to rest and enjoy views of the beaver pond. A few hundred yards down the gravel road from the parking area there is a kiosk with a large map of the trails. Farther on, hayfields bracket the road on the way to the Gould House, a restored Colonial house and the only structure on the property. The home is open at random to allow visitors to see what life was like in those days. Along the edge of the hayfields are varieties of disease-resistant American Chestnut trees that were bearing nuts when this writer visited. Bright wiped out the original American Chestnut trees that were once dominant in the forests of the eastern United States. But in this ghost town are there ghosts? My wife Marsha and I walked the trails earlier this month and Marsha searched for paranormal spirits using the GhostTube SLS phone app which uses the phone's camera to identify human figures and bodies in paranormal investigations. This app projects a grid of infrared light to let users see the unseen. We didn't see anything except a few figure fragments around the Thomas Nevins site on East Monson Road. What we got was a nice, easy hike illustrated by historical information at each former home site. For instance: Thomas Nevis was a sergeant in the French and Indian War and lost three sons in the Revolutionary War; Joshua Bailey's 11 children narrowly escaped a fire that destroyed their home; and Lazarus Hubbard was a beggar, the poorest and laziest man in town. To get there: Access Route 13 east from Route 101 in Milford or west from Route 119 in Townsend, Massachusetts. Turn off on Hood Road and travel 1 ½ miles, then turn right on Federal Hill Road and travel ¾ of a mile. The access road and parking area are on the left side of the road.