Tour Webster Farm Friday

The Society for the Protection of N.H. Forests is offering a free guided tour of the 180-acre Daniel Webster Farm in Franklin on Friday, May 25, at 3 p.m. with naturalist David Anderson and historian Leigh Webb of Franklin Historical Society along the farm’s historic road that was first laid out by John Stark in 1740. Stops along the tour will include the Daniel Webster cemetery, site of the Salisbury Fort, and beautiful agricultural lands including a silver maple floodplain forest along the Merrimack River. Farmers Dan and Herbie Fife will share the history of this newly-conserved historical gem in Franklin.

“This is an opportunity to celebrate the recent efforts of the Webster Farm Preservation Association in collaboration with the Trust for Public Lands to secure the protection of centuries of human history at the site,” said Forest Society Director of Education David Anderson.

A collaborative effort between the Forest Society, the Trust for Public Land, the Fife family, and others, the Forest Society now holds a conservation easement on 122 acres surrounding the built area of the Webster Farm Property and a 58-acre easement on abutting farmland.

“I looked around these farm fields while riding the tractor and just knew that I couldn’t sit back and watch this area be developed,” said farmer Dan Fife.

The conservation easements protect prime farmland, outstanding wildlife habitat, and more than a mile of Merrimack River frontage. The land is labeled extraordinary due to its rich history. It includes the site of the Salisbury Fort, built in the newly granted town of Stevenstown in 1745 to help defend the northern frontier against Indian attacks. The property later was known as the “Elms Farm,” statesman Daniel Webster’s home from 1797 until his death in 1852. Later, the New Hampshire Home for Orphans and School of Industry, a private charity, was established on the Webster Farm in fulfillment of a promise made by Chaplain Daniel Mack to dying soldiers in the Civil War that their children would be cared for.

This brief, hour-long guided tour will share the layers of time preserved in place at Webster Farm. Tour attendees will meet and park at the easterly end of Holy Cross Road, off Route 3 (Daniel Webster Highway) in Franklin. For more information or to register contact Trish Churchill, registrar/volunteer specialist at the Forest Society 224-9945, extension 311 or e-mail signup@forestsociety.org.