Mount Misery is a 284-foot hill and public

conservation land In the United States, a conservation easement (also called conservation covenant, conservation restriction or conservation servitude) is a power invested in a qualified private land conservation organization (often called a "land trust") or gove ...

Lincoln, Massachusetts Lincoln is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts. The population was 7,014 according to the 2020 United States Census, including residents of Hanscom Air Force Base that live within town limits. The town, located in the MetroWest region o ...

, on Route 117 (Great Road) and on the

Bay Circuit Trail The Bay Circuit Trail and Greenway or Bay Circuit is a Massachusetts rail trail and greenway connecting the outlying suburbs of Boston from Plum Island in Newburyport to Kingston Bay in Duxbury, a distance of . Landmarks include Henry David T ...

near the

Sudbury River The Sudbury River is a tributary of the Concord River in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in the United States.U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed October 3, 2011 Originati ...

. Containing , Mount Misery is the largest piece of conservation land in the town and contains seven miles of public hiking trails through hills, wetlands and agricultural fields.

History

Although it is unknown for certain, Mount Misery may take its name from the death of a pair of oxen or a sheep on the hill in colonial times. By 1667, the Billings family owned land around Beaver Dam Brook and eventually operated a saw mill on the brook, just below what is now the upper pond at the base of Mount Misery. Evidence of this mill remains today near the brook. Concord writer

Henry David Thoreau Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817May 6, 1862) was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading Transcendentalism, transcendentalist, he is best known for his book ''Walden'', a reflection upon simple living in natural su ...

often hiked and recorded his experiences on the hill in his journal in the 1850s. In the 1940s, James DeNormandie acquired much of the land around Mount Misery to prevent it from being developed and for his own agriculture uses. He dammed the brook and excavated soil to form the lower pond, as well as re-damming the original upper mill pond, and he built a cabin on the top of Mount Misery which later burned. DeNormandie sold Mount Misery to the town as public conservation land in 1969. The land contains Beaver Dam Brook, which is still home to several beavers, and Terrapin Lake, a

kettle hole A kettle (also known as a kettle lake, kettle hole, or pothole) is a depression/hole in an outwash plain formed by retreating glaciers or draining floodwaters. The kettles are formed as a result of blocks of dead ice left behind by retreating gla ...

, where

cranberries Cranberries are a group of evergreen dwarf shrubs or trailing vines in the subgenus ''Oxycoccus'' of the genus ''Vaccinium''. In Britain, cranberry may refer to the native species ''Vaccinium oxycoccos'', while in North America, cranberry m ...

were grown until the 1990s. File:Mount Misery Conservation Land in Lincoln MA Massachusetts USA 6.jpg, Foundation of James DeNormandie's cabin from the mid-20th century on the summit of Mount Misery File:Mount Misery Conservation Land in Lincoln MA Massachusetts USA.jpg, Trailhead entrance on Route 117 File:Mount Misery Conservation Land in Lincoln MA Massachusetts USA 3.jpg, View from Mt. Misery File:Mount Misery.JPG, View of Mt. Misery File:Bridge_on_Beaver_Dam_Brook_Mount_Misery_Lincoln_MA.jpg, Bridge over Beaver Dam Brook at former Mill Pond (upper pond)

References

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External links

Official website
Lincoln, Massachusetts Hills of Massachusetts Landforms of Middlesex County, Massachusetts Protected areas of Middlesex County, Massachusetts