The original owner of the property, Reverend Leslie C. Bockes, opened a children’s summer camp on the property for inner city youth from Lowell, Massachusetts. The land has been a Tree Farm, and the previous owners won the NH Timberland Owners Association John Hoar Award in 1978 for exemplary forestry and conservation practices

Two miles of trails/woods roads over gently rolling terrain through beech and hemlock forest. There are a few vernal pools visible from the trail network, and a field in the southwest corner of the property.

A hiking trail maintained by the Squam Lakes Association runs over this property, offering nice views of Squam Lake.

Three different paths lead to the summit of Green Mountain, where you’ll find the fire tower that’s part of the Green Mountain State Forest, a block of land at the summit surrounded by the High Watch Preserve.

Like much of the region, the slopes of Barton Hill were cleared for farm pastures and timber by the mid 1800s. The abandonment of hill farms allowed this land to gradually revert to a forest of poplar, white birch, and pine.

The land is part of the estate that was owned for generations by the Wright family of Keene, which made its fortune in silver polish. Legend has it that John Wright’s first silver polish was developed in the late 1800s as the result of an accidental encounter with a cow on a muddy back road. Finding the cow mired in a bog, he enlisted a local farmer to free the animal. As he wiped dried mud from the cow’s bell, Wright discovered that the bell was brighter, as if it had been polished. He purchased the land containing the mud, part of which became known as Silver Mountain.

The land was first settled as farmland in the 18th century, as evidenced by the cellar holes, cemeteries, cleared fields, and old farm house that was removed from the property. The land also became a source of forest products for much of the last century.