This property is best accessed from the small parking area on Route 302 in Bethlehem, NH. This is located approximately 5 miles east of the center of Bethlehem (junction of Routes 302 and 142), on the south side of Route 302.
The Washburn land has a multi-generational history as a working forest. The Washburn siblings’ father Reuben Washburn and his business partner George Hann first began purchasing timberland in the 1940s and early 1950s for what became the Washburn Lumber Company.
The Forest Society and TransCanada Hydro Northeast Inc., finalized a conservation easement on some 2,300 acres including 31 miles of frontage on the First and Second Connecticut Lakes in Pittsburg as well as seven and a half miles of frontage on the upper Connecticut River in Pittsburg and Clarks
The Kauffmann Forest surrounds the land at Christine Lake owned by the Percy Summer Club. The club's land is protected by a conservation easement held by the Forest Society. Combined with the state-owned Nash Stream Forest, these conservation lands comprise the entire watershed of beautiful Christine Lake.
The most unique feature of the property is an old gold mine, operated by the Whitefield Mining Company until 1885. The mine has one shaft 100 feet deep, with its entrance carved into the face of a cliff.
You know how New Hampshire likes to be first in the nation when it comes to politics? Well, it turns out we’re stragglers in another category: sandhill cranes. They’ve been nesting in our neighboring states of Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts, but they never went granite until this year.
