Estabrook Woods
The Estabrook Woods is a wild tract of more than of woodland, hills, ledge, and swamp two miles (3 km) north of the Town of Concord. It is the largest contiguous and undeveloped woodland within thirty miles of Boston. However, the woods have a history of human disturbance dating back to the Algonquian Native Americans who used controlled burning to clear tracts of land. Later, colonists cleared much of Estabrook for agriculture and pastures, although vegetation has since rejuvenated. The Woods are named for the Estabrook family, prominent in the area since colonial times. The first Estabrook in  the area, Capt. Joseph, purchased his farm, now part of Estabrook Woods, from the Pelham family, then of Rhode Island. Henry David Thoreau is intimately associated with this area, which he called Easterbrooks Country. In his Oct. 20, 1857 journal entry, one of several on the woodland, he writes: “What a wild and rich domain that Easterbrooks Country! Not a cultivated, hardly a cultivatable field in it, and yet it delights all natural persons.” The woods are also home to the unimproved Estabrook Road, which Minutemen used at the start of the American Revolutionary War. Today, stone markers mark the  path taken by Minuteman traveling south toward Concord. During the early 20th century, a small number of Concord families began to acquire the land in Estabrook Woods. In 1932, they successfully petitioned the town to close and discontinue the old logging trail known as Old Estabrook Road, ensuring it would be protected from residential development.  Around 1965, these families, along with Harvard and Middlesex School, began working together to create a nature preserve, establishing Harvard's Concord Field Station and placing major restrictions on development of many remaining private lands.  In 1996, Concord and Carlisle worked together on the "Campaign  for Estabrook Woods" which placed an additional 400 acres into conservation. Estabrook Woods has significant ecological significance to the area. The Estabrook Woods are bordered by Lowell Road to the west, Monument Street to the east, and Bedford Road (Rt. 225) to the north. Though accessible to the public, most of Estabrook is privately owned by Harvard University (672 acres), Middlesex School (180 acres), and a number of smaller landowners.