Alice Warren wrote about Maynard 1914

Alice Warren was hired in 1914 to be a teacher in Maynard. This memoir is from the Maynard Historical Society collection. Her maiden name was Lynn, she married Charles Warren in 1923. Alice taught in Maynard until she retired, she was also active with Maynard Girl Scouts. She died in 1980, age 89, and is buried in Glenwood Cemetery along with her husband and his parents. Charles' father, Alonzo Warren, was Maynard's last surviving Civil War veteran! I have added content in [  ] brackets to expand on what she was writing about.

                                                "I Remember. Do You?"

I was asked to write about what Maynard was like when I first came to town. I was one of the many school teachers who were hired to teach in the public schools. At that time it was customary for the teachers to live here during the school year.

The sun was shining that September Sunday when I left the train at the station. I was amazed at the crowd that came to meet it. [Maynard's population was 6,800 then, 11,000 now. The railroad right-of-way that went through the center of Maynard became the Assabet River Rail Trail.]

There were many boarding houses along Main Street and that day the porches were filled with inmates enjoying the comfortable chairs and watching the crowds go by. Everyone seemed to be walking as there were very few motorcars at that time. [First motorcar 1899, a Stanley Steamer. By 1914 there were car dealerships, repair shops, car rental and gas stations, but still about 150 horses.]

I entered the school system under Mr. Brick and found my work most interesting. I was surprised to see so many tow-haired children ["tow-haired" meant light blond, likely children of Finnish immigrants]. They were courteous, and the parents cooperative and it was a joy to teach here.

One of the outstanding clubs at that time was the Maynard Women's Club [1904-1976] which was at its height with 200 members and a waiting list. Teachers were honored guests and were allowed to close school early so as to attend the meetings. The programs were outstanding. The members dressed in their silk and satin gowns with hats, and white kid gloves. In looking over one of the old reports, I came across a notation where someone suggested that the Street Railway was to be asked to lower the step on the trolley as the women were required to show too much of their limbs in getting aboard.

Warren was active in Maynard's Girl Scout organization and 
was the founder of a Brownie Troop. In this circa 1960 photo
she is on the right (Maynard Historical Society archive).

The churches were very busy places in those days. With clubs for the young people it was an excuse to get out of an evening and the rule was to get home right after Christian Endeavor [youth group organization with evening meetings]. In the old days you hired a pew in some of the churches, and if the family was small you paid for half a pew.

The town seemed a very busy place to me with so many trains [passenger trains 1850-1958] and street cars [1901-1923] coming in and leaving. I sometimes think it was easier to get one out of town then than it is now. Street cars went up Nason Street to the Actons and the length of Main Street to Hudson and Concord. At times there would be standing room only and you could ride all day for a dollar. Many people went on excursions to the Street Railway parks in Lexington, Whalom, Canobie Lake, and the Clinton Dam which was being built then.. This was a great treat. [A group could hire a fancy trolleycar with a driver and have it transfered to other street railway systems for a day-long excursion. Canobie Lake amusement park was in New Hampshire, 40 miles from Maynard.]

As for recreation there was plenty to do. There were many Finnish people who put on their snowshoes and skis and it was a happy sight to watch them come over the hills. Pung rides [a pung was a small sleigh pulled by one horse]  and sleigh rides in winter where the destination called for a good oyster stew or chowder to break up the ride. There were livery stables where one could hire a horse and buggy and take rides along the countryside during the different seasons. Bicycles had been at their height before I came here and I loved to hear of the Priest Brothers and their many friends and the distances they made in a day. It almost seemed impossible. [Maynard had two all-male bicycle clubs. Although Alice does not make mention, the "bicycle craze" led women to abandon long skirts for either bloomers or knickerbockers.] Canoeing on the river and at Lake Boone, skating in the mill pond, dances, balls, band concerts, baseball, and basketball games at the "Rink" just added all kinds of fun for the young folks. Sideshows and Chautauqua came regularly and once a real circus was rerouted into Maynard. The movie houses where the shows were changed twice a week and where all could attend without seeing any movie in bad taste.

While in the last paragraph Alice wrote that Maynard
did not have planes, this certificate shows that
just over a dozen years later she had a 
plane ride over Washington, DC.

Every nationality had its own clubs and organizations and entertained the people at least once a year. At that time there were quite a few Scottish people and I especially enjoyed their shows. Everyone applauded the take off on Harry Lauder. [Lauder (1870-1950) was a famous Scottish singer, at one time the highest paid performer in the world and the first to sell a million records.]

I went away from Maynard for a while and came back as a housewife. In those days I did not have to go out and pick up groceries, for good Mr. Morse, from the Riverside Cooperative [1875-1936], came in the morning to take your order and bring it back by four o'clock in the afternoon. On Sunday morning a man came around with beans, brown bread, horse-radish and succotash. Fresh fish was brought into town twice a week and came to your door. Numerous cats followed the wagon and every once in a while a fish head would accidentally(?) fall off the tail-board to get rid of the animals. [Dairy, eggs, bread, coal and ice were also home delivery, and dirty laundry picked up by trucks from the Harriman Bros. New Method Laundry would be returned a few days later cleaned, ironed and folded.]

I never knew what real fresh strawberries, corn and asparagus tasted like until I came to Maynard. Such a difference from produce bought from fruit stands. Farmers picked their corn, left it at the back door step, you helped yourself and left one cent an ear.

Many people bought flour, sugar and other items by the barrel and it was quite a sight at the railroad station when this landed. Those who could, baked their own bread. It was a poor housewife who bought her bread. It was five or ten cents a loaf at the store and pretty poor stuff.

We did have excellent stores. Case's, a large department store, where you could purchase anything from a collar button to a pair of shoes, and many other good stores to take care of all of our needs with never a necessity to go out of town. [The Case building later became home to an A&P supermarket, an Army/Navy Surplus store, and currently The Outdoor Store.] We didn't have motor cars, planes, supermarkets, and five and ten cent stores, but we did have a library, good schools and all those beloved people who gave of themselves to make our town a blessed place to live.

Old House Expenses and Capital Gains Taxes

 SUMMARY: This is an expansion on a column that was originally published in the Beacon-Villager newspaper in 2010, the first year I was writing for the paper. Some content has been removed. What has been added is a description of the typical expenses for maintaining an old house, and how keeping records of those may save capital gains taxes when a primary residence home is sold.  

A reproduction of an 1875 street map at the Maynard Historical Society shows a house at 10 Maple Street belonging to Charles Brooks, so our house is at least 151 years old. Learning the names of the owners required leafing through records of past property sales. The oldest showed A&L Maynard Company selling the property to Charles Brooks in 1870 for $2,430. The 1870 U.S. Census described Brooks as a 56-year old widower working at a saw mill, with four teenage daughters. The saw mill was most likely the one owned by the woolen mill, near the Walnut Street bridge.

The deed does not specify whether there was a house on the property at the time of the sale to Brooks, but Amory Maynard and his son Lorenzo owned other lots on Maple Street at the time. It is likely they were building and selling houses in addition to owning and operating the woolwn mill. In support of this theory, most of the houses on Maple Street and Maple Court have a similar architecture, indicating they were built at about the same time. 

The property owners:

Before 1870 A&L Maynard Co.

        1870-1879 Charles G. Brooks

1879-1896 Alexander and Elizabeth Greer

1896-1924 Mary Hanna

1924-1926 Charles T. Partridge

1926-1953 William and Carrie Barlow

1953-1987 Thomas and Blanche Marsden

1988-2000 Craig and Tresa Jones

2000-present David Mark and Jean D’Amico

The Barlows or Marsdens were most likely responsible for converting a front porch to a room on a concrete slab, for extending the kitchen, and for adding a downstairs bathroom and a screened-in back porch. We removed the cramped second floor bathroom and attic space over the kitchen and converted that into a full-size bathroom plus a walk-in closet with clothes washer/dryer. 

The property also includes a 25x40 foot, two-story barn, with what was a stall for one horse. Construction date unknown. A good guess would be that Brooks or Greer kept a horse and wagon to haul freight to and from the railroad. The other back corner was a chicken coop.

EXPENSES 2000-2026

An internet search on expected annual maintenance and repair costs yields several websites with wording along the lines of  "A common rule of thumb for home maintenance is to budget 1-2% of your home's purchase price annually for repairs and upkeep for a relatively new house, and 3-4% per year for an older house; this, to cover both routine maintenance and unexpected failures. Major remodeling of kitchen, bathrooms, etc. would be extra."

'Expected, unexpected and extra' turned out to be an underestimate of our experiences. A pre-purchase inspection in 2000 stated that the barn's sills were rotten, and the wiring knob-and-tube so inadequate that the home insurer refused to cover the barn. The former required the barn to be jacked up for sill replacement. Rewiring included an upgrade for power for an electric pottery kiln. In time, the chicken coop became an insulated and heated pottery studio, five windows replaced, a leaking roof reshingled, exterior painted, and dealing with carpenter ants.

Housewise, the aforementioned house second floor addition, roof reshingled, exterior painted twice, interior once, eleven windows replaced, wiring brought up to code, kitchen and downstairs half-bath remodeled, driveway widened and repaved, walkways replaced. Appliance-wise, refrigerator/freezer once, stove once, dishwasher twice, clothes washer/dryer twice, furnace twice, hot water heater twice. 

When it comes time to sell a house, keeping a record of expenses can save a bundle on capital gains taxes. See www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p523.pdf for all the itty-bitty details. Simplified - if you and your spouse file taxes jointly and sell the house, a $500,000 profit is exempt from federal and state capital gains taxes. If you spouse dies and you sell within two years, same exempt. If you are single for more than two years prior to selling your house, only $250,000 is exempt. As to where that might matter - Maynard, not so much yet. Over 25 years the median sale price increased from $225,000 to $600,000. For Sudbury, median increased from $500,000 to $1,115,000 so capital gains exposure could apply to many house sales.

Those dollar triggers for taxing profits were set in 1997 and were not indexed for inflation. However, there is a bill before Congress, the "More Homes on the Market Act", which proposed that the triggering profit values be doubled. This is separate from legislation recently passed in the House and Senate and forwarded to the President for signing, as that bill is designed to promote new housing construction and also prevent speculators from buying up lots of houses as investment opportunities. 

As for all that record keeping, sale price minus purchase price equals capital gains, but from that - according to page 10 - can be subtracted cost of additions to the house, fencing, landscaping, new windows, roof replacement, siding, insulation, bringing wiring up to code, kitchen or bathroom remodeling, etc. But not exterior or interior painting or replacing appliances. Best to maintain a folder of invoices for all major work. 

Gum Chewing - "Out Damned Spot!"

Morning cup of coffee

 As an amateur historian perpetually searching for ideas for this column I am sometimes asked "What do you mean by 'history'"? Academic definitions assign 1500-1815 as Early Modern History, 1815-1900 as Late Modern History and after 1900 as Modern Times, segueing into Contemporary Times. Personally, I just consider everything up to this morning's coffee as history.

This helps, because Maynard as Maynard is not that old. The town was founded in April 1871. While a goodly share of the houses are more than 100 years old, few of downtown's buildings surpass their centennial. Some history is not only very recent, but, literally, underfoot. As one approaches the entrance to CVS there are stains on the concrete sidewalk and asphalt of the parking lot from discarded chewing gum. These black spots start appearing 100 feet from the entrance and increase in density as one nears the door. 

Painted gum spot

The solution to preventing gum spots is to not sell gum. As people who are chewing gum approach a store, an idea flies into their minds - buy gum!  This thought triggers an immediate, almost Pavlovian distaste for the piece of gum in their mouth, which just seconds before was perfectly satisfying the urge to fruitlessly chew and chew and chew. The old and now flavorless gum is mentally compared to the Platonic ideal of a new piece of gum - and spat out onto the sidewalk or parking lot surface. 

Today's gums are made mostly with a synthetic-polymer gum base rather than tree sap. From Wikipedia "The hydrocarbon polymers approved to be in chewing gum are styrene-butadiene rubber, isobutylene, isoprene copolymer, paraffin wax, and petroleum wax." The non-chewy ingredients include sugar or non-caloric sweeteners, sorbitol, lecithin, glycerin, flavor and color agents, and preservatives.

What this all means is that well-chewed gum is primarily long-lasting synthetic rubber. On concrete or asphalt the three-dimensional, pale-colored blobs are pounded by foot traffic to nearly circular flat spots about an inch across and impossible to scrape away. Over time dust is pressed into the hardening gum and it turns black. 

Worth noting - gum spots last a long time, but not forever. This column is basically a recycling of a Beacon-Villager column from October 2013. Today, the Nason Street entrance to what had been the CVS building has no more gum spots than the average downtown sidewalk, confirming that years of foot traffic and weather will in time erode these permanent-seeming residues.   

Ben Wilson painting a sidewalk gum spot

A few companies have developed technology to remove gum. GumBusters has a device which blasts superheated steam blended with a cleaning agent onto the impacted gum. Franchises are available. Given that the most popular model GumBuster requires 3,000 watts to operate, the full package includes a generator. Alternative technologies use a power wash or a blast of powdered dry ice. To quote Lady MacBeth: "Out, damned spot!"

Or discarded gum can become art. Ben Wilson, an artist in England, famously paints miniature scenes, portraits and abstracts on gum spots (he uses a really small brush). A computer search on his name + gum will yield articles and images selected from the more than 10,000 gum paintings he has created. He has been arrested several times - all cases dismissed because he is not littering, only adding colors to someone else's litter. 

There is an easy way to avoid creation of gum spots: have a garbage can near the store entrance. CVS does not, whereas the Cumberland Farms gas station/store does. Gum, garbage can; gum, garbage can. It's not complicated. 

Maynard's history of movie theaters

Street-facing mural added by current owners

SUMMARY: The Fine Arts Theatre turns 77 years old this June. Prior to its opening in 1949, there were almost 50 years of motion picture showings in Maynard, starting with entrepreneurs bringing a projector and films to be shown in existing meeting halls, then culminating with the opening of People's Theater - seating for 700 - in 1921. The Fine Arts was family-owned from 1949 to 2013, first by founder Burton Coughlan and then his daughter Linda (Coughlan) Flint. Steven Trumble bought and renovated the theater, operating it until his untimely death at age 67 in 2021. The theater complex, with three screens and an adjoining ice cream shop, now operates under the ownership of Dafna Krouk-Gordon. 

As early as 1902, silent movies were being shown in Maynard in the meeting hall of Riverside CO-OP. Maynard was at that time a mill town with a population of around 7,000. Entrepreneurs would come to town with their projectors, rent space in a meeting hall and charge admission. Not here, but in larger cities, there had been a brief vogue for kinetoscope parlors that had its start in 1884. A kinetoscope was a floor-standing devices about four feet tall that would have an opening in the top for one eye. Inside, after depositing a nickel in the pay slot, film would pass between an electric light and the eyepiece, providing 15-20 seconds of silent moving pictures. These could be snippets of well-known vaudeville acts, filmed by Thomas Edison in his movie studio. Other producers filmed boxing exhibitions, gymnasts, etc. Within months after the first parlor opened in New York City there were arrests in San Francisco and elsewhere for showing pornography. 

Within a year, machinery and film quality had improved to a point that "movies" up to ten minutes in length could be projected onto screens for a seated audience. Early attempts to provide sound by operating a phonograph along with the projector failed, so instead, venues would hire a piano or organ player to face the screen and provide appropriate music. Word panels in the film would provide dialog (which required audiences to be literate!). Some films were sing-a-longs, with lyrics superimposed on the images. For those, movie halls would hire local singers to lead the songs. Motion pictures with sound and theaters with speaker systems did not become common until well into the 1930s.

The Colonial/Strand theater, operated from
1916-1952. Tickets originally were 10 cents. That
got patrons a doublefeature plus cartoon shorts.  

Leap forward a couple of decades and there were three movie houses in Maynard - Colonial and Riverside which were meeting halls set up with folding chairs, and Peoples' Theater, built in 1921. The latter had a main floor, balcony seating and a glorious chandelier in the lobby. The Colonial, also known as the Strand, was in the second floor of the building that now has the Roasted Peppers restaurant on the ground floor. Riverside, also known as Maynard Theatre, was the third floor meeting hall of a 1868 building known as Riverside Block. Its theater era ended when much of the building was destroyed by fire in 1934. It was rebuilt as Gruber Bros. Furniture, since torn down and now site of an apartment building across the parking lor from CVS. 

James Coughlan's Livery Feed & Sale Stable 1898

Meanwhile, on Summer Street, James Coughlan - second generation son of Irish immigrants - had opened a horse livery business in 1897, then converted it to an automobile sales and repair shop in 1913. James was also one of the co-founders of Peoples' Theater. His son, Burton J. Coughlan, born in 1904, was of an artistic and theatrical bent through high school. He had applied and been accepted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before changing his mind and attending the School of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. 

Soon after graduating, Burton returned to Maynard, where he took a job in 1929 as Manager of Peoples' Theater. Around 1947 he decided to leave Peoples' and convert the family business into a movie theater. The Fine Arts Theatre, seating 400, opened on June 29, 1949 with a showing of "The Red Shoes." By that time Riverside was long gone. The Colonial/Strand closed in 1952 and Peoples' in 1959.

In addition to what became the theaters, Burton owned the adjacent building. Initially, upstairs was his studio and downstairs an art gallery. Burton had married Ersilia Caterina "Rena" Bertucci - daughter of Italiam immigrants - in 1930. Together, they were patrons of Chinese art and jade and ivory artifacts, often featured in the gallery. In time, the first floor space housed Murphy & Snyder Printing, then the French restaurant La Petite Auberge, the Nickel Inn Cafe, 17 Summer Street (another restaurant) and the present-day Theatre Creamery ice cream shop..   

Burton ran Fine Arts until he retired in the 1960s, with his daughter Linda (Coughlan) Flint and her husband taking over. A smaller second theater was added in 1969. Years later it was divided in two, giving us the present-day configuration of three theaters.

In time, theater management was turned over to businesses that rented the theater complex. Infrastructure fell into decline, to the point that the theaters were hot in summer, cold in winter, wet from roof leaks whenever it rained, spotted with broken seating, and bathrooms that were an adventure. In 2003, Deco Entertainment rented the facility with an intention to do major renovations, including a new heating/cooling system, new seats and an improved sound system. 

Then, in 2013, Linda Flint sold the facility to Steven "Steve" Trumble and Melanie Perry. They bought with an understanding that Deco would continue as tenants, but Deco had been operating as if there was a rent-with-an-option-to-buy, so instead Deco locked the doors and left, with a rumor that they had also taken the movie projectors. 

Ticket signed by Steve Trumble

Steve and Melanie, who had bought with the thinking that a quarter million dollars would complete the renovations while Deco continued to operate the theater ended up spending close to one million dollars for a top to bottom renovation, including conversion to digital projectors, which, after a long delay, culminated in a grand re-opening on November, 5, 2014 with a showing of the movie "Interstellar." 

The theater was closed during the COVID pandemic, during which time Steve Trumble died. The theater was sold to Dafna Krouk-Gordon and Lester "Les" Gordon. They resumed theater operations in May of 2022. Dafna carries on after the loss of her husband in 2025. 

Burton Caughlan self-portrait in what was his studio,
above what is now the Theatre Creamery ice cream
shop. Unlike the paintings in the theater, this one is 
signed "Coughlan" in the other corner (not shown).

So, here we are today, with a 77 year old movie theater at 21 Summer Street that still has its original entrance facade, and in the main theater and adjacent hallway, the Chinese-art-inspired paintings that were the creations of Burton J. Coughlan, the original owner. None of the neighboring towns of Concord, Acton, Stow or Sudbury have movie theaters, so the Fine Arts serves a larger regional community. The theater complex operates under its fourth owner with strong support from local communities. 

Click on photos to enlarge. This and hundreds of columns from my Beacon-Villager era are posted, with an article directory by category, at www.maynardlifeoutdoors.com 

Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge - history

 SUMMARY: Once upon a time, the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge was a federal "Superfund" clean-up site. This was a consequence of the land being seized for World War II military munitions storage in 1942, and then used for military training and equipment testing until 1990. Roughly two-thirds of the 3.5 square mile refuge became open to the public in 2005 (the rest still closed off), with a visitors' center added in 2010. See ws.gov/refuge/assabet-river. 

Archaeological evidence confirms the presence of indigenous people dating back more than 7,000 years. Unlike much of what became Maynard in 1871, the southern third was more favorable for farming and had ponds that provided for year-round fishing. At the time of arrival of European colonists, what is now central Massachusetts and northern Connecticut was the territory of Nipmuc Native Americans. European diseases and colonial expansion decimated and displaced the native population, the tail end of this punctuated by King Philip's War of 1675-78. Surviving natives were either clustered in Christian convert "praying villages" or chose to move to native communities north and west of this region. When Sudbury was incorporated in 1639 and Stow in 1683, those contained all of future Maynard. There is a granite block in the Refuge on the Tri-Town Trail that makes the position where Maynard and the size-reduced Stow and Sudbury meet. 

As Maynard grew, most of the people settled in close proximity to the ever-enlarging woolen mill (1847-1950). By the 1920 census the population was a tad over 7,000 and it stayed close to that up to the eve of World War II. However, even as the downtown density grew, the southern third was mostly farm homesteads, mainly settled by immigrants from Finland who preferred farming to factory work. Much was grown for family consumption, but there were also orchards, dairy cows, hogs and chickens. Sales were made to stores in Maynard and neighboring towns, and there was an early morning 'milk train' to Boston. 

"THE AMMO DUMP: A Taking of Heritage" (2023)
by Paul V. Boothroyd Sr., Paul V Boothroyd Jr.
and Todd E. Boothroyd. Image courtesy of
Maynard Historical Society.

The evictions - when they came - were sudden. The United States entered the war in December 1941. By March of 1942 the Army had identified about 3,000 acres primarily in Maynard but extending into Hudson, Stow and Sudbury, as suitable for a munitions waystation. Munitions and other war supplies could be held there until Boston harbor was ready to load ships bound for Europe. As documented in "The Ammo Dump," some 80 homesteads received notice in April that their land was being taken be eminent domain, with as little as ten days to vacate. The government calculated what it estimated as fair market value to pay the evicted families, but many of those families felt they were being underpaid, as it fell on them to also sell or dispose of furniture, farm equipment, animals, etc. And find a place to live. And jobs. If there were any promises that people could return after the war those were not in writing and never happened. Sixty years later - for those still alive - there was a bittersweet opportunity to visit once the Refuge was open, perhaps to find the site where there house and barn and fields had been, now a forest.

One of the most interesting features of the Refuge are the World War II era ammunition bunkers. The site was chosen to be convenient to railroad shipping to the Boston Navy Yard yet far enough inland so that a German battleship could not shell the area. Each of the 50 bunkers, officially referred to as “igloos,” has inside dimensions of 81x26x12 feet, with a curved roof. Sides and roofs were mounded with dirt for extra protection and disguise. [However, air view disguise and Maynard's airplane lookout tower atop Summer Hill were overkill, as Germany never completed several attempts to build aircraft carriers.] Today, from all but the door end, these bunkers resemble small hills, complete with trees growing on top. Bunker #303 is sometimes open for tours.

After WWII this site, referred to as the Fort Devens-Sudbury Training Annex, served as a troop training ground, ordinance testing and chemical laboratory disposal area for Natick Labs, i.e., the U.S. Army Soldier Systems Center. A 1980s assessment led to this being categorized as an EPA “Superfund” clean-up site in 1990, as the site was contaminated with arsenic compounds (sprayed along the railroad tracks as a herbicide) and other chemicals, including flame retardant and firefighting chemicals now known to contaminate water supplies. Extensive clean-up efforts continued for years. The cost exceeded $20 million. The Superfund designation was ended in January 2022, after removal of underground fuel tanks, 55-gallon barrels of chemical waste and tons of contaminated soil. Monitoring of groundwater contamination continues. Most of the site was turned over to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service in 2000. The Assaber River National Wildlife Refuge was opened to the public in 2005, with a visitors' center added in 2010. 

Entrance to the FEMA facility, Maynard, MA.
Courtesy of WCVB5, Boston television (2021)

A 72 acre portion of the land adjacent to the end of Old Marlborough Road was transferred to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Here, FEMA maintains a Regional Response Coordination Center for natural and man-made disasters. It includes an underground bunker designed to provide shelter and support for several hundred people during a limited nuclear war. See https://coldwar-ct.com/FEMA_Regional_HQ_Maynard.html for exterior and interior photos. 

The Refuge covers 3.5 square miles. In combination with the other seven eastern Massachusetts wildlife refuges, these preserve land for mammals, reptiles, and local and migratory birds. There is a wonderfully informative, child-friendly, Visitor Center at 680 Winterberry Way, off of Hudson Road. For people who just want to park and roam, a north parking lot is accessed from White Pond Road, reachable from Route 117 in Stow. There is also a small parking area at the end of Old Marlborough Road, but the trail accessed from that entrance is often flooded in winter and spring. Within the Refuge there are 15 miles of old roads and walking trails, with the roads (which are in poor repair) open to bicycling. No dogs allowed anywhere in the Refuge, no other pets, no horses, no fires, no overnight camping, no ATVs, no dirt bikes, no snowmobiles. Catch-and-release fishing is allowed, but only from the Puffer Pond dock.

Whitetail deer fawns lose their white-spot camoflage
in the fall as they grow their much thicker, all-brown
winter coat. Other pre-winter adaptations include
storing more body fat and slowing metabolic rate.
Still, winter weight loss can exceed 20%.  

Hunting is allowed for deer, turkey, grouse, woodcock, coyote, rabbits and squirrels. This feels countradictory given the word "refuge," but without apex predator wolves and mountain lions, deer can become a serious over-population problem. The state's population is estimated at 175,000, with the eastern half of the state more than double the targeted density of 12-18 per square mile. Eastern coyotes - although larger than western coyotes for having historically bred with wolves during the eastern expansion - are still not very successful in preying on adult deer. During the fall/winter deer-hunting season hunters harvest about 15,000 annually. Refuge visitors are perhaps wise to wear orange or restrict visiting to no-hunting Sundays.

To learn more about the refuge, see ws.gov/refuge/assabet-river and the Friends of Woodlands and Waters website, which has a downloadable trail map at  https://www.woodlandsandwaters.org/assabet-river/trails. For history, see the Boothroyds' book "The Ammo Dump". It's major focus is the families that were evicted, but it also covers the military use of the area between the end of World War II and subsequent conversion to the Refuge.

Click on photos to enlarge. To access hundreds of past columns from The Maynard Voice and the Beacon-Villager, visit www.maynardlifeoutdoors.com There is an index.