Vaughan Woods Memorial State Park, South Berwick

I couldn’t believe how busy this woodsy state park was on a sunny Sunday spring day. It was teeming with people and their dogs! The draw for walkers are the wide paths (some of which are wheelchair friendly), the pretty views of the Salmon Falls River, the playground, and the gorgeous 1785 Hamilton House.

Emily Tyson, the wealthy widow of a Baltimore and Ohio Railroad president, bought the property in 1898 for her and her stepdaughter Elise, who later married a Vaughan. (Neat connection: Emily’s friend, South Berwick author Sarah Orne Jewett, encouraged her to buy and restore the house.) The two Tyson women were interested in managing the health of the forest, and in 1949, Elise — who also went by Elizabeth — bequeathed 165 acres of land to the state of Maine “in the natural wild state as the Vaughan Woods Memorial.” She gave the house, gardens, and surrounding fields to Historic New England.

The Hamilton House, which has a separate parking lot, can be reached via a narrow walking path at one end of the park. The stately home is perched on a hill overlooking the river, with some other old outbuildings and perennial gardens nearby. You can do a little circumambulation of the field before continuing your stroll in the old-growth stands of pine and hemlock.

The state includes an interesting snippet of history on its site, explaining that Oldfields Road, the access road to the park, refers to an area where the Western Abenaki nation of the Wabanaki Federation once regularly burned small areas of land to clear for corn, beans, and squash plantings. “When the soil lost its fertility in 8 to 10 years, they cleared another area for farming and let the older plot grow up to berry bushes, brush, and finally trees, thus maintaining good farming, berrying, and hunting areas all close by.”

Directions: Travel south on Route 236 out of South Berwick. After about 1/2-mile, turn right opposite the junior high school on to Vine Street. Go about one mile to the intersection of Vine Street and Old Fields Road. Turn right and look for the park entrance.

Check out more info and photos from Vaughn Woods State Park at Carefree Creative, a Maine-based web company that has helped us with our website!