430 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1963 



a few Himalayan goats, and 14 European wild boar. During Corbin's 

 life the area was open to the public, but no hunting was permitted. 

 In time, some of the animals increased to an alarming extent and 

 control measures became necessary. Hunting was then allowed, but 

 only by club members and their guests. 



Over the years, noted guests at Corbin Park included William E. 

 Chandler, Grovor Cleveland, Herbert Hoover, Theodore Roosevelt, 

 Woodrow Wilson, and Edward VII, then Prince of Wales. The last, 

 visiting the park incognito during its early days, "was given per- 

 mission to shoot a bison and, to the indignation of the management, 

 bagged five or six" (Silver, 1957 : 120) . Resident inhabitants of near- 

 by areas included such personages as Herbert Adams, Maxfield Par- 

 rish, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Ellen Shipman, and the American 

 writer Winston Churchill, in whose novel Coniston the central figure 

 was Ruel Durkee, crafty but honest political boss of Croydon. 

 Rudyard Kipling visited the park in the early 1890's. In Captains 

 Courageous he described Austin Corbin, in the person of Slatin Bee- 

 man, in these words: "Slatin Beeman he owns 'baout every railroad 

 on Long Island, they say, an' they say he's bought 'baout ha'af Noo 

 Hampshire an' run a line fence around her, an' filled her up with lions 

 an' tigers an' bears an' buffalo an' crocodiles an' such all. Slatin 

 Beeman he's a millionaire." 



In 1896 Corbin died almost at the gate of his own park, in a carriage 

 accident caused by a runaway horse. After his death the game pre- 

 serve, in 1899, became a limited-membership proprietary club, the 

 Blue Mountain Forest Association, which still operates as an exclusive 

 hunting club. The initial lease was for 5 years, and members were 

 mostly men from New York, Boston, and Washington, D.C. The New 

 Hampshire Legislature, in an act incorporating the association, made 

 special provisions for the protection of the game in the park (Palmer, 

 1910) . These provisions remain in force today. 



NATURE OF THE AREA 



The Corbin tract was described by Spears (1893) as "unbroken 

 forest that covered hills and valleys and surrounded little lakes, 

 forests of birch and beech, maple and pine, spruce and hemlock, and 

 balsam." The lands rise from 960 feet elevation at the southeast to 

 the two dominant summits, Croydon Peak (2,781) and Grantham 

 Mountain (2,661 feet). Included are four ponds, the two largest of 

 20 and 30 acres, and over 50 miles of trout streams (pi. 1) . Drainage 

 is into the Connecticut River, via Mill Brook, Blow-me-down Brook, 

 and the Sugar River. 



Settlers have cleared and worked some of these lands since colonial 

 times, but the soil is thin and rocky, the topography rough, and the 

 area is no longer productive for agriculture. When the park was 



