Randolph Community Forest

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Grey J

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I just received my Trust for Public Land quarterly magazine and it contains this nice feature article on the Randolph Community Forest. Nice photos too. I really enjoyed wandering around in there a couple of years ago and looping over Mt Randolph and Mt Crescent, and especially the view of the Northern Presidentials from Lookout Ledge. I hope the link opens for you.

https://www.tpl.org/land-and-people-magazine-fall-winter-2020-everlasting
 
Its a nice looking article with great visuals and a well crafted story but it sure leaves out a lot and makes some tenuous connections

Its forgets to mention that immediately adjacent to the east is the Gorham Town Forest which has been a town forest since the early 1900s. Much of the Gorham Town Forest is in Randolph. Adjacent to the east of the Gorham Town Forest is Moose Brook State Park, a mostly undeveloped parcel with a former CCC camp on the south end. Hub North's business is far more oriented around the Gorham Town Forest and Moose Brook State Park than the Randolph Town Forest. The Gorham Town Forest was recently enlarged substantially to the north.

Prior to the Randolph Town Forest there were previously a few large parcels held by family trusts, they still remain and are not perpetually protected but many go back to the 1800s. The town enacted zoning rules prior to the town forest to effectively prevent new subdivisions. They impose a very high hurdle that makes it economically unattractive to build new subdivisions. Of course those same rules mean that affordable housing is non existent. The last traditional subdivision was around 1990 with 5 acre lots.

The land was originally owned predominately by Brown Company in Berlin. When one of successors of Brown Co was selling off their remaining land, a unit of John Hancock Insurance company bought the land. They made a lot of promises that they were planing to own the forest "forever" and was going to manage it sustainably for the long term. The didn't own it long (less than 10 years) and after the ice storm of 1998 they put it up for sale to highest bidder with no concern for who was buying it, if Randolph did not buy it, it would most likely have went to JR Dillon that has pillaged Success and the adjoining towns. There was also a block of land ripe for development owned by Gorham Land Company at the end of Randolph Hill Road. Gorham Land had been slowly selling off parcels in the area to generate money for the family and I expect at some point this block would be sold for development. There was also a concern for industrial wind turbines on the ridge line (which now exist to the north in Berlin. There was also a general fear that the ridge line land boom in Jackson and Bartlett would come north.

Due to political concerns long ago, much of the Brown Company lands had been excluded from the WMNF declaration boundary. It would have taken congressional action for the WMNF to buy the land outside the boundary and reportedly Hancock was unwilling to wait to dump the land. I don't think residents of Randolph had interest in allowing the land outside the existing Declaration boundary on the south slope of the Mt Crescent range to fall into National Forest control as it would mean they would lose local control. Ultimately they did resell the land on the north slope of the Crescent Range inside the declaration boundary to the WMNF as part of the complex funding for the forest. This area is the Pond of Safety which the WMNF has stated at one point would get a large campground complex but to date is undeveloped except for some remnants from the Brown Company days.

The odd part is that there is little or no interest in Randolph to allow tourist businesses in town to capitalize on the forest. Existing long term businesses like the moribund Lowe's complex and the tourist cabins in the "low rent" district on the west end of town are definitely not thriving. Both of the businesses featured in the article are located in Gorham, they are a minority to the much bigger ATV boom in the region. A major point of contention in the area is that Randolph has no interest in the ATV boom and the ATV folks are very unhappy that they cant access the Presidential rail trail and the Jimtown logging road which runs through the Town Forest east to west. Randolph does allow snowmobiles in town and in the forest over long established trails as they do not impact the summer residents. Other than a few Air B&Bs that are run as a hobby on occasion there are no really active tourist businesses in town and the locals and summer residents would prefer it to stay that way.


Their stewardship plans are very detailed interesting read.

http://randolphforest.org/documents/
 
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Its a nice looking article with great visuals and a well crafted story but it sure leaves out a lot and makes some tenuous connections

Its forgets to mention that immediately adjacent to the east is the Gorham Town Forest which has been a town forest since the early 1900s. Much of the Gorham Town Forest is in Randolph. Adjacent to the east of the Gorham Town Forest is Moose Brook State Park, a mostly undeveloped parcel with a former CCC camp on the south end. Hub North's business is far more oriented around the Gorham Town Forest and Moose Brook State Park than the Randolph Town Forest. The Gorham Town Forest was recently enlarged substantially to the north.

Prior to the Randolph Town Forest there were previously a few large parcels held by family trusts, they still remain and are not perpetually protected but many go back to the 1800s. The town enacted zoning rules prior to the town forest to effectively prevent new subdivisions. They impose a very high hurdle that makes it economically unattractive to build new subdivisions. Of course those same rules mean that affordable housing is non existent. The last traditional subdivision was around 1990 with 5 acre lots.

The land was originally owned predominately by Brown Company in Berlin. When one of successors of Brown Co was selling off their remaining land, a unit of John Hancock Insurance company bought the land. They made a lot of promises that they were planing to own the forest "forever" and was going to manage it sustainably for the long term. The didn't own it long (less than 10 years) and after the ice storm of 1998 they put it up for sale to highest bidder with no concern for who was buying it, if Randolph did not buy it, it would most likely have went to JR Dillon that has pillaged Success and the adjoining towns. There was also a block of land ripe for development owned by Gorham Land Company at the end of Randolph Hill Road. Gorham Land had been slowly selling off parcels in the area to generate money for the family and I expect at some point this block would be sold for development. There was also a concern for industrial wind turbines on the ridge line (which now exist to the north in Berlin. There was also a general fear that the ridge line land boom in Jackson and Bartlett would come north.

Due to political concerns long ago, much of the Brown Company lands had been excluded from the WMNF declaration boundary. It would have taken congressional action for the WMNF to buy the land outside the boundary and reportedly Hancock was unwilling to wait to dump the land. I don't think residents of Randolph had interest in allowing the land outside the existing Declaration boundary on the south slope of the Mt Crescent range to fall into National Forest control as it would mean they would lose local control. Ultimately they did resell the land on the north slope of the Crescent Range inside the declaration boundary to the WMNF as part of the complex funding for the forest. This area is the Pond of Safety which the WMNF has stated at one point would get a large campground complex but to date is undeveloped except for some remnants from the Brown Company days.

The odd part is that there is little or no interest in Randolph to allow tourist businesses in town to capitalize on the forest. Existing long term businesses like the moribund Lowe's complex and the tourist cabins in the "low rent" district on the west end of town are definitely not thriving. Both of the businesses featured in the article are located in Gorham, they are a minority to the much bigger ATV boom in the region. A major point of contention in the area is that Randolph has no interest in the ATV boom and the ATV folks are very unhappy that they cant access the Presidential rail trail and the Jimtown logging road which runs through the Town Forest east to west. Randolph does allow snowmobiles in town and in the forest over long established trails as they do not impact the summer residents. Other than a few Air B&Bs that are run as a hobby on occasion there are no really active tourist businesses in town and the locals and summer residents would prefer it to stay that way.


Their stewardship plans are very detailed interesting read.

http://randolphforest.org/documents/

Very informative post. Thank you.
 
Its a nice looking article with great visuals and a well crafted story but it sure leaves out a lot and makes some tenuous connections

The odd part is that there is little or no interest in Randolph to allow tourist businesses in town to capitalize on the forest. Existing long term businesses like the moribund Lowe's complex and the tourist cabins in the "low rent" district on the west end of town are definitely not thriving. ..... Other than a few Air B&Bs that are run as a hobby on occasion there are no really active tourist businesses in town and the locals and summer residents would prefer it to stay that way.

One might say of the town of Randolph "There is no there, there:" No post office, shopping area, town hall, town common, church, etc. etc.

Lowe's Store seems to be the spiritual and cultural center of the place. And the last time I went past it was festooned with Trump election swag.

I'm not surprised the locals frown on tourist and commercial intrusions into their enclave. I'm guessing there's a lot of old money and second home owners enjoying the peace and quite of this special place.
 
Thanks for all that additional information, Peakbagger. Would the Gorham Town Forest also go by the name of Paul Doherty Memorial Forest which I see on my AMC map north of the Randolph Community Forest and northwest of Gorham? I also see the Jericho Mountain State Park to the north of that forming a protected area surrounding WMNF land and stretching from west of Berlin and arcing south and west to beyond the of Pond of Safety almost to Jefferson. Good point about the zoning restrictions making it almost impossible to build affordable housing.
 
Yes the Gorham Town Forest is the Paul Doherty Memorial Forest. I dont think the new addition to the town forest is shown on most maps as it just was finalized early this year. Jericho Mountain state park butts up to the ridgeline that divides Jericho from the large valley that Bog Dam Loop road runs through.

There is a town hall in Randolph on Durand Road. Its actually a real nice town hall with a meeting space and a library. The town does have a zip code but no post office as there are only around 300 year round residents and they tend to go into Gorham on a frequent basis. If they did have post office it would be one of the rural type that the post office is desperate to close and of late usually open a few days a week. There is also a church on the east end of town. Its not used in the winter. They do have paddle tennis court which used to get a lot of use in the winter but not sure how much these days.

Reportedly Lowe's has been for sale for several years to anyone with the right offer. The old house out back is slowly falling down along with the tourist cabins. It will be interesting what it ultimate fate will be when the Lowe's pass on.

There are a lot of multi generation seasonal homes in town but these are slowly ending up out of the family as the current generations are unable or uninterested in taking on the responsibility. Randolph in the past tended to undervalue the seasonal homes but the state of NH in recent years has gotten involved and there were some "feathers ruffled" when the property taxes went up on the "old family cabin". The folks buying these days tend to be early retirees or near retirees familiar with the area who have wanted to buy into town. Since they buy in near retirement they may not be in town as long and as they get out of their active retirement years, they tend to sell and move. Unlike in past years, homes are on occasion ending up with realtors as in the past many were private sales but many of the high profile places still tend to sell private.
 
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