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"William Brewster bought Ball’s Hill in 1891 to preserve a stand of large white pines and, over a period of years, acquired a total of 300 acres between Monument Street and the Concord River to the north and south of Ball’s Hill Road, naming it “October Farm.” Brewster loved looking at birds and listening to their songs. He was the founder of the Nuttal Ornithological Club and the American Ornithologists’ Union, the first president of the Massachusetts Audubon Society and the long-time curator of the ornithological collection at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology
Although the farm’s main house was located on Monument Street, Brewster often stayed in a cabin he built on the riverbank at the base of Ball’s Hill. There, we can still see the stone foundation of his cabin and the remains of his fireplace, canoe sheds, and the small boat landing dug into the bank. “It is my custom,” he wrote in his journal, “when sleeping in the cabin to open a little window by the side of my bed when I first awake to enjoy the early morning singing without the trouble of rising at an inconvenient hour.” Brewster’s many volumes of birding journals, excerpts from which were published posthumously in book form as October Farm and Concord River, make the area around Ball’s Hill of special significance."
Concord Land Conservation Trust
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The United States is one of the most diverse countries on earth, jam packed full of amazing sights from St. Patrick's cathedral in New York to Mount Hollywood California.The Northeast region is where it all started. Thirteen British colonies fought the American Revolution from here and won their independence in the first successful colonial rebellion in history. Take a look at these rolling hills carpeted with foliage along the Hudson river here, north of New York City.The American south is known for its polite people and slow pace of life. Probably they move slowly because it's so hot. Southerners tend not to trust people from "up north" because they talk too fast. Here's a cemetery in Georgia where you can find graves of soldiers from the Civil War.The West Coast is sort of like another country that exists to make the east coast jealous. California is full of nothing but grizzly old miners digging for gold, a few gangster rappers, and then actors. That is to say, the West Coast functions as the imagination of the US, like a weird little brother who teases everybody then gets famous for making freaky art.The central part of the country is flat farmland all the way over to the Rocky Mountains. Up in the northwest corner you can find creative people in places like Portland and Seattle, along with awesome snowboarding and good beer. Text by Steve Smith.
