Private game preserve has storied history
By DAN BILLIN 01/28/04 Valley News
CROYDON, N.H. — Although the owners of Corbin Park like to keep their
sprawling game preserve out of the public eye, its impact has been felt well
beyond the locked gates and high fences that surround it.
Over the years, the park has helped save the American bison from extinction,
influenced the writing of Rudyard Kipling, brought a factory to Newport and
introduced an agricultural pest to Sullivan County.
The 19,000-acre preserve, owned by the Blue Mountain Forest Association,
made news most recently on Jan. 1, when one hunter fatally shot another
inside the park. Whatever the outcome of the ongoing investigation, that
incident is likely to shine a little more light on a very private
institution with a unique history and a sometimes rocky relationship with
its neighbors.
The park was created as a 19th-century Neverland Ranch, a place where one
man used his enormous wealth and energy to indulge an audacious fantasy. It
remains a vast playground for the rich today, exempt from most hunting laws
and heavily subsidized by local taxpayers.
More than a century of change in the landscape and laws of the state of New
Hampshire has assured that what Austin Corbin created in the late 1800s
could not be duplicated today.
As those in the small circle of members inform their guests in notices
posted on the grounds, "It is a rare privilege for all of us to be able to
enjoy the hunting in the Park."
Austin Corbin II was a Newport native who became one of the most successful
American tycoons of the late 1800s. He graduated from Harvard Law School in
1849 and briefly practiced law with former New Hampshire Gov. Ralph Metcalf
before heading west to Davenport, Iowa. There, he organized the first
national bank to open in the United States.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase, a Cornish native who created the
national bank system to finance the debts of the Civil War, was Corbin's
cousin.
Corbin moved to New York City in 1865, where he established another
successful banking company. When a doctor recommended ocean air for the
illness of one of his young sons, Corbin discovered the Long Island shore,
where he saw the development potential of miles of open beaches close to the
teeming city.
Corbin bought 500 acres of land on Coney Island and built both a grand hotel
and a railroad to bring guests from New York City. He also took over both
the Long Island Railroad and Reading Railroad (the latter of Monopoly fame)
while they were in receivership and made them successful.
At the time of his death in 1896, he was working to develop a deep-water
port on the eastern tip of Long Island. After becoming wealthy and famous,
Corbin returned to Newport to build a lavish estate on the site of his
childhood home.
The conservation-minded millionaire had run out of space for the deer he
raised on his Long Island estate, and he hatched a plan to create a giant
sanctuary where wild animals could be raised and used to stock other
preserves, parks and zoos.
In late 1889, Corbin set about buying up land in Newport, Croydon,
Plainfield, Cornish and Grantham _ a total of 275 properties, including 63
farms, many of which had been abandoned in New England's great westward
migration.
Some people didn't sell their land to Corbin until after he had landlocked
their parcels by ringing his holdings with 30 miles of wire fence and
convincing the selectmen to discontinue the public roads inside.
Croydon historian Rita Gross' considerable collection of facts and lore
about the park includes this ditty passed down over the years: "Austin
Corbin, grasping soul, wants this land from pole to pole. Croydon people,
bless your stars, You'll find plenty of land on Mars."
In the end, Corbin assembled a tract the size of the entire town of Grantham
_ the largest private game preserve in the United States, according to the
association.
It encompasses Grantham Mountain and Croydon Mountain, several large ponds
and miles of roads. The peak of Croydon Mountain is the highest point in
Sullivan County. "It's absolutely beautiful," said Gross, whose husband used
to man the forest fire watchtower on the summit.
"You can see for miles."
___
"A nine days wonder"
Corbin stocked the park with bison, white-tailed deer, black-tailed deer,
mule deer, European red deer, bighorn sheep, moose, antelope, caribou,
Himalayan mountain goats, pheasants and wild boar from Germany's Black
Forest.
Court records from shortly after his death say he spent $500,000 to
establish the park, but Gross' records include a transcription of an
accounting _ supposedly penned by Corbin himself _ that puts his total costs
at $150,000. Either sum would have been enormous for its time.
Moose and deer had been gone for so long from the area around Newport that
the founding of the park was "a nine days' wonder," according to the
writings of Ernest Harold Baynes, a naturalist Corbin installed in a home
near the park.
The bison, deer, elk and boar all flourished, but the pheasants flew over
the fences and the rest of the species proved unable to survive in the park.
At one point, Corbin Park's bison herd was the largest in the country, and
bison and deer were shipped to private and public refuges, parks and zoos
around the country. Corbin intended the park to stay in his family, and the
60 shares in Blue Mountain Forest Association were divided equally among
him, his wife and their four children when the nonprofit corporation was
established in 1891 to manage the park.
Although it was privately owned, the park was open to the public for much of
its early life. Plainfield resident Howard Zea, who remembers climbing
Croydon Mountain on Sunday afternoons, says the key to the main western gate
could be picked up at the Cornish Flat store by anyone who wanted to enter
the park.
"It's so completely changed," Zea said. "Now they won't allow anybody in up
there."
The park became more cloistered when ownership of the park was transferred
to a group of wealthy hunters in the 1940s.
Few people other than members, their employees and their guests have been
allowed inside in recent decades. The association's bylaws reportedly
require members to own at least two but no more than four shares, which
limits membership from 15 to 30 people at a time.
Some members eventually sell their shares, as did Hanover resident James
Campion, the association's president in the late 1940s. Others, like
Grantham resident Henry McCarthy, who died in 1994, pass them along to their
children in their wills.
The association's treasurer and spokesman, Patrick Oliver of Exeter, N.H.,
said the group would have no comment while the shooting investigation
continues. Two other current members also declined to be interviewed for
this story, as did several Upper Valley residents who hunt in the park as
guests.
Despite the long-standing reticence of members, there is a fair amount of
information about the park in the books, news articles and public records.
The park's headquarters in Croydon, called Central Station, includes a
seven-bedroom lodge and a building for butchering game, and there are 11
hunting cabins spread throughout the park.
The animals are fed during the winter at about 30 scattered feeding
stations, and the yearly quota that members may shoot is determined by the
health of the herds and the number of shares each member holds.
According to the records of the state Department of Fish and Game, which
licenses the park, in recent years the annual kill has ranged from 200 to
600 boar, 10 to 69 elk, and 20 to 31 deer.
The park also offers members and their guests fishing in several stocked
ponds and miles of brooks. Signs posted around the perimeter of the park
warn that it is protected by "a special law" _ an apparent reference to a
bill passed in 1895 that gave the association, rather than the state,
ownership of "all fish, birds, and game" enclosed by the fences.
That law, which apparently has never been repealed, specifies a $25 criminal
penalty for poaching in the park, along with "exemplary damages" of up to
$25.
In practice, however, the park is now licensed as a regulated shooting area
for boar, elk and deer, which exempts members from state requirements for
hunting licenses and bag limits for just those three species.
State laws apply when any other game is taken inside the park, according to
Sgt. Bruce Bonenfant of the state Department of Fish and Game.
The department no longer licenses hunting preserves for big game, and Corbin
Park is the only active one left in the state. New hunting preserves for
upland birds are still allowed, but they may not be any larger than 500
acres.
"I think they're excellent neighbors. They mind their own business. They
feed their own animals. They tend their own roads. What else could you ask?"
Gross said.
___
Problems: animals and taxes
When the park has rubbed neighbors the wrong way, it has usually been over
two issues: escaped animals and property taxes. The devastating hurricane of
1938 knocked down much of the park fence, allowing boar and elk to escape
and become established outside the park. More animals may have escaped in
1953, while gates were left open to fight a huge forest fire on Grantham
Mountain.
The boar outside the park became such a nuisance that the legislature passed
another special law for Corbin Park in 1949, holding the association
responsible for damage caused by its escaped pigs.
In the 1950s, Sullivan County farmers organized and sued successfully for
damages, which the park fought unsuccessfully all the way to the state
Supreme Court.
The escaped elk wreaked such havoc with crops and maple groves that the
legislature instituted a one-day elk hunting season, and eventually
authorized the Department of Fish and Game to wipe out any remaining
animals.
The boar "devastated the corn crops, potatoes and everything else clear over
as far as Plainfield Village," said Zea.
Retired dairy farmer John Meyette, [my uncle] who was one of the farmers who sued the
park in the 1950s, said that between aggressive hunting by locals and fence
mending by the park, boar damage has diminished significantly in recent
decades. He heard just recently of one being sighted in Plainfield, however,
and Fish and Game records include a report of two escaped elk in recent
years.
In the 1970s, the towns of Croydon, Cornish and Plainfield refused to grant
the park a property-tax abatement under the current use program, saying its
primary purpose as a hunting preserve didn't entitle it to the reduced
assessments given agricultural and forest land.
The association sued this time, and prevailed when the case reached the
Supreme Court. Blue Mountain Forest Association's total current-use tax
break in the five towns amounted to about $200,000 in 1998.
"We felt if it had a fence around it and it wasn't accessible to the public,
there really wasn't any public benefit. But the court said no," said Steve
Taylor, who was a Plainfield selectman during that dispute.
One of the benefits of the preserve for locals is that is has been a buffer
against development, he said.
"At one point, the park's relationship with some of the towns _ not all the
towns _ was rocky _ especially with Croydon," said Merle Schotanus, a
Grantham resident and former state representative for three of the towns that
border the park.
"After that rough period over that lawsuit with Croydon, things have
smoothed out. I think they've taken steps to be better neighbors with the
towns," he said. "They've been particularly attentive to mending their
fences and patrolling their fences, and that has helped to keep the game
in."
___
Celebrity guests
The park has attracted a number of notable visitors over the years,
including U.S. Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Grover Cleveland and Herbert
Hoover, and the Prince of Wales (who would later become King Edward VII).
Roosevelt shot a boar at the park in 1902 during a swing through Sullivan
County, and had the head mounted and sent to his home in New York.
Author Rudyard Kipling's novel about Gloucester fisherman, Captains
Courageous, includes a reference based on Corbin: One of the characters
refers to a millionaire named Slatin Beeman, who "owns 'baout every railroad
on Long Island, they say; an' they say he' 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."
Kipling was living in Dummerston, Vt., when he wrote the book, and visited
Corbin Park by at least one account. Ernest Harold Baynes wrote extensively about the park
_ particularly its bison _ and his activism for bison conservation helped
spark a national movement to pull the species back from the brink of
extinction.
Canaan resident Dan Westgate, who worked for the park in the 1940s,
remembers being called to the park one day to take baseball star Joe
DiMaggio out for his first-ever excursion on snowshoes. The snow conditions
weren't favorable, though.
"It didn't last very long," Westgate said.
One of the most significant modern visitors to the park, at least for local
residents, was gun manufacturer William Ruger Sr., who was a member for many
years. He got to know Newport while hunting at the park, and started a
manufacturing plant there that now employs more than 1,000 people.
His company, Sturm, Ruger, bought the Corbin mansion in Newport, and William
Ruger Jr. renovated it. When the elder Ruger died in the summer of 2002, his
funeral service was held at Central Station in Corbin Park.
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