THE HISTORY OF OAK HILL COUNTRY CLUB
Scarcely a decade less than two hundred years ago one Benjamin Prescott became possessed, by deed and by inheritance from his father who was the original grantee from the Province of Massachusetts Bay, of the whole of six divisions of upland containing six hundred acres “more or less,” lying contiguous to each other in the southwesterly part of the town of Lunenburg and comprised within or bordering upon “Cobit’s Tarn.” Of this grant the present smiling acres of the Oak Hill Country Club were undoubtedly a part.
There is no evidence that these first owners made any more toward subduing the wild region thus acquired, though they risked forfeiture by not raising a residence thereon; but in 1746 the tract was conveyed to three merchants of Salem, Cabot by name, who may have included lumber among their merchandise, for they set up a sawmill on the river flowing by its borders, and Oak Hill began to yield its crown of white oaks, and the lower hills and lowlands their maples, pines, and chestnuts to its busy consumption.
For twenty-eight years these three brothers owned the land probably without ever being residents there, which gives to the next owners the distinction of being the first to both own and settle upon it. In 1774, ten years after Fitchburg was set off from Lunenburg, the six divisions, still intact, passed into the possession of Thomas Cowdin and Nehemiah Fuller, both citizens of Fitchburg, and in the partition that followed the area that has since that time been known as Oak Hill Farm became the property of Mr. Fuller. He built the first farmhouse, and father and son the Fullers lived upon the place for fifty-seven years, doing pioneer service in preparing it to fulfill its destiny as a farm of high fertility, and a beauty-spot on the face of the landscape. It was in their day that the schoolhouse of District No. 4 was built on a corner of the “long pasture” fronting on the Old Turnpike.
When the days of the son Benjamin were declining, there appeared upon the scene Captain Levi Pratt, who bought his farm and married his daughter. The young people were owners but a year, however, selling the place to proprietor of the sawmills on the riverside, who for another period, this time of three years, continued the despoliation of its woodlands in the interests of his business.
At the end of that time, in 1836, Mr. Abram Osborne conveyed the farm to Captain Joseph Upton, who developed it along his special line, putting upon it a herd of thirty-six cattle, and making of it the best known dairy farm in the vicinity. Mr. Upton ended his days there in tragedy, after a residence of thirty-four years, and his heirs disposed of the estate to Myrick Puffer, the last of the short-term owners.
During Mr. Upton’s long possession the woodlands had renewed their growth and furnished the new owner a profitable field of operation. It was largely cleared of its wood and timber when Augustus G. Rose received the farm at the hands of Mr. Puffer three years later, in the fall of 1873. During the ensuing twenty-five years general farming converted itself into market gardening, the business being conducted under the firm name of “A. G. Rose & Sons.” Five greenhouses for growing cucumbers and tomatoes, and a mushroom cellar, furnished occupation for the winter season and filled out the year’s activities. A Guernsey herd produced cream; and flocks of fancy poultry preened themselves in modern henneries.
Passing from this ownership into the hands of the Country Club, the farm ended a career of productivity nearly two centuries long, during which time it supplied a wide variety of human needs from the oaken timbers for the ship’s hull, to the new-laid egg for the breakfast table. Not less will it, in its new estate, continue to serve a vital human need, while as a great playground it helps to build muscles of steel and “Hearts of Oak.”
Far back beyond its times of utility under the hand of man lie the features which give the place its real interest. Oak Hill, from which it takes its name, is as genuine a Monadnock as the New Hampshire mountain whose lofty peak can be seen from the hilltop. It is the solid granite base of a mountain, weathered down through countless ages to its present elevation of 900 feet, from what proud height only its own memories bear record. Swept clear of soil in the glacial period, the hardy oak alone, of all the trees, could strike root in its crevices and rear a flourishing growth upon its barren sides. It is more than legendary that a rare vein of clouded granite hides itself under the plain stone of the hill’s rugged surface.
Along the stretch of pasture to the south of the hill, the geologist might read in the terminal moraines to be found there interesting glacial history. He would declare the sand hills and the plain on the east slope to be glacial deposits, and might even trace the course of a glacial river along their ridge. The swamps bordering the uplands, both east and south, are marked by incipient coal beds in the humus stage. The granite soil with its characteristic acids presents its own distinctive flora, which is enriched here and there by plant life from a more northern zone brought higher in the drift of the Ice Age, and persisting across the intervening ages. An occasional beech or Norway pine springs up from a long-buried seed and dots with a different green the landscape’s coloring.
The birds voyaging towards a more northern climate are attracted by these visiting trees, and end their flight to nest in their branches. So it comes about that the White Throat flashes across the blue, and the song of the thrush is heard as evening falls upon the hilltop.
A place for work, a place for play, a place of memories, a place exhibiting good handiwork of nature, and good use made of it by her creature, man.
LILLIAN R. PRATT | 
