Middlesex School

The Estabrook Woods is a wild tract of more than 1,700 acres (6.9 km2) of woodland, hills, ledge, and swamp straddling Concord and Carlisle Massachusetts, two miles (3 km) north of the center of Town of Concord. It is the largest contiguous and undeveloped woodland within thirty miles of Boston. However, the woods have a history of human disturbance dating back to the Algonquian Native Americans who used controlled burning to clear tracts of land. Later, colonists cleared much of Estabrook for agriculture and pastures, although vegetation has since rejuvenated. The Woods are named for the Thomas Estabrook family, prominent in the area since colonial times.Henry David Thoreau is intimately associated with this area, which he called "Easterbrooks Country". In his Oct. 20, 1857 journal entry, one of several on the woodland, he writes: “What a wild and rich domain that Easterbrooks Country! Not a cultivated, hardly a cultivatable field in it, and yet it delights all natural persons.”During the early 20th century, a small number of Concord families began to acquire the land in Estabrook Woods. In 1932, they successfully petitioned the town to close and discontinue the old logging trail known as Old Estabrook Road, ensuring it would be protected from residential development. Around 1965, these families, along with Harvard and Middlesex School, began working together to create a nature preserve, establishing Harvard's Concord Field Station and placing major restrictions on development of many remaining private lands. In 1996, Concord and Carlisle worked together on the "Campaign for Estabrook Woods" which placed an additional 400 acres into conservation. The Woods are located just north of the historic North Bridge, site of the famous 1775 battle of the American Revolutionary War. Since the 1970s, the Woods have been used each April 19th as a route to reenact the march of the northern Minute Men to the North Bridge. However, the actual route was via Lowell Rd located just west of the Woods. Estabrook Woods has significant ecological significance to the area. It provides habitats for five state-listed endangered species: A globally-endangered dragonfly and four Species of Special Concern: the Blue Spotted Salamander, the Elderberry Long horned Beetle, the Spotted Turtle, and the Mystic Valley Amphipod. The woods are also a breeding site of at least three watch list species: the Spotted Salamander, Northern Leopard Frog, and Northern Goshawk. Estabrook Woods is home to over 159 different species of bird, six species of thrush, four species of owl and ten of hawk. In 1993 The U.S Secretary of Agriculture Alphonso Michael Espy, honored the entire Estabrook Woods by formally designating it a Forest Legacy Area under an Act of Congress for its environmental values, the presence of rare and endangered species and archeological and historic resources. In October, 2001, The Massachusetts Office of Environmental Affairs designated the Estabrook Woods as 'core habitat' whose preservation is needed to protect biodiversity.The Estabrook Woods are bordered by Lowell Road to the west, Monument Street to the east, and Bedford Road (Rt. 225) to the north. Most of Estabrook Woods is privately owned -- by Harvard University (672 acres), Middlesex School (180 acres), and a number of smaller landowners, who manage it cooperatively as a nature preserve. Trail and Parking maps are available for the portions owned by the Town of Concord (115 acres), and the Town of Carlisle (188 acres). Approximately half the Woods has trails open to the public, mostly by permission of the owners, subject to posted rules.

Middlesex County is located in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in the United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,632,002, making it the most populous county in both Massachusetts and New England and the 22nd most populous county in the United States. Middlesex County is one of two U.S. counties (along with Santa Clara County, California) to be amongst the top 25 counties with the highest household income and the 25 most populated counties. It is included in the Census Bureau's Boston–Cambridge–Newton, MA–NH Metropolitan Statistical Area. As part of the 2020 United States census, the Commonwealth's mean center of population for that year was geo-centered in Middlesex County, in the town of Natick (this is not to be confused with the geographic center of Massachusetts, which is in Rutland, Worcester County). On July 11, 1997, Massachusetts abolished the executive government of Middlesex County primarily due to the county's insolvency. Middlesex County continues to exist as a geographic boundary and is used primarily as district jurisdictions within the court system and for other administrative purposes; for example, as an election district. The National Weather Service weather alerts (such as severe thunderstorm warning) continue to localize based upon Massachusetts's counties.

The Jonathan Hildreth House is a historic house in Concord, Massachusetts.

The Col. James Barrett Farm (Barrett's Farm) is a historic American Revolutionary War site in Concord, Massachusetts, associated with the revolution's first battle, the 1775 battles of Lexington and Concord. His farm was the storage site of all the town of Concord's militia gunpowder, weapons and two pairs of prized bronze cannons.

The Malcolm Preserve is an 11-acre (45,000 m2) nature reserve in Carlisle, Massachusetts. It is co-managed by the Trustees of Reservations and the Carlisle Conservation Foundation. Composed of former farmland, the preserve has a half-mile trail that connects to trails in Estabrook Woods and the Punkatasset Reserve in Concord.It was purchased for preservation in 1998 by the Carlisle Conservation Foundation and The Trustees of Reservations.

Carlisle is a town located northwest of Boston in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, the town had a population of 5,237.

The Isaac Davis Trail, also known as the Acton Trail, is an historic 6-mile (9.7 km) trail running east–west in the towns of Acton and Concord, Massachusetts. The trail was significant in 1775 when it was used by Captain Isaac Davis and the Acton Minutemen to march on Concord during the battles of Lexington and Concord. The trail was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.The trail begins at Isaac Davis' house in Acton, and ends at western end of the North Bridge in the Minuteman National Historical Park in Concord. Most of the route is now paved roads, where in some cases the alignment no longer matches the exact route. Despite this, the trail route evokes the time of the march, with its roadways lined with stone walls, and houses generally set back from the street. The trail first runs northeast about 1.25 miles (2.01 km) northeast, along Hayward Rd, Musket Dr, Minuteman Rd, Woodbury Ln, and Main St. It then turns more directly east for 1.5 miles (2.4 km), along a town-owned easement on private property, to Strawberry Hill Rd. It follows Strawberry Hill Rd southerly for 1.75 miles (2.82 km) to Barrett's Mill Rd, which runs easterly 0.75 miles (1.21 km) to meet Lowell Rd in Concord. It crosses Lowell Rd, following Barnes Hill Rd and crossing Liberty Rd to reach the Muster Field above the North Bridge.

The Minute Man is an 1874 sculpture by Daniel Chester French in Minute Man National Historical Park, Concord, Massachusetts. It was created between 1871 and 1874 after extensive research, and was originally intended to be made of stone. The medium was switched to bronze and it was cast from ten Civil War-era cannons appropriated by Congress. The statue depicts a minuteman stepping away from his plow to join the patriot forces at the Battle of Concord, at the start of the American Revolutionary War. The young man has an overcoat thrown over his plow, and has a musket in his hand. Nineteenth-century art historians noticed that the pose resembles the pose of the Apollo Belvedere. Until the late twentieth century, it was assumed that the pose was transposed from the earlier statue. Based on Daniel Chester French's journals, modern art historians have shown that the Apollo Belvedere was only one of several statues that were used in the research for The Minute Man. The statue was unveiled in 1875 for the centennial of the Battle of Concord. It received critical acclaim and continues to be praised by commentators. The statue has been a suffragette symbol and a symbol of the United States National Guard and its components, the Army National Guard, and the Air National Guard, and depicted on coins such as the 1925 Lexington–Concord Sesquicentennial half dollar and the 2000 Massachusetts state quarter.

Mill Brook is a watercourse, about 3 miles (4.8 km) long, in Massachusetts, United States. It is sourced from Flints Pond in Lincoln, Massachusetts, and empties into the Concord River, to the southwest of Old North Bridge in Concord.Around 2,100 acres (850 ha) of land between Crosby's Corner and Meriam's Corner drain into the brook.

The Robbins House is a historic house museum in Concord, Massachusetts, which focuses on interpreting the early African American history of Concord and the Northeast. The Robbins House was built in the early 1820s as a two-room, two-family farmhouse for two grown children of Revolutionary War veteran Caesar Robbins and their families. Originally located in an isolated field on the outskirts of town, it was the childhood home of Caesar Robbins' granddaughter Ellen Garrison Jackson Clark, one of the first people to legally test the 1866 Civil Rights Act. In 2010, the house was saved from demolition. It was relocated to its present location and restored, and it opened as a museum in 2011.

Egg Rock is an outcrop of Silurian Straw Hollow Diorite at the confluence of the Assabet and Sudbury rivers, where they form the Concord River in Concord, Massachusetts. The outcrop is located on a roughly oval intermittent island of about 100 by 50 meters. Egg Rock is usually accessible using foot trails over land, but during high river levels the island is separated from the mainland by a narrow channel. The highest point of Egg Rock is about 39 meters above mean sea level and about 6 meters above normal river level. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) includes Egg Rock as GNIS feature 617309, classified as an island. In the GNIS database as of February 2010, the listed position (latitude 42.4645383, longitude -71.3592266) is misplaced by about 125 meters to the southwest, and is not actually located on the intermittent island. A more correct position is latitude 42.4651, longitude -71.3585.

The Sudbury River is a 32.7-mile-long (52.6 km) tributary of the Concord River in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in the United States.Originating in the Cedar Swamp in Westborough, Massachusetts, near the boundary with Hopkinton, the Sudbury River meanders generally northeast, through Fairhaven Bay, and to its confluence with the Assabet River at Egg Rock in Concord, Massachusetts, to form the Concord River. It has a 162-square-mile (420 km2) drainage area. A 1775 map identifies the river by this name as passing through the town of Sudbury, itself established 1639. On April 9, 1999, nearly 17 miles (27 km) of the river were "recognized for their outstanding ecology, history, scenery, recreation values, and place in American literature," by being designated as a part of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System. The 14.9-mile (24.0 km) segment of the Sudbury River beginning at the Danforth Street Bridge in the city of Framingham, downstream to the Route 2 bridge in Concord, is designated as a Scenic River, and the 1.7-mile (2.7 km) segment from the Route 2 bridge downstream to its confluence with the Assabet River at Egg Rock is designated as a Recreational River, along with adjoining stretches of the Assabet and Concord rivers.Mercury contamination was discovered in the 1970s from the Nyanza plant in Ashland. The EPA subsequently listed the town as a toxic site and led a cleanup effort to repair the damage. It is still recommended that fish caught downriver not be eaten.