History: Based on it’s poor quality, thin soils and stone walls, historians believe the Town Forest was used as Pasture during the 18th and 19th centuries. It is likely that timber was harvested from this area in the late 19th century to produce charcoal for the ironworks that existed near the Shawsheen River from the early 18th century.
Natural History: The majority of the forest is Mixed Oak with smaller stands of Red Maple in lowland swampy areas and White Pine in the Southeastern section near Andover St. The Mixed Oak forest is primarily composed of black oak, red oak, and white oak. Scarlet oak and chestnut oak are less common. Interspered with the oaks are white pine, hickory, gray birch, paper birch, black cherry, tupelo, American elm, white ash, pitch pine, and red cedar. Understory species include gray birch, aspen, sassafras, big-toothed aspen, black birch, red maple, chestnut, blueberries, huckleberry, witch hazel, raspberry, sweet fern, chokeberry, maple-leafed viburnum, wild raisin, wild indigo, arrow-wood, buckthorn, honeysuckle, multiflora rose, bittersweet, grapes, and scrub oak. Sheep laurel and mountain laurel are occur in isolated dense patches. Sweet pepperbush and swamp azalea are common near wetlands. Herbs include Pennsylvania sedge, wild sarsaparilla, ferns, poverty grass and other grasses, goldenrods, whorled loosestrife, pipsissewa, creeping dewberry, wild strawberry, partridgeberry, wintergreen, princess pine, Indian cucumber, ground cedar, pink lady’s slipper, pinweed, and pale corydalis.
A number of areas within the forest show a past history of fire and a few small areas show signs of past human habitation, including planted apple trees.