The wooden stakes are still there, their tips rotting in the ground. They show where the pondfront house was slated to be built eight years ago, perched on the side of a steep bank leading to Upper Mill Pond. Now, thanks to the BCT, the stakes can be pulled up and the 2.3 acres can be left alone. Forever.
Last year, BCT purchased the lot at the end of the Canoe Pond Landing subdivision for $25,000. A $12,500 grant from the Commonwealth has just been received to help pay for the land. We thank our members for contributing the remaining funds.
Known as Winn’s Point, this prominent headland juts into the north side of Upper Mill Pond, one of Brewster’s largest freshwater jewels. From 1883 to 1949, the Winn family operated a 35-acre farm between Satucket Road and the Pond, including a small cranberry bog at the Point, now overgrown to sphagnum moss and swamp maples. Most of the farm was sold off for a residential subdivision in 1970, but the Point was kept separate. It served as a duck blind for the Carleton Francis family, which owned Eagle Point in the Punkhorn on the opposite shore of Upper Mill Pond. Francis family friend Peter T. Damon recalls, “The idea was to station hunters on both points at the same time and drive the ducks back and forth between the two groups of shooters.”
A narrow path extends from the end of John Wings Lane through Winn’s Point to the pond, where the ducks and other wildlife will now dwell in tranquility, thanks to your support of the BCT.