Corbin Park Hunting Preserve in New Hampshire
Corbin Park Hunting Preserve is around 20,000 acres or so and it cuts across parts of Cornish, Plainfield, Grantham and Newport. The main page for details about the park is here.
Apparently they have bison, elk, deer and boar in the park. Here are some more details about the park from an article listed on the site I linked to above:
Corbin Park, or the Blue Mountain Forest and Game Preserve, [also known as the "Blue Mountain Forest Association" and "Corbin's Park"], is a private, enclosed shooting preserve with a very limited membership.
The 24,000-acre preserve was founded in 1890 by Austin Corbin II, a Newport native who grew to prominence in the late 1800s as a founder of modern American banking.
Corbin used his fortune to buy up as much land as he could in the Croydon-Grantham area to establish a gigantic hunter’s playground, Originally, it was stocked 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 the German Black Forest.
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. Corbin Park once had the largest bison herd in the country, and supplied bison and deer to refuges, parks and zoos all over the U.S.
It’s amazing that something like this is still around after all this time. I’m glad it is and, boy, what I wouldn’t give for a tour of the place! I wonder if I could pitch an article to some hunting magazine or other then try to get an interview with somebody that works there, along with a tour? Hmmm…probably wouldn’t get me anywhere but it might be worth a try! ;)
I also found an interesting discussion thread at the Hunting Chat forum about wild pigs in New Hampshire and some information about Corbin Park pigs, in particular. Some guys in that forum wanted to find out where to hunt some of the pigs that escaped from Corbin Park.
That thread also had information about membership costs (which I can’t verify so I have no idea if it’s true or not) starting around $235,000 for a share with around $30,000 yearly membership fee. Interesting if true and certainly outside of my price range.
A pic from Brian Meyer's Corbin Park page. Click it to visit his site.
I found another thread at a different forum though that claims it’s more than $1,000,000 to join. Again, I have no idea if any of these price claims is remotely true or not.
There’s another page with information about elk in New Hampshire that came from Corbin Park:
One hundred years ago, one could hear the bugle of a bull elk in Andover, New Hampshire. Sixty-six years ago, two hundred men spread out across Lempster, Washington, Goshen and Unity and took forty-six wild elk in a two-day season. The elk, more accurately called wapiti or Cervus Canadensis has never been a native of New Hampshire, but briefly roamed free in the state during the first half of the 1900s. Newport-born financier Austin Corbin imported elk into the state in the 1890s as he stocked his private game reserve, the Blue Mountain Forest Park (known informally as Corbin’s Park).
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Related posts:
- Turkey Hunting Day 3: One Bird and a New Spot
- Coordinated Search Effort for Missing Hunter in Bear Brook State Park Continues
- Turkey Hunting Day 1: The Dumbass Brings the Wrong Gun!
- New Hampshire Hunting Report – May 2, 2007
- Turkey Hunting Day 2: Right Gun, No Birds
@ Sandra L.Morrison:
agree-thought that years ago-very rich men stand on a porch with their coffee-and shoot the wild boars-i think they had barb-wire fence around the place so the boars could not get out-did not make “hunting” seem like a sport. Too bad he didn’t leave the park to the State of New Hampshire as a recreational park-for hiking,etc.-not hunters.
@ diane:
Thankfully that’s not what it is like at all.It’s very, very large. Large enough for you to get lost in and not be found.
I invite you to contact the current park manager and see about a visit. I have very fond childhood memories of Corbin.
Yes, my grandfather is Kneiland.
Craig, if you’d like to trade emails I would be happy to do just that. My email should be able to be found on here.
Diane:
I agree Corbin Park would have made a great national or state park. I am not against hunting it is necessary to keep the balance so animals will not over populate. I saw the pictures the fences looked rather worn in places not very secure. It was probably the photographs but being the large place it is that is alot of fencing to monitor. I wonder if they have cougars in there and some have managed to escape? The history of Corbin Park is interesting but I don’t like what they consider hunting.
However, I guess they need to keep their animals from over populating also. At any rate, it is what it is!
The boars used to get out-a good friend of mine had a stable very near the park and they were always loose. A lot of neighbors complained about it. I do not think fencing-barb wire i believe-can be called hunting or a sport. I used to raise chukar partridges and quail and a man my dad knew collected the eggs. When I found out they were going to a game reserve in Massachusetts I stopped raising them! I don’t even think they let people hike in the 20,000 acres at all. I used to like a certain politician from Mass. until I found out he was a member. Diane
[...] about wild pigs in New Hampshire. This is related to the Corbin Park Hunting Preserve I covered in another blog entry a while [...]
I remember the fire in the early 50s. National Guard was called in and spent some time there fighting the fire. My parents (Herman and Ruth Rogers) drove vehicles to distribute food to those fighting the fire. I also recall helping my mother and others make sandwiches at our kitchen table for the firefighters before the fire got out of hand and other help needed to be called in.