The 513 acre Madame Sherri Forest lies on the eastern slope of Wantastiquet Mountain, also known as Rattlesnake Mountain, in Chesterfield, adjoining the 847 acre Wantastiquet State Forest. The Ann Stokes Loop Trail is a 2 mile round-trip hike from the parking area that follows a small pond and brook, climbs to Indian Pond, and returns through part of Chesterfield's Cook Town Forest, while another route from Indian Pond leads west up 1,356ft Wantastiquet Mountain for views of Brattleboro, Vermont, the Connecticut River, the Berkshires, and Mount Monadnock; the forest's trails also connect to the Wantastiquet Monadnock Greenway Trail from the Connecticut River east to Mount Monadnock. Fires in the 1940s and 50s burned large areas of forest on Wantastiquet Mountain, and the dry Appalachian oak-pine-rocky ridge forest is still recovering, with older oaks bearing basal fire scars; Mine Ledge overlooks Indian Pond, mountain laurel surrounds the pond, and the mountain's talus slopes once sheltered Eastern Timber Rattlesnakes. The forest is named for Madame Antoinette Sherri, a Paris-born theatrical costume designer who held lavish parties at her Chesterfield castle in the 1920s; her French chateau included extensive stonework, a Roman arch stairway, an ornate interior, and designed landscape gardens. Ancient sugar maples now surround the stone foundation and stairway, and a large empty fireplace narrowing to a freestanding chimney is all that remains of her former summer home. Madame Sherri died in Brattleboro on October 21, 1965, and later that year Ann Stokes bought the property from Charles LeMaire; loving the land and its theatrical legacy, she donated the Madame Sherri Forest to the Society for the Protection of NH Forests in February 1991.

Photo: TeamOHE

Photo: TeamOHE

Photo: TeamOHE

Chesterfield, New Hampshire · USA