Transforming the Colonial Landscape

The Middlesex Fells holds more than scenic trails. Beneath its canopy lies the story of the Pawtucket peoples, Puritan ambition, and a landscape transformed by early colonial industry.

Charlestown, first capital of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, was once over 78 square miles – encompassing what is now the Middlesex Fells Reservation and Stoneham, Malden, Melrose and other communities in the Mystic River watershed. The Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony rapidly transformed the area — long home to the Pawtucket and Massachusett peoples — from an indigenous landscape into a land that mirrored English society.

Authors Alison Simcox and Douglas Heath will talk about the ways early colonists privatized land and, in Stoneham and the Fells, marked woodlots with stone walls, giving the largest lots to wealthy men. Timber and quarried stone from the Fells were used to build homes, ships, and walls and to fuel brickmaking and rum distilling. Today the Fells is preserved, but beyond its trails and wooded vistas lie deeper stories of Indigenous communities and colonial transformation.

June 11, 2026 starting at 7:15 pm. Doors open at 6:45 to view the museum.  A brief business meeting will be followed by the talk.  Free and open to the public. (donations welcomed).

About the Speakers

Alison Simcox is an Environmental Scientist and Writer. She recently retired from the US EPA as a specialist in air quality. In 1998, she was the second woman to receive a doctorate in Engineering from Tufts University. She is on the Board of Directors of the Saugus River Watershed Council and co-leads history walks for the Friends of the Middlesex Fells.

Douglas Heath is an Environmental Scientist and History Researcher. A US Navy veteran, he worked at the US Geological Survey and US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for 30 years protecting drinking water supplies in New England. He is a Certified Interpretive Guide.
He leads history walks for the Friends of Middlesex Fells. He is also Vice President of the Saugus River Watershed Council.

Alison and Doug have written six books: Lake Quannapowitt; Breakheart Reservation; Middlesex Fells; The Lost Mill Village of Middlesex Fells; Murder at Breakheart Hill Farm; and Walls, Rock, & Rum. The sixth book will be published by The History Press in May 2026. The Lost Mill Village won the 2018 Preservation Award from the New England Chapter of the Victorian Society in America. In 2022, Alison and Doug received the Gertrude Spaulding Award for their work protecting Lake Quannapowitt and for their book of the same name. They have also written trail guides for the Virginia Wood and Bellevue Pond areas of the Fells.

Signed copies of their books will be available for sale after the presentation.

Image is the Construction of the ship Pilgrim, the last ship built in Medford as remembered by Fred H. C. Woolley.  Gift to the Medford Historical Society from his niece Helen Packard.