When John “Jack” Dunham bought Frog Hollow Farm in Gorham in 1951, he had no electricity, no telephone and no running water.
The farm, whose name comes from a ready-made antique sign Dunham bought long ago, is on Winslow Road. “It was a long ways out in the country,” Dunham, 82, recalled from his home there this week.
To ensure the farm’s 65 acres remain a wilderness, Dunham gave it to Windham Land Trust in 2003, keeping four acres, his home and other buildings for himself. Dunham’s gift is open to the public for hiking, hunting and fishing. And now, a crew from Creative Trails in Portland has begun making signficant improvements to the site by clearing trails.
“He could have sold this to a developer for unbelievable bucks,” said Bob Wehmeyer, a Windham Land Trust spokesman.
Casey Clougherty of Gorham, program manager for Creative Trails, and a group of about 15 from the agency work on trails there for three hours each Wednesday. Clougherty said the program is for adults with developmental disabilities.
Clougherty said clearing trails offers the clients a chance to contribute to the community while gaining benefits like sharpening their motor skills. They benefit from the teamwork and also enjoy hiking. “It’s a wonderful piece of property,” Clougherty said.
But few people have taken advantage of the opportunity so far. “Neighbors are the only ones I’ve seen,” Dunham said. “It’s a good place to get some exercise if you want to do some walking,” he said.
Dunham’s gift is mostly wooded, much like it was when he bought it for $3,200. “I could have bought all this land for nothing,” he said about the general area.
The land trust harvested timber from the site and Dunham said he received $7,000, as his share.
The land has two ponds and a trout brook that empties into the Little River, a tributary of the Presumpscot River. “There’s good fishing in the brook,” Dunham said. Snowmobiling, ATVs and trapping are prohibited.
Dunham, who was a conductor for the Boston & Maine Railroad, recalled life there more than a half century ago. He bailed water from a dug well and heated the house with a cook stove in the kitchen and a potbelly stove in the dining room. With no toilet, there were two outhouses.
“The first phone was a crank phone, an eight-party line,” Dunham recalled.
In the winter, tire chains helped Dunham’s car churn through the snow on Winslow Road, which was unpaved. The house is about three-quarters of a mile from Sebago Lake Road, where he often left his car during mud season and walked. “I got to be an expert at getting myself out of mud,” he said.
He was single when he bought the farm. When he married, his wife scrubbed clothes by hand. “We didn’t have much,” he said.
Wehmeyer called Dunham a pioneer.
“He’s quite a guy,” Wehmeyer said.
Dunham enjoys seeing the wildlife near his home. He said there are turkeys, deer and coyotes. “I saw a fisher with its baby a while ago,” he said.
This past year, a yearling buck frequented Dunham’s apple trees and wasn’t afraid of Dunham.
Once, while gathering blackberries, Dunham encountered a black bear.
“He was on one side of the blackberry bushes and I was on the other side,” Dunham said. “I took off and he took off.”
Dunham said he had first sent a letter about the land donation to an organization in Gorham – he couldn’t recall the name – but that letter went unanswered. He then contacted Windham Land Trust. Bob Frazier of Gorham Trails Land Trust said his organization never received a letter from Dunham. “I would’ve jumped on it,” Frazier said.
It’s not unprecented for land trusts to cross community borders. Wehmeyer said Windham Land Trust also has an easement on land at the Freeman Farm in Gray.
On winter days now, Dunham enjoys watching birds at a feeder from his window. His niece, Donna Paynter of Buxton, takes Dunham on ATV rides – he retained that privilege – to view the scenery. “It’s a pretty spot,” Dunham said.
He is separated from his second wife. His two stepchildren, Phil Riley and Diane Riley, both died years ago in traffic accidents. So he turned the property over to the land trust.
“I just didn’t want to see a housing project go in here,” Dunham said.
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