ASNH Hoyt Sanctuary

	A Brief History
	of the
	Hoyt Sanctuary
	Return to the Hoyt Sanctuary

The first Europeans to arrive in this narrow valley found a thriving beaver family with a huge dam -- and behind that dam lay Purity Lake. Sometime in the late 1700's, the early settlers replaced the beavers' dam of sticks with a manmade dam and a mill. By 1804, the mill was the center of activity for a small community called East Madison -- the mill, a blacksmith shop, a cooper's shop, a store, post office, school, meeting house, and a small enclave of homes. Logging, charcoal burning and farming were some of the livelihoods practiced by residents of the valley.

The eastern shore of Purity Lake soon saw the arrival of a small family by the name of Durgin. Sometime before 1830, they chose the site of what is now the Hoyt Sanctuary for their modest homestead. They soon built homes and outbuildings, cleared the forest, and piled the stones into a wall to pen in their livestock. The remains of these structures are still visible today. Perhaps three generations of Durgins struggled to eke out a living on the poor, sandy soil, before they finally packed up their belongings around the turn of the century, and headed for greener pastures.

Like the Durgins, many people left the area after the Civil War for towns and better farmland to the south and west. As the residents left their lakeshore farms, an enterprising man by the name of Edward Hoyt Sr. began buying their holdings, eventually acquiring the mill and 1400 acres.

Upon Hoyt's death in 1903, Edward Hoyt, Jr. inherited his father's land -- nearly the entire little valley. Edward Jr. married Gertrude Keith, a teacher from Fryeburg, Maine, in 1905, and the couple moved into a house on what is now the Hoyt Sanctuary, near the corner of Horseleg Hill and Sunset Beach Roads. This house burned down in 1914, and they moved to the house that would become Purity Spring Inn, where they lived for the rest of their lives. The Inn and resort began as the Hoyts took guests into their home on the lake to supplement their income and help pay property taxes. "Purity Spring Mountain Park" increased in popularity, but the boarding business was disrupted in 1918 when Gertrude developed diabetes and was forced to relinquish her duties as innkeeper. During the lean war years, Edward received many offers to buy his lakefront property, but he refused, wanting to preserve Purity Lake as one of the last "undeveloped" lakes in New Hampshire.

Edward and Gertrude's children, Ellen and Milt, both grew up with a love for nature, and for Purity Spring Valley. In 1931, a Mrs. Maud Hersey began a summer boys camp, which Milt took over a few years later, in a cottage now on the Hoyt Sanctuary. Camp Tohkomeupog ("Spring Water&$34;) is now located on the west side of the lake. In 1934, Ellen began her girls camp on the lakeshore, which ran until 1977. When Edward Hoyt died in 1952, he split his property between his children; Ellen received the land on the eastern lakeshore. It is this land, now forested and "pristine" once again, that Ellen Hoyt Gillard generously donated to the Audubon Society of New Hampshire in her will.

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A Brief History

of the

Hoyt Sanctuary