Hike at Walker's 'Pond' Center Conway, New Hampshire

Caroline D. Grimm with Miss Penny(the cutest dog ever!)

 Walker’s Pond is not a pond, but is a 14-acre parcel of land off Mill Street - from the Conway Lake Dam north along Mill Brook.

 In 1830, it appears that this site was the location of a mill where logs were brought across Conway Lake. It was the focal point to business activities for the Town of Conway. It has also been the site of a gristmill and, at one time, a piano box factory.

 From 1873-1888 goods were transported from Cotton’s Mills to market on the old railroad bed of the Portland and Ogdensburg Railroad. These rails were linked to the P&O main line at the Center Conway depot. Cotton’s sawmill prospered during those years while lumber was in great demand to build the many hotels in the area.

Two hundred and fifty-five years ago, Capt. Timothy Walker settled on a promising spot where a brook ran out of a long, narrow pond in what he thought was Fryeburg, Maine. He dammed up the ravine where the brook emerged and built a sawmill and gristmill there, powered by what has ever since been called Mill Stream. He cut timber from the banks of the pond — known for five generations as Walker’s Pond — and floated the logs down to the mill, sawing lumber for sale and for his own home alongside the headwaters of the stream. FMI click here.
 Today, this is a beautiful area with a substantial brook cascading over the spillway, a fine forest cover and the overgrown foundations of Public Service’s old power generating facilities.
 The Town of Conway received these 14 acres from the Walker’s Pond Conservation Society in 1981. The Conservation Commission manages this historic site as a “wild preserve” with hiking trails.