Skinner Forest Conservation area is a very nice hiking area with several miles of trails. Trail difficulty is generally easy with some moderately difficult hills. Trail conditions are good, though they are rocky as this used to be a logging area.
Size: 128 acres
Owner: Groton Conservation Trust
Early in 1954, three families who had known each other as members of First Parish Unitarian Church of Newton found they shared the dream of finding vacation homes in the country with a pond nearby. Arnold and Carolyn Peterson, from Weston, and John and Virginia (“Ginny”) Taplin of West Newton, enlisted Joseph Skinner, also of West Newton and with a background in commercial real estate, to search for a likely site, since Joe and his wife, Jeanne, also yearned for a place in the country. They found their land in rural Groton, fronting Lowell Road and Whitney Pond, extended back into the woods over glacial terrain of drumlins and eskers all the way to the edge of the Mountain Lakes development. They purchased the land in 1954 from Caroline Roberts.
The Skinners, first to build, chose the hill overlooking both Whitney and Skitapet ponds. Among the three families they had eleven children. The original 17 modern day pioneers have moved on, but they left a permanent legacy to the people of Groton, thanks to generous gifts of conservation land from both the Taplins and the Skinners, more than 250 acres in all. Over the years both John Taplin and Joe Skinner purchased land beyond the original 102 acres and have donated it, in several parcels, to the Groton Conservation Trust. Joe and Jeanne Skinner donated 51 acres they called Skitapet Conservation Land as a tribute to the three pioneer families. After Joe died in 1985, John and Ginny Taplin donated 128 acres of woodlands to be known as Skinner Forest in Joe’s memory.
Source: Modern-Day Pioneers in Groton C. David Gordon, GHS Vice President
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