Chipman Hill

Chipman Hill. People of the Landscape. , Today , Mountain bikers, hikers, runners, and nature lovers enjoy the approximately 132 acres and five miles of trails that weave through Chipman Hill. The Middlebury Area Land Trust's Trail Around Middlebury (TAM) passes over the hill and is part of the 4,600-mile-long North Country National Scenic Trail-running from Vermont to North Dakota., 1900s . Public Park , Chipman Hill was the scene of college ski races, ski jumping, and snowshoeing. (The old ski jump and run out can still be seen near this sign.) By mid-century the hill became the site of the town reservoir, as well as TV, radio, and later microwave towers. An asphalt automobile road took picnickers and lovers to the summit. By the 1970s, access up the hill by auto was largely abandoned. A hardy strain of bees that can tolerate the cold was developed and made Chipman their home., The Rev. Thomas Merrill, first pastor of the Middlebury Congregational Church, named the hill "Mt. Nebo" (after the biblical site where Moses last glimpsed the promised land) but it never stuck with locals. Middlebury College students had their own moniker for Chipman Hill: "The Hill of Science". Today's accepted geographical name for the hill honors Daniel Chipman., 1780s . European Settlement , Congressman, attorney and Middlebury College charter-trustee, Daniel Chipman joined many early settlers as they moved west from the eastern colonies. Settling in Middlebury in 1794, he built a home on the south slope during the early 1800s. The hill was cleared of its timber and became steep grazing land for livestock., 1880s . Conservation , Joseph Battell devoted his life to philanthropy and conservation. During his lifetime the state was 80% deforested and few efforts were made to replant. He made great efforts to buy lands surrounding his home in Ripton. At the time of his death in 1860, Joseph Battell was the largest landowner in the state of Vermont. He willed the hill to the town to be "used, improved and maintained as a public park forever.",

"Some folks pay $10,000 for a painting and hang it on the wall where their friends can see it, while I buy a whole mountain for that much money and it is hung up by nature where everybody can see it and it is infinitely more handsome than any picture ever painted." -Joseph Battell

, European Settlement . Pre-1780s , Indigenous Peoples in search of freshwater, edible plants, and game likely climbed the hill long before the arrival of European settlers. Little is known about their time on the hill, as no evidence of their presence here has been uncovered., The Western Abenaki are the traditional caretakers of these Vermont lands and waters, which they call Ndakinna, or "Homeland. We remember their connection to this region and the hardships they continue to endure. We give thanks for the opportunity to share in the bounty of this place and to protect it., The Land , Chipman Hill rises 450 feet above Middlebury's dowtown area. It was formed more than 10,000 years ago by Ice Age glacial till deposits which probably accumulate around a core of now-buried limestone bedrock. Thanks to abundant sand-and-gravel deposits here, naturally filtered ground and rainwater appear in multiple springs along the slope.