Chapter 1 The PreHistory
In the collection of documents kept by the Stocker Pond Association, there are some brief references which say the west side of Stocker Pond began to be developed in the 1930’s, with the five lots on Lumber Lane purchased by families from Claremont, and camps appearing on them.
Below is a map from 1990, which indicates the ownership of properties at that time. For better viewing, the standalone pdf image may be easier to enlarge.
But since our history begins with the late 1960s and so predates the 1990 map considerably, we need a different way in which the reader can associate an individual mentioned in the history with a property location on the Pond. For that, we use the 2022 map from the Town’s tax assessing database. Actually, we refer to the numbering on the 2022 map to assist in identifying properties from the past. You will note that properties are labeled with numbers roughly from 1-60. Those numbers correspond to the property/tax map numbers which the Town uses, either 243-xx or 236-xx. Fortunately, only the last digits are relevant to identifying properties on this map. So in 2022, property labeled 6 on the map is really 243-06 and property 24 is really 236-24. There is a cross-reference list 🔒 of property owners in 1990 versus 2022, but for now I have password protected it, so you will need to ask if you want a copy.
Continuing with our pre-history, in the mid 1950s, Three C’s Development, Inc. acquired the property on the east side of the pond and subdivided it into approximately 30 lots, each with 100 feet of frontage on the pond. The following is extracted from a letter from Fred Parsons [property 236-32] to Mathilde English [property 236-30]:
Len Powers from Lake Sunapee Realty was the broker when Don Cole [property 236-26] was developing the east side of Stocker Pond. Len built his own place on the Pond, which Parsons believes was the first house built [presumably on the east side], predating Don Cole’s. Len’s house is now the Eckbreth’s [property 236-24]. Parsons looked at the land in 1962 and purchased their lot [property 236-32] the next year. By then, Bob Reed had built the cottage at [property 236-25]. Len Powers believes that Don (Cole) bought the land from someone in Massachusetts who had purchased a boat from Don and used the land for payment.
For context, it is worth noting that few if any owners of property on Stocker Pond were full-time residents. While some had permanent residences in New Hampshire, most owners lived out of state and used their cottages for summer rentals or occasional visits to the area.
In the late 1960s came the construction of Interstate 89, in large part performed by the Palazzi Corporation. The construction disrupted large deposits of glacial silt which cascaded down the hillsides when raining and poured into Stocker Pond creating a coffee and cream colored debacle. This catastrophic event galvanized those who owned camps into action, eventually resulting in the incorporation of the Property Owners’ Association of Stocker Pond.
