Our Lands
How It All Began &
Meadowsend Today
Our History
Meadowsend Timberlands Limited was started in 1992, in Kingston, New Hampshire by Bob French, a passionate and dedicated outdoorsman and forest owner. Bob gained his knowledge and appreciation for forests and forest products through his long career in the lumber business, a career that began as a teenager and continued for over 60 years. Bob’s goals for Meadowsend Timberlands Limited (MTL) were to obtain a significant landholding of high-quality forestland so that these natural and productive areas could be sustainably managed by a small group of committed employees.
To protect this land for future generations, Bob was an early adopter of working forest easements which protects the land from development while allowing active forest management, placing the first one of his ownerships in 1975. The company started with roughly 1,370 acres of timberland between two states, Maine and New Hampshire, which has grown to over 30,000 acres today with over half of that under permanent conservation easement. MTL, now Meadowsend Consulting Company, began managing land for private landowners in 1998 with the creation of a private consulting division, then called The Ecosystem Management Company.
Meadowsend Lands
Meadowsend owns and manages about 32,000 acres of land found on over 40 individual tracts across New Hampshire and Vermont, but also including some in western New York and eastern Maine, with roughly half under permanent working forest conservation.
Aside from long term, sustainable forest management, our lands host a variety of other uses including renewable energy from our wind farm in Sheffield, Vermont, and maple sap production from our forests in Washington and Shrewsbury, Vermont. An ownership in Topsham, Vermont hosts two cabins that are available for rent through a neighboring farm business, Galusha Hill Farm. In addition to our forestland, we also actively maintain open lands for wildlife habitat and biodiversity enhancement including pollinator habitat and early successional habitat. All of our lands are open to the public, allowing access for recreational use, hunting and wildlife viewing. Specific recreational uses vary by tract, with some open to ATV’s, snowmobiles and mountain biking, while other areas are limited to foot traffic only including hiking, snowshoeing and cross-country skiing.
Meadowsend Managed Land
Meadowsend manages land for roughly 250+ clients who collectively own approximately 100,000 acres in New Hampshire & Vermont. We are well known and respected in forestry and conservation circles in New Hampshire and the Northeast for taking a long-term sustainable approach to forest management that is honed with progressive science and art. The majority of the properties we manage have conservation easements in place that limit development but encourage working forests and farms. In fact, over 60% of our client lands are conserved with working easements, involving 12 different land trusts. In addition, we are well-aligned and compatible with long-term family ownerships, town and publicly held land, non-profits, and land trusts. We encourage you to contact a reference or two to hear what others think.
