In January of this year, the Trust purchased the land on the west slope of the Ossipee Mountains known as Castle Springs. It includes 5000 acres of forests and scenic splendors, an historic mansion, function facilities and recreational trails. And it offers layers of interesting history waiting to be rediscovered. Researchers at the Lakes Region Conservation Trust face a task akin to that of an archaeologist who must dig down through layer upon layer of civilization, searching for the first signs of life. Peal back one layer to the fifties when the Robie family purchased Lucknow, the former Thomas Plant estate, and opened it as the Castle In The Clouds tourist attraction. Down another layer, in the 30s, you can see the declining estate of eccentric millionaire Tom Plant who lived with his wife and a handful of servants in bankrupt splendor, unable, in the depression, to sell his property. Back a layer you see the same man, bent on building his private empire, and intent on buying up and tearing down most of what had come before, whether it was simple settlers homes or elaborate Victorian buildings. Down another layer, in the 1890s, we find evidence of the Ossipee Mountain Park era when Boston industrialist BF Shaw built his picturesque summer home and exclusive inn, Weelanka Hall, on the open field that would become Tom Plant's private golf course. On a promontory, Shaw constructed the Crow's Nest, where Lucknow would later sit, and along Shannon Brook, with its spectacular waterfalls, he built woodland trails and 12 rustic bridges, abandoned long ago. Ossipee Mountain Park was famous in its day and attracted literary figures such as Robert Frost, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Lucy Larcom. Below this layer, when Weelanka's lawns were farmer's fields, we find traces of a small community of 18th century settlers who marched their way to the end of Moultonboro's Mountain Road and built their homes in that intervale, so well supplied with water, forests, and sun. The last of those settlers didn't leave until forced out by Tom Plant in the early 1900s and their descendents still live in the community. John Oliver, one of the Trust's Advisors and a descendent of the Lees the last family to leave, remembers walking there with his grandmother, who pointed out the old cellar holes and abandoned trails and bridges. "I was just a kid," Oliver says of those walks. "I wish now I'd paid more attention to what she told me." Researchers can perhaps go below that layer, to find Native American hunting grounds. They already have found a wilderness with old growth forests and the inhabitants those forests support. Below it all, of course, are the fascinating tectonic, volcanic, and glacial foundations of this distinctive mountain range. The Trust is beginning to gather evidence and artifacts from all of these layers. It has hired biologist Rick van de Poll, of Center Sandwich to conduct scientific studies on the property, to find evidence of the volcanic origins of the mountain formation, and the pockets of old growth forest that support a distinct wild community as well as to conduct a complete bioinventory of the property. The Trust is also researching the old trails and roads built by the early settlers, and by B.F. Shaw and Thomas Plant. Many are abandoned, but still traceable in the forests and along the brooks. One of the many Trust volunteers is mapping the old trails as he finds them on the ground and in documentation. The Trust has also just received reminiscence from the Robie days, and it is collecting articles and visual material from the early settlers era, and the two estates of B.F. Shaw and Thomas Plant. Anyone who has material relating to Ossipee Mountain Park, its predecessors and successors, that they would like to donate, or information they can offer about any of Ossipee's layers, should write to the Lakes Region Conservation Trust at PO Box 1097, Meredith NH 03253. And check out www.lrct.org to follow the progress of this ambitious project..