Burns Memorial Park - North and South Rivers Watershed Association

98 Hersey St, Hingham, MA 02043, USA

Owned By: Town of Hingham

Burns Memorial Park in Hingham is a pretty, 26-acre property with a 0.32-mile trail that extends through an open woodland. Enjoy rocky outcroppings, stone walls, flowering shrubs, wetlands, glacial erratic boulders, and a small stream.

Note: On our last visit to this property, in 2024, the trail was overgrown and difficult to traverse. Watch this space for updates.

Hunting is not allowed on this property.

Features

This property once belonged to the Burns family, and was sold to the Town of Hingham in 1972 for conservation. A section of it is part of the historic Tranquility Grove, which was owned by Henry and Edward Thaxter, and often employed by the townspeople for outdoor gatherings such as church picnics.

According to the Hingham Conservation Commission, Sydney Howard Gay, a Hingham native and the editor of the National Anti-Slavery Standard in New York, suggested Tranquility Grove as an ideal location for a gathering of abolitionists to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the end of slavery in the British West Indies. Known as the “Great Abolitionist Pic Nic,” the event was held on August 2, 1844, and is believed to be the largest such abolitionist event in US history, gathering 6,000-10,000 attendees from New England, New York and Pennsylvania. Notable participants included William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, and the Hutchinson Family Singers. A lengthy, impassioned letter from then-Congressman John Quincy Adams was read aloud.

This land is within the region of the Massachusett (or Massachuseuk). To learn more about local Native American tribes, we encourage you to interact with their members. The Massachusett tribe at Ponkapoag and the Mattakeeset band of the Massachusett share information on their websites.

Trail Description

Park at the brick building at 101 Hersey Street, which is owned by the Town of Hingham. Cross the road and take the stairs up to the trail that leads into Burns Memorial Park. (The stairs appear to be part of an adjacent residential property, but they are actually the entrance to Burns.) A narrow path, blazed with blue markers, extends through open woods, passing by stone walls, glacial erratic boulders, rocky outcroppings, wetlands, and a small stream. The out-and-back trail has a loop at the end with two benches. Total distance is 0.56 miles from the entrance, around the trail loop, and back again.

Habitats and Wildlife

This woodland features oak and pine covered ledges, freshwater meadow, red maple swampland, flowering shrubs, and a stream that flows into Tower Brook. Other trees include beech, horse chestnut, holly, and catalpa. Watch out for briars and poison ivy. Wildlife observed here include deer, chipmunks and squirrels, and such birds as hawk, tufted titmouse, nuthatch, and Carolina wren.

Tower Brook feeds the Weir River in its upper reaches. The Weir River flows north through Hingham, gradually turning northeast and flowing for another into to Foundry Pond. The Weir River Estuary, designated by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as an Area of Critical Concern, begins just below the manmade dam at the pond. The mile-wide estuary forms the border between Hingham and Hull, and empties into Hingham Bay. For more information about the Weir River, follow the Weir River Watershed Association.