Joseph Battell Wilderness

The Joseph Battell Wilderness lies in the northern half of the Green Mountain National Forest, just south of the Breadloaf Wilderness. Five mountains in the area exceed 3,000 feet: Monastery Mountain, Worth Mountain, Romance Mountain, Mount Horrid, and Philadelphia Peak. The area is a rare ecological gem. It contains many patches of large, mature northern hardwoods, the longest section of roadless and trailless ridgeline on the Green Mountain National Forest, and the headwaters of Bingo Brook, one of the most pristine, high-quality trout streams in Vermont. Because of its remoteness it provides critical habitat for black bear, and 17 rare, threatened, and endangered plant and animal species have been identified on Mount Horrid alone. Much of this Wilderness was earmarked to be forever wild long before the Forest Service acquired it. The core — Monastery Mountain to Worth Mountain to Romance Mountain — was bequeathed as a "park" to Middlebury College by Joseph Battell in 1915, whose will directed the trustees to "preserve as far as reasonably may be the forests of said park," cutting no trees except those dead, down, or in the way of needful roads, with the principal object of preserving the wild lands as a specimen of the original Vermont forest. Middlebury sold nearly all of Battell's lands to the Forest Service in the 1930s and 1950s, without restrictions and despite his intentions. It was the sale of these very lands that prompted the federal government to create the northern unit of the Green Mountain National Forest.