Leighton Forest is more than a piece of property – it is the reflection of a man who devoted his life to the caretaking of New Hampshire’s forested treasures.

You pull into the open field and park just off to the side of the wooded entrance. The sun is hot on this late August day in Strafford, New Hampshire, but just a few steps away sits a towering canopy and near-limitless shade. You double-time it over to the welcoming maw of Leighton Forest and begin your summer stroll.

The first thing you notice is the serenity. Though there’s an active country road just a few hundred yards away, any ambient tire-on-pavement noise is soaked up by the tree cover and dissipated into silence. You could be 10,000 miles away from any semblance of civilization. Such is the tranquility of Leighton Forest.

You make your way up the winding path, flanked by mature, majestic trees - white pines, red oaks, and hemlock trees, as you weave along an invisible boundary between Barrington and Strafford that the property straddles. Despite the extremely dry season, Leighton feels lush and green - though a glance around reveals places where bubbling streams would carve themselves through the landscape if the rain was more giving in 2020.

Still - the durability of Leighton Forest, even amidst drought conditions is a testament to conscientious and committed forest management. The forest’s Black Gum trees - some of which are estimated to be 300 to 400 years old! - have seen their share of adversity and weathered many seasons; this drought is just another etching in their growth rings. For anyone who knew Roger Leighton, who shares the namesake for Leighton Forest with his family, this should come as no surprise.

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The name “Leighton” carries with it enormous historical weight in the Strafford/Barrington area of New Hampshire. The Leighton family was one of the earliest groups of settlers in Barrington, and that’s saying something since Barrington, settled in 1699 and incorporated in 1722, is one of the Granite State’s oldest towns.

Roger was a walking repository of knowledge, a man known to have a Tungsten steel trap memory and an encyclopedic knowledge of forestry. He was one of the original county foresters, starting his career right after World War II and serving as the county forester for Belknap and Strafford Counties. Prior to that he worked for New Hampshire Fish and Game, focusing on deer management.

“Roger was an amazing guy to work for,” says Phil Auger, forester and former Land Manager for SELT and a colleague of Roger’s when Roger was with the University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension in the 70s and 80s. “He was always coaching you on how to be a good county forester. One thing he would always tell us is you need to get to know the people, their kids, and their dogs – know the family situation. That was just as important as knowing their lands.”

It is a Yankee virtue chiseled into Granite State DNA and Roger tapped into it. For him, forest management and conservation was as relational as it was transactional; knowing what made a landowner tick was as critical as knowing boundary markers.

“Look at who owns land in New Hampshire,” Phil says. “It’s owned by regular people. If you didn’t get to know the people and get them to trust you to help them make decisions about their land, you were going nowhere.”

Case in point: Carl Siemon, a businessman from Connecticut who bid farewell to the rat race and moved to Milton Falls, NH into his father’s house. In 1966, he had the opportunity to purchase 18 acres of harvested timber land for $18 an acre (!) and he immediately sought counsel from the country forester – Roger Leighton.

“Roger told my dad, you’re going to buy this land and become a tree farmer,” says Cynthia Wyatt, Carl’s daughter. “That was transformative for my dad and he absolutely loved being a tree farmer. From that point on, with every huge decision Roger was there guiding him along. He was a great inspiration.”

For 42 years Roger managed the Siemons’ land and with his help grew the farm from three acres to 1,500 acres. In 1991 when Cynthia moved with her family to Milton Falls, Carl donated a conservation easement on all 1,500 acres (the third largest easement in New Hampshire at the time).

And over the next ten years, with Roger’s help, Carl added an additional 1,500 acres (and won several tree farming awards along the way). Such was the magnetic power of Roger; his passion for land and forestry was infectious and impacted everyone in his sphere of influence. In fact, you could say the entire concept of the “Leighton Orbit” is a legitimate object of study for quantum physics; all who knew Roger and his wife Justine – a legendary regional figure in her own right and a well-known actor and theater advocate – could not resist their gravitational pull.

“They were just wonderful people,” Cynthia says. “If you were to talk to anyone in that town they would know Roger and Justine Leighton.”

And Roger probably knew them too.

“His memory was amazing,” Phil says. “He remembered things about people and land. You could go anywhere, maybe walk into a coffee shop and someone would say hi to Roger, and he’d ask them what was going on in every detail about their lives.

Roger took this same Rolodex mentality to his personal land acquisition. Over the course of decades he would piece lands together when they became available, slowly building up Leighton Forest. Then Roger applied his lifetime of forestry know-how to properly manage the forest and turn it into a prime woodland and wildlife habitat.

“Dad was a forester and a biologist,” says Steve Leighton, Roger and Justine’s son and one of their four children. “He knew there had to be places left untouched for wildlife and to grow timber. He loved to walk through the forest. He was always thrilled to see his deer.”

“It was his passion, it was his love,” says daughter Abby Aucella who lives adjacent to the family land. “For anyone that understands woodlands, he manicured it. And he never admitted it, but I’m pretty sure he named his trees.”

Roger passed away in 2016 at the age of 97. He had not made a commitment to the destiny of Leighton Forest, opting instead to leave that decision to his family. In 2019, the Leighton children began working with SELT to explore plans for conserving the forest. It was their desire to see their parent’s legacy protected forever instead of being developed.