In 1890, a wealthy and eccentric land speculator named Austin Corbin built a visionary game preserve just twenty miles from Grafton. Corbin Park was surrounded by thirty miles of heavily stockaded fence designed to prevent the escape of imported species, which included bighorn sheep, Russian wild boar, elk, and what became the largest herd of bison in the world. But with Jurassic Park–like flair, the Great New England Hurricane of 1938 breached Corbin Park’s stockade fence. Hundreds of animals escaped into the timberland, and some established breeding populations. Even today there are
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