Monadnock

Monadnock rises alone above the wooded hills of southern New Hampshire. Its name may come from an Abenaki word for a smooth or isolated mountain, and its exposed summit stands far above the surrounding country. The mountain's solitary shape later gave geologists a name for similar isolated peaks.

In 1725 Captain Samuel Willard and fourteen rangers climbed the mountain and camped on its summit, using it as a lookout while patrolling for Indigenous people. Settlers set a fire on its slopes in 1800 to clear pasture, and another fire between 1810 and 1820 burned for weeks. Farmers had set the latter blaze believing wolves were sheltering among fallen trees. The fires destroyed forest and soil on the upper mountain, leaving the rocky summit largely bare.