Guardian of the Grant Retires

SAM BRUNGOT, long-time forest fire watchman and patrolman in New Hampshire's North Country, completed this fall his tenth year as patrolman in the Diamond Country for the New Hampshire Timberland Owners Association, of which the College is a member. At the end of November he also retired as Custodian of College property in the Dartmouth Grant.

Since the spring of 1951 Sam has lived year-round in the Patrol Cabin furnished by the College at the Grant's Management Center, where telephone lines and access roads branch at the Forks of the Diamond. He has been host to hundreds of Dartmouth students and alumni, as well as to President Eisenhower, former New Hampshire Governors Hugh Gregg and Lane Dwinnell, and numerous groups at all seasons.

Prior to his most recent dual service for the Timberland Owners and Dartmouth College, Sam served for seven years as lookout at the Signal Mountain Tower in Millsfield maintained by the New Hampshire Forestry and Recreation Department.

In recent years Sam paid several visits to the Dartmouth campus, where the North Country flavor of his personality made a great hit with students and faculty members, just as it had with Dartmouth men visiting the Grant. Interviews over Station WDCR carried his forest tales to a large campus audience.

Sam expects to live with his married sons and daughters, of whom four live in northern New Hampshire. His daily presence in the Diamond Country will be missed by his countless friends who always enjoyed listening to Sam's stories with his frequent pleas for greater care with fire, matches, and burning tobacco.

Fire prevention was Sam's main job. He made a point of meeting all sportsmen entering the Grant to give them a word of warning. He also checked logging operations, where gasoline-powered equipment and cigarette-smoking woodsmen are a constant danger, and kept his eyes open for lightning-caused fires, which can quickly get out of control once they start in the deep forest duff.

During Sam Brungot's ten-year service as patrolman, no fire in the approximately 50,000 acres of active timberlands which he helped to protect burned more than a quarter-acre. No greater tribute could be paid to any patrolman — and to the forest users who cooperated with him.

College Forester

Sam Brungot outside his headquarters in the Dartmouth Grant