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From Page 1 eyeshot of Hamblett Avenue. Most of the remaining buildings are boar ded up, but some boards have fallen away or have doors open. Investigators are calling the two alarm blaze highly suspicious, Pauley said. They sifted through de bris most of they day, he said, and evidence gathered at the scene has been sent to the state lab in Con cord. “During an investigation, we elim inate any accidental cause we can come up with,” Pauley said. “We were able to eliminate a lot of that.” The barn was used to house a restaurant and offices while Ben son’s was in operation, Pauley said. Benson’s opened in 1926 and was called “The Strangest Farm on Ear th.” The park closed in 1987. The barn, owned by the state, was undergoing renovation at the his toric site. The state plans to use some of the land for wetlands miti gation. In March, residents voted to allow the town to allocate $50,000 to buy about 35 acres of land for a park. The nearly empty barn had four levels, including a basement and a loft. Remnants of a piano were re covered. Pauley said he didn’t know the exact age of the barn. The barn has been part of a con troversy in town involving Bush Hill Road. The road, which is the pri mary access for the Thurston’s Landing housing development, has been called unsafe in its current state for the increased traffic. The developer, the town and the state Department of Transportation had been looking at several plans, all of which required at least 8,000 square feet of one resident’s prop erty. Plans for the road have been dis cussed since a selectmen’s meeting about five weeks ago. Some resi dents of the area had suggested moving the barn to ease construc tion of the road, an idea that Selectman Shawn Jasper called im practical at that meeting. Pauley encourages residents who saw anyone in the area of Kimball Hill Road late Sunday night or Monday morning to call him at the Fire Department or Hudson police. Often times, people see things but don’t consider them suspicious, Pauley said. “People might have seen some thing, and it just might be the piece of information we're looking for,” he said. 6600 Karen Spiller can be reached at the Telegraph's Milford office at 249- 3339. Staff reporter Andrew Nelson contributed to this report. Above: An early-morning fire razed the barn at the former Benson’s Wild Animal Farm in Hudson. Below, Hudson Selectman Shawn Jasper walks past the barn during a tour with state and town officials last December in this file photo.
Newspaper Details
Nashua Telegraph
Nashua, New Hampshire, US
Tue, Nov 24, 1998
Page 9
Full Page
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USA 04 Sep 2026
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