The Merrill Pond State Reservation in Sutton has several short walking trails around a string of quiet ponds. They are located in the western part of Sutton.

The pond system is quite lovely, and a wonderful day can be spent walking through its trails. The two largest ponds in the string are 19 acres and 15 acres in size.

Arthur Merrill created the country’s first scientifically monitored fish hatchery in 1921. The six ponds connecting West Sutton and the Eight Lots area to Singletary Lake are called the “Merrill Pond System”. This land used to be cranberry bogs before he began his work after World War I. They distributed 250,000 fish from this network to other ponds all over the state. They stopped using this area as a hatchery in the 1960s.