It's Elementary! Traditional Cache
RWB1017: Folks have expressed interest in taking over this location. If you want to feel free. However, the area has many problems with people destroying the cache. It is a great location and a nice easy spot.
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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Cache is about 10 ft from trail. Parking is available in school lot during non-school hours and on street otherwise. Trailhead is marked with a City of Beverly Public Open Spaces sign to show you trail, animals, plants and a brief history. Open dusk to dawn. If you visit during school hours retrace your steps and do not continue through to end of trail as it dumps out onto the school playground. PLEASE MAKE SURE CACHE IS AS YOU FOUND IT AND CLOSED TIGHTLY.
If you do not follow the trail you will be missing some lovely views of the Bass River. As with all caches, please make sure to hide them better then you found them. Please conceal as found.
Parking: Visitors may park in the school parking lot during times when school is not in session. On street parking is also available.
History: Green’s Hill can be traced back to 1677 when John Green became a lessee of the common lands at Ryal Side from the Town of Salem under a grant from the King of England. From this beginning, the Green family acquired 100 acres of land stretching from Salt House Point on the Bass River extending northward to Elliott St. John Green built a family home in a location approximately on Bridge St. opposite Winthrop Street. The Green family subdivided the property to the heirs over the years while continuing to use much of the property for agriculture. If you look hard enough, there are still remnants of stone walls built in colonial times separating fields and property boundaries. The Green family burial plot is still preserved in the back corner of the playground and is adjacent to one of these old stone walls.
Best time to visit: Year-round; but the pathways can be difficult to traverse when there is snow and ice on the ground.
Activities:
Walk/Hike: The small trail is not groomed in the winter, so the best time to hike is when there is little or no snow cover.
Bird Watch: The best time to view birds is during the spring and summer. A wide variety of birds make Green’s Hill and surrounding areas their home. Birds migrating north and south along the Eastern Migratory Flyway have an opportunity to rest in Beverly during their annual migrations. Green’s Hill has been the rest stop for over 100 different species.
Resident birds such as cardinals, chickadees, titmice and downy woodpeckers are easily noted during any walk around the property. You may see five species of seagulls, Great Blue Herons, Black Crowned Night Herons, and Great and Snowy Egrets feeding in the shallows along the Bass River. These, along with cormorants and several species of ducks, can often be observed from Green’s Hill. The trees and thickets on and around Green’s Hill are home to at least 19 wood warbler species that have been recorded on the property during migration.
View Wildlife: Mammals such as squirrels, rabbits, skunks, raccoons, opossums, woodchucks and even a slightly misguided coyote or fox have all been noted on the property. Keep your eyes open for a wide variety of butterflies, moths and dragonflies.
Plant Life: The general area had been cleared for farmland in colonial time so most of today’s vegetation is new growth forest of mostly maples and oak with some birch and hickory. On the north side of the park the maples are particularly dense. The forest floor is covered with Canada Mayflower; several common mosses and lichens can be seen too. As you proceed to the east facing Innocenti Park across the Bass River, the soil becomes sandy and the hardwood trees thin out to some degree. Changes in the types of mosses and lichens you find as you walk along the path also reflect soil and light exposure changes. A stand of staghorn sumac, which typically colonizes old fields, grows directly behind the Ayers School field. The path skirts around this before returning to the hardwood stand behind the homes on Bridge Street. As you walk along the path, notice the dense vegetation on the slope down to the river. This helps stem erosion of the riverbank. Please be aware that there is some poison ivy in the park, as there is in most open spaces in this part of Massachusetts.
Additional Hints
(No hints available.)