Unlikely Animals

Corbin Park is a notoriously secretive, private game reserve in New Hampshire. It was created by the 19th-century banking and railroad entrepreneur Austin Corbin (1827-1896) and occupies between 24,000 and 26,000 acres. The reserve was stocked with imported animals, including boar, antelope, and Chinese pheasant. Since the late 1950s, the escapes of species such as wild boar has led to multiple lawsuits filed against the estate. Figures like Teddy Roosevelt, Rudyard Kipling, and Joe DiMaggio hunted at the park, and membership is highly exclusive: Only 30 members are allowed, and new members can only join by buying the shares of outgoing members.

Ernest Harold Baynes was appointed conservator of Corbin Park in 1904 by Austin Corbin’s son, Austin Corbin Junior. Baynes reared, tamed, and lived with numerous birds and animals, writing books about his experiences and attracting a significant following as a naturalist. He played an important role in saving bison from extinction and founded the American Bison Society in 1902, with Roosevelt as its honorary chairman. When Baynes died in 1925, his ashes were scattered on Mount Croydon in Corbin Park.

In the “Author’s Note on her Research” at the end of Unlikely Animals, Hartnett recalls stumbling upon Corbin’s mansion when visiting friends in Newport, New Hampshire in December 2016. She was fascinated with both the park and Ernest Harold Baynes, whom she describes as “the real-life Doctor Doolittle” (344).