East Over Reservation was formerly part of a larger working landscape that included agriculture, cranberry harvesting, and a Colonial-era millworks on the Sippican River. In the mid-19th century, New York businessman Charles H. Leonard began to transform the landscape, and built the network of elegant stone walls. The Hiller family purchased the land in 1910 and provided careful stewardship for almost a century.
The Hillers maintained the larger farm, pastures and woodlands until the early 2000s, when The Trustees of Reservations, working with the towns of Rochester and Marion, the Massachusetts Division of Conservation Services, and the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources, were able to protect it.
Today, the golden-hued farm buildings, so long a celebrated symbol of the South Coast landscape, remind visitors and locals alike of all that is worth saving and sustaining.