Kinney Hollow

Green. If I had to choose one word to describe today’s hike/explore it would be green. It’s the beginning of August and it’s been a wet one so the forests are green. Dark green, light green, and every green in between. I started this hike at about 8:30 AM, the sun was not yet high and there was a fine mist from last night’s rain. The only sounds were a few birds, squirrels, chipmunks, and the occasional dripping raindrops left from last night’s rain.

This hike took me along an old road through mountain laurels, pine trees, and ferns. As I walked I looked into the woods to see what I might see. This is what I do, look for what I call skeletons in the woods. Things like old stone walls, foundations, wells, and other stone structures. These things tell a history of the land I travel. This property tells me it had a small farm on it. The majority of the land was logged. How can I tell this just by walking around?

Parking on Kinney Hollow Road in Union CT there is an old road that heads south into the Yale Forest. This old section of road was not used much. It is one lane wide. There are no walls as will usually be seen alongside a main road, although that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a popular road. The shoulders when present, were not very high which also tells me there was not much traffic. In addition, the road surface was not hard-packed.

After a short walk, there was a junction. I could continue south or turn to the east. I went straight and I would go east on the way back. There were now stone walls on each side. They were of single-row, thrown construction. When you look at walls you can get a good idea of what they were built for. Picture the area around you without any trees, like it was 150 years ago. Was it plowed? Are the trees large? Walls were used for many reasons. They could have been used as boundary lines between properties. They could have been used as fences around pastures or crop fields. Some were built as ornamental walls although these are not common outside of villages and towns. 

Many times you can look at the land and can see if it had been improved. Is it flat without a lot of rocks? This would indicate it had been cultivated or plowed. If there are a lot of stones in the wall this usually means it was plowed more often. This section looks like it was not used for planting. I think this is where the farm animals were pastured.

 

I don’t think this was a very profitable or large farm. I think the land was used primarily for its timber. This section of the road was used more often than the first section. The surface was hard-packed and well-worn. The shoulders were higher in some places as well. Continuing south I came across what I believe are two colonial-era foundations, one on each side of the road. The one on the west side appears to have been a house.  There wasn’t much left as the foundations had collapsed in on itself. A pile of rocks in one corner indicates where the chimney may have been. I did not find a well.

House foundation

 On the other side of the road is another foundation. I believe this was a barn.

Small barn foundation

These were the only two foundations I found. This leads me to believe it was a small farm. Then why would the road be so well traveled? Let’s continue up the road and see what else we can learn.

After the foundations, the road turns back into the same surface as the beginning. It is not as hard packed. I also see evidence that this road was improved by adding rock embankments and drainage. My thought is this was to allow for the transport of logs. Union was primarily known as a logging community. There were several sawmills in the area. I believe this property was providing logs for them. I followed this road and its several branches and all ended in areas that looked like they were used as loading areas. 

Along this section of the road, there was also a stone row. The difference between a stone row and a stone wall, at least in my opinion, is a stone row is a line of stones that do not mark a boundary, form a pasture or pen, or have any other purpose to do with farming. Stone rows were built for various spiritual functions by Native Americans. They tend to have two defined ends. They are also very intricately designed with niches in them, sometimes colored rocks were inserted, and they may be straight or curvy. I believe this stone row may have been a serpent effigy. The picture shows the head end. Notice the large stone and snout.

Stone row - Serpent?

On my way out I went down the east road I had seen on the way in. This led me down a hill where a stream crossed before the road continued up the other side of the ravine. The road was built with stones. It looked like it was a dam at one point. The upstream side was a pond at one time. Was this a mill pond?

A dam. 

The road/dam was breached in the middle. At the break, there were many stones and two large flat stones. I believe this was the original roadbed. The flat stones would have been used to cross the stream.  I saw no evidence of a mill here but I can’t be sure. My thought is when the lumbering got rolling they filled the valley several feet to make the angle between the two sides less allowing the wagons and logs to traverse it more easily. I believe they left the old bridge (the flat stones) in place and filled it on top. 

The road continues a short way to some private property. After my hikes, I always research the history of the area. In “The History of Union Connecticut” written in 1873 there were 17 sawmills in Union. One is the Kinney mill consisting of a sawmill, shingle mill, and box mill. In looking at an old map of Union we can see the Kinney house but it is unclear whether there is a sawmill here. I did see on my way to the location what appeared to be a large mill pond. I will return to explore this later.

Click here to see an AllTrails map of my hike.

This was an interesting hike. I love finding "skeletons" and determining what they may have been. This hike was on public land and was easy. There were a couple of climbs but not strenous. For an old guy like me I rate it as easy.