Abandoned Roads

I wanted to take a little time to explain how I determine what an old road was used for in the past. Some are easy, some may take a little bit of work. And like everything else in the exploration business some you can only guess. 

This picture is of a classic old road found in the woods. There is a stone wall on the left, and although you can't see it there is also one on the right. These walls were built for one of two reasons. First, they may have been used to keep livestock from wandering onto the road if they were grazing in the field. Second, they were used to keep livestock from wandering off the road while they were being driven to market.

This picture is of the same road but in a different location, here there are no walls. This means the walls in the first picture were probably to keep the livestock off of the road. If you walk along this road you will feel the surface is hard-packed. If you try to poke something into it, it will not go very far. This lets you know it was well-traveled. This means it was probably a town road and the town would maintain it. If you look at an old map of the area it will have a name. 

This picture shows an old turnpike. Turnpikes were built by private companies and users were charged a toll. They were of uniform width and, especially in Massachusetts, they were as straight as possible. The idea at the time was the shortest distance between two points was a straight line. It didn't matter if there were hills in the way, they would climb them. Sometimes the horses pulling loaded wagons would not make it. This picture is of an unused portion of the Worcester-Stafford Turnpike opened in 1829. There are not many original sections of these turnpikes as they were later used as main roads after the toll gates were removed. Stafford St. in Worcester MA is the original alignment of the Worcester-Stafford turnpike. Travel to the section called "Deadhorse Hill" and you will see what we mean by straight up.

This is another old road through some old farmland. This was not a main thoroughfare as far as I can tell. The stones in the center of the picture were used as a bridge over a small stream. This means it was used by the farmer to go from one field to another. These are commonly called cart roads. On many well-used old roads, you will see embankments on both sides. These were created when the roads were graded. A sled was pulled along the road pushing the road surface to the sides. Some of these can be quite deep.

This is a picture of a well-worn old road. It was a named town road and was a main route connecting two towns. It goes up the side of a hill and it needed constant maintenance. 

This is a picture of a very old stone arch bridge. This was also a town road. I do not know how old this bridge is but it has stood a long time. However, the last time I was there I noticed there was some logging/development taking place, and heavy equipment was using this bridge. I have yet to be back to see if the bridge still stands.

This concludes this little primer on some of the old roads you may come across during your explorations in the woods. In an upcoming post, I will explain how I find them. Until then, enjoy the outdoors and leave only footprints and take only pictures.

Red Front Trail

 It is rare that I have the history of an area before I hike, but this exploration was different. I went to the Yale-Myers Forest in Ashford, CT. I have been to this area before, and it is one of my favorites. This exploration was on the Red Front trail. I am always satisfied with this forest; I always find at least one cellar hole and old walls.

Stone Wall

Today was no different. This area was first settled in the 1750s and farmed until 1930 when the owner donated it to the Yale College Forestry School. About three-quarters of the land was used for agricultural purposes, mostly as pastures, but it was abandoned between 1850 and 1870. Knowing this made it much easier to read the landscape.

House Foundation 1

I found two separate foundations. One was an old colonial house and had the standard "C" shape foundation with the chimney in the curve of the "C". It was unusual as the cellar was very narrow on one side. Foundation 1 is a picture from the old road. In the center is the chimney stack.

House Foundation 2

Foundation 2 is a picture of the front portion of the cellar, the left side of the "C".

The other interesting thing I noticed was the land behind the cellar hole was excavated. The land was used for mining gravel. There is evidence of this all around the home site. This gravel was used in the building of the Center Turnpike. This road was built in 1826 and ran from Thompson, CT to Tolland, CT.. ("The Turnpikes of New England", Frederic T. Ward. 1919) The route of this turnpike can still be followed today. It has various names but if you follow the access road in either direction you only need to continue as straight as you can.

House Foundation 3

Foundation 3 is another picture of the left side of the "C". 

House Foundation 4

Foundation 4 is the rear of the house. At the bottom of the picture is the edge of the gravel pit. This would be the long side of the "C". The taller wall at the top of the picture is the outside wall of the foundation. This is the narrow section of the cellar.

House Foundation 5

Foundation 5 is the other arm of the "C". The chimney stack is to the left of the picture. There is a niche in the foundation that appears to be from a missing stone. It does not go any further. If it did it would go under the road.

There was also a barn foundation across the road from the house. This foundation was also typical of others I have seen. There were some rusted relics scattered about.

Barn Foundation

There were also plenty of stone walls. For the most part, these walls were well-built and, in some instances, four to five feet high. These walls formed several sections where the land had been cleared and used for pastures. One thing about this forest is that the university is conducting several experiments throughout where they are managing forest growth. There are different habitats throughout. This means you can see the land's appearance at different points over the last 150 years.

One Stone Wall

The trail was on an old farm road. I don't think it was a town road, meaning it was primarily used by the farmer and didn't carry heavy traffic. It didn't show the usual signs of heavy use, although it was used to haul the gravel for the building of the turnpike. 

Throughout this part of CT and MA, the terrain is a series of ridges and ravines running in a north-south direction. These ravines can be narrow or wide, and the ledges can be steep or gradual. In the ravines, you will either find an old road or wetlands. In this forest, there was only one wetland gully. since we haven't had any soaking rain in a few months it was dry except for a few spots. This section was also on a downhill slope, the downhill being from south to north. This land would have been terrible for farming and you could see it had not been improved other than for logging. 

Why is this important? Throughout the rest of the area, I did not come across any type of stone structures or piles aside from the walls. In this section, I first found two stone piles. There was a path through this valley that I wouldn't classify as a road. It was where the trail led and it did have some evidence it was used as a connector between fields. 

East Side Pile (Side View)

The first pile I saw was on the east side of this trail. It was large and rectangular. My first thought was it was a waste pile from field clearing. It had the appearance of being dumped, not stacked. 

East Side Pile (Front View)

The second pile was on the west side of the trail and was of similar size to the first. There was a difference, however. This pile was stacked and had a large boulder at its base. This was not a wall as the wall was about twenty feet behind the pile. It might be either a retaining wall or a loading platform for loading logs. I have come across these on other hikes. Inspecting it more closely it was not a platform. It was too high, one end was not level with the ground to allow a wagon access.

West Side Pile (Side View)

West Side Pile (Front View)

I began asking myself questions. Would a farmer take the time to carefully build this pile? One pile appeared to have been dumped but this one was definitely built, I also came across two stone circles. These were manmade, not natural. These are common in areas where Native Americans lived. It is speculated they were used as prayer seats. 

Stone Circle

It is hard to tell from this picture but these stones were put in a circle. The trees in the center are not old.

Stone Circle 2

Both of these circles and the two stone piles are all close to each other. They are located on a downhill slope.

I have no way to date these structures but I have a theory about them. We know that Native Americans did not just disappear after the Europeans came to this country, as much as the colonists tried to make this happen. I think they just went "underground". We know that many of them assimilated with the settlers. Some had their own small farms and others worked for larger farms such as this one. I think the section of the farm was used by Native Americans as their own private ceremony site. It wasn't a good parcel for agriculture. It was in the middle of other productive fields. It wasn't far from the barn. I think the Native Americans in the area may have built these while working on the farm. I am working on proving this theory.

None of the four structures I mentioned, the two piles and two stone circles, are natural. Stones will not neatly stack themselves. These piles are not the result of receding glaciers. Same with the circles, these stones did not form circles by themselves. On a scale of 1 to 10, I give this a six.

Farmer's Waste Rocks or Native American Stone Piles

In my travels throughout the woods of central New England, I am always looking for things that just don't seem right. Things like piles of rocks that appear in the middle of a forest. Earlier this summer I came across a place like that. At the time there was a lot of ground cover so I couldn't get a good look at them. I went back today.

I am not sure what to make of these stone piles. Stone piles are one of those things that are subject to controversy in the archeological world. Even with proof disproving the theory, the Massachusetts State Archeologist continues to claim that any pile of stones in the woods was made after the European settlers came to this country. They insist the Indigenous people did not work with stone. But as they used to say on Fox News "We report, you decide."

This site is on public land with a marked trail through it. It is located in an area that has historically been used for farming. There are numerous stone walls throughout the property. These walls form several squares. The walls are made of flat rocks, lots of flat rocks. They appear to be broken pieces of ledge. The land is very rocky in areas and doesn't look like it was cultivated many times. There are some huge, old tree stumps indicating it was logged many years ago. 

The section with the stone piles is in one of the walled-in sections. All of the stone piles (I counted at least 20) are within a 1.5-acre section, in the southwest corner of one of the sections. 

The above picture shows a satellite image from Google Earth dated 4/30/2001 with the route of my hike. You can see one stone wall at the left of the picture following along the blue line of my route. You can also see another wall in the bottom right corner. The top of the map is north.

This is a picture of the west side wall. There are also some design elements in the wall as seen in the picture below.

Looking at this picture now I can see what might be an effigy right in the middle. When I am in the field I usually don't see effigies, I don't have the eye for them I guess, but when I get home and look at the picture they tend to jump out at me. 

The piles do not appear to be in any order or alignment. This brings up an interesting question: If these are stone piles constructed by farmers, why are they in a position where the farmer would have to move around them? The piles are constructed of the same type of rock, broken ledge, as the walls. 

The above three pictures are the same pile (Pile 1 on the map). It is a rectangular shaped pile about 6 feet in length, 3 feet in width, and about 2 feet high. The center is filled with rocks although I did not clean any of these piles to look at them. You may be able to notice this pile was intentionally built, these stones were not dumped. Would a farmer take the time to place each of these rocks into a shape or would he have just dumped them?

This pile is about the same size as the first one. Note the two pointed rocks situated on each end. I did not see if they were stuck in the ground. They could have fallen from the top of the pile but I think that would be highly unusual. Could this be a Native American grave?

This picture is of three piles aligned in a straight row on an east-to-west axis. The row does not continue any further than this in either direction so I don't believe it is a stone wall. 

Unlike the other piles, this one appears to be in the shape of a circle. I did not disturb it but I believe it to be filled with other stones. 

This pile almost looks like it could have been an effigy that has been damaged. It isn't as large as some of the other piles. 

Could these piles be of Native American origin? If so, what was their function? Without disturbing any of the piles I am not sure but could this be a burial ground? Or could it be just a bunch of leftover stones the farmer placed here to get them out of the way?

I try not to fall into the trap of claiming everything I find is of Indigenous origin. In this case, there is more evidence leading to the conclusion these piles are not waste rock piles. The obvious questions are:

• Why would the farmer place them in the center of a field and not out of the way?
• Where did all these stones come from? They had to have been brought here from another location. I did not see any ledges in this area.
• Why would a farmer take the time to build these piles instead of just dumping them?
• What was this section of the farm used for? It does not appear to have been heavily cultivated. It was fairly wet in sections even though we have not had a hard rain in months. There were plenty of larger stones in place that would have been removed if the land was used either for crops, a hay field, or even a pasture. 

I will do some further research on this piece of land but I believe on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being it is a Native American site of some kind, I'll give it a 6.

Forgotten History: The Big Dam

The next time you find yourself in Southbridge MA take a drive up West Street and look to the right along the stone wall you will see a concrete structure. On top of the slab is a large rusted relic.

This is part of what is left of the workings of “The Big Dam” of the Hamilton Woolen Mill. It was destroyed in the flood of 1955. You can read about the flood and listen to radio broadcasts by clicking here. Let's learn about the dam.

The mill was incorporated in 1831. It was a textile mill and powered by the waters of the Quinebaug River. As the mill grew it required more water. This was done by buying the water rights along the main river and the feeder ponds and lakes. In 1865, the company bought a large piece of land in Holland and built substantial works creating what is now known as the Hamilton Reservoir.

There were several small ponds throughout the mill complex and one large pond. The large pond was created by “The Big Dam “.

Standing by the remains of the dam we see the workings of the sluice gate. This controlled the flow of water used by various buildings to run the machines.  

Looking into the cement structure we can see the actual gate. The large gears worked together to raise and lower the gate. The dam would have extended across the river. The top of the dam would have been just below the top of the housing.

There may have also been a sluiceway on the other side of the river that led into the mill building that was located there. Looking to the left all the ground you see was covered in water. The lower athletic fields behind the school were all underwater.  

This wasn’t the first dam at this location. Over time the first dam was replaced with two others. Each was larger than the previous one. The last dam was built in 1872,

When the dam broke in 1955 the area was severely flooded. Because of the surge, several other dams further along the Quinebaug River were also destroyed.

I apologize because I never wrote where I found these photos. It was on a website but where - I don't remember. They are from the Bill Kroll Collection of flood photos. The top picture shows the water overflowing the stone wall along West Street. This wall is still there today. The brick structure is the gatehouse. It enclosed the large gears that are still there. The bottom picture was taken right before the dam broke. You can also see how big the "Big Pond" was.

The Hamilton Woolen Company closed in 1934 after a major strike by the textile workers. This strike affected almost every textile mill along the east coast. An interesting side note is when the strike was ended the mill owners decided not to reopen and very soon after the business was sold to J P Stevens a non-union company from the south. In my opinion, the owners were planning to sell the company as soon as the strike was called. 

After the 1955 flood, the dam was never rebuilt. Instead, the government built a series of flood control dams along the Quinnebaug to prevent this from happening again. The area was cleaned up and what you see is how it was left.

In future posts, we will explore more forgotten history in the area including a ghost town that was destroyed when the flood control project took it over.