FEATURES
A BRIEF TOUR ALONG
Acton's Trail Through Time
by David Watts, Jr.
A two-mile-long loop through woods and wetlands, largely within Nashoba Brook Conservation Land, hikers are treated to a “bi-cultural heritage trail.” Sites and artifacts left by both indigenous peoples and Colonial-Early American settlers make up as many as twelve historic sites.
At the trail from the dirt parking area off Davis Road in Acton, this information kiosk displays all the latest information for walkers. This is one of four parking areas scattered around Trail Through Time.
Trails throughout the area are well marked for the first-time hiker as well as the veteran. “TTT” denotes the Trail Through Time, as does the yellow painted line. The Bay Circuit Trail, which overlays for a part of the way, is a 231-mile-long circular trail from Plymouth to Newburyport.
The Pencil Factory kiosk stands on the site of Ebenezer Wood’s water-powered, mechanized pencil factory, the first such in America. Previously, pencils had been made largely by hand in the area by Concordians David Munroe and John Thoreau (father of writer Henry David Thoreau) in the early 1800s.
One of four panels on the kiosk’s four sides, telling the story of pencil manufacturing in early America. The other three panels are: Life Along the Nashoba, Mills Along Nashoba Brook, and Beyond the Banks.
A wooden footbridge over the pencil factory millstream provides a footpath to the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail. This will eventually comprise a nearly 23-mile-long bicycle and hiking path stretching from Sudbury to Lowell.
Wooden walkway and bridge over the Nashoba Brook beyond the pencil factory site.
The Stone Chamber provides archeologists and historians alike with an interesting conundrum. Although similar to stone structures found in locations known as habitues for ancient, indigenous groups, there is also evidence that the chamber was used in conjunction with an adjacent foundation that was part of Moses Wood’s farmstead, beginning in 1774.
On the main floor of the of the American Heritage Museum, a conversation between Hunter Chaney and Russell Phipps is filmed by WCVB-tv and recorded by photographers and reporters from area newspapers.
Some parts of Trail Through Time pass over marsh areas. Bog board pathways have been built to facilitate hikers.
At different points along the trail are beautiful views of Nashoba Brook as it winds its way down from Robbins Mill Pond.
Throughout the landscape that make up the Trail Through Time, a common site is the stone walls common to New England. These were largely built by farmers to mark the borders of their property. Once farms were abandoned, the lands naturally reforested. Today, many of these stone walls provide homes to chipmunks and squirrels.
The remains of the house on the Thomas Wheeler, Jr. Farmstead. Built in the 1720s, the property was expanded to include a sawmill and a gristmill. It was later called Robbins Mills, which reflected ownership change in later years.
A close-up of the Thomas Wheeler, Jr. house foundation and cellar hole.
The trail leading from the Wheeler Farmstead passes by a U.S. Geological Survey Stream Gaging Station. Part of the USGS’s Groundwater and Streamflow Information Program, this is but one of a network of some 8,500 streamflow and water level stations and an additional 1,700 water level-only stations.
At the terminus of the Old Road to Concord, this footbridge was built resting on the remains of a large rubble pier on the south bank of Nashoba Brook flowing from Robbins Mill Pond.
Wooden bench and the information panel about the terminus of the Old Road to Concord. This was a busy way that ran from Concord Town to Thomas Wheeler, Jr.’s gristmill and sawmill.
Robbins Mill Pond from the Red Path away from Trail Through Time to the quarry.
What is called the Roof Slab Quarry may be the site from which the Stone Chamber’s roof slabs came, about a half-mile upstream. A point in favor of this site being the source is that the roof slabs match the stone at this site.
The Blueberry Stone Pile Cluster is but one of numerous such stone piles scattered about the area. Stone pile groupings, known as káhtôquwuk in Algonquin, were often assembled by Native Americans “to memorialize an important event, death, or person.”
At the end of a short side trail – marked as a green trail – are the remains of a foundation. It appears to have been a two-room structure with a large hearth in between, possibly a Pest House. In Colonial days, without hospitals to care for the sick, a pest house was a means for limiting contagion.