Saturday, January 4, 2020

Looking for Saddle Rock

While reading Robert M. Thorson's The Boatman (Henry David Thoreau's River Years) I came across the author's mention of a boulder historically used in measuring the river's depth: "The closest thing Musketaquid had to a local stage gauge was a large boulder known as Saddle Rock, located at Heard's Bridge at the southern end of Sudbury Meadows."  I was intrigued yet at the same time couldn't recall ever having seen a large boulder in this stretch of the Sudbury River.  Given yesterday's relative warmth and lack of wind, I decided to paddle upriver from the Sudbury Causeway (Route 27) and do some looking around for Saddle Rock.

At the start of my trip I paddled under the Old Town Bridge in Wayland (opening photo) built in 1848.  It is one of the very few bridges still standing from Thoreau's time and one that he almost certainly would've rowed, paddled, or sailed under.  The bridge was taken out of active service in 1955 but still spans an old oxbow channel.

Passing upriver through the once productive hay meadows that play a prominent role in The Boatman, I passed under Route 20 (formerly site of the Bridle Point Bridge)...
...and under the abandoned Central Mass Railroad trestle before taking a glance westward of Nobscot Hill which seems to have sprouted, yet another, cell tower...

Around the next bend was Pelham Island Road bridge which is said to have been the site of Heard's Bridge...

Aside from a submerged rock beneath the bridge there's nothing here that matches the descriptions of Saddle Rock.  In testimony before the 1860 Joint Special Committee on the Flowage of Meadows on the Concord and Sudbury Rivers Richard Heard, the man who used the boulder as a gauge, described it as follows "Saddle Rock is 2 ft 4 in. above the hard pan..."  Another family member, Horace Heard stated "At such times as I stood on the hard pan, the meadows were perfectly dry.  Then, the water would be six - perhaps ten - feet out from the Saddle Rock."  Other than these few mentions I can find nothing that reveals the actual location of Saddle Rock.

Finding nothing in the immediate area of the bridge I headed about .4 miles upriver and found this boulder...
...on the west side of the river which is the site of Heard farm.  Approaching closer I noted a depression between two rock sides which might be viewed as a saddle-shape...

On the right rock slope was an eye-bolt...
...perhaps showing that a boat was once tethered here.

Might this location possibly be Saddle Rock?...or is Saddle Rock submerged beneath the bridge?  Suppose anyone knows for sure?

At any rate it was more than a little surreal to be enjoying an afternoon on the water in early January.

Some trash gathered up along the way (from mostly around the causeway)...

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