Trashpaddler: Slates to Boston

Paddled bits of the Nashua and Sudbury rivers this past week. On Tuesday a planned paddle from Oxbow NWR North at Hospital Rd. in Devens, MA was switched to Oxbow South in Harvard, MA. This was due to a locked gate at the Hospital Rd. site where a construction project is underway (perhaps to improve access for folks with limited mobility).

Headed downriver to about where the old Shaker Bridge once crossed the river near Treasury Hill. Along the way I paddled up a river-left tributary to the above pictured culvert and dam with water cascading down on its way to the river. It was the second time I'd visited this spot, and both visits left me puzzled as to why the pond and stream aren't currently named on Google maps. Some digging around on the internet led me to The History of the Town of Lancaster Massachusetts by Rev. Abijah P. Marvin written in 1879. Marvin included in his book (page 428) a "Map of Lancaster" which shows a Cumbery Brook flowing to the Nashua River and also a number 28 at a point about three quarters of a mile upstream from the pictured waterfall. The map's table shows 28 representing the location of Slate Rock Quarry. A screen shot of Marvin's map showing the area...

The slate quarry was first found by a Mr. Flagg about 1752 and over a 50-year period produced slate shingles the Smithsonian Institute in 1886 noted as being "suitable for roofing or other fine work". Marvin notes that the slates from this quarry "once shingled the Hancock House on Beacon Street (taken down in 1863), the Old State House, and many other buildings in Boston". An exact replica of the Hancock House was built in Ticonderoga, NY and gives some idea of how the slates from this quarry might have looked on the building's roof. Marvin also states that the quarry "was sometimes called the Shaker Quarry, though never a part of their property. Perhaps the name was given because the Shakers, in the latter part of the century (1790's), were employed to take them to Boston with great ox teams." Shakers were members of a religious sect which broke away from Quakers in the mid-1700s in England. They came to America in the late 1700s and established small agricultural communities where they practiced their faith while living and working a simple life in communal villages. One thing that distinguished them from other religious sects, and perhaps led to their demise, was their disbelief in procreation. Because the Lancaster and Shirley Shaker community was located not far from the Slate Rock Quarry, it's likely the Shakers would've passed it on their way to and from a neighboring Shaker community across the river in Harvard, MA. It should be noted that the Slate Rock Quarry site is presently located within the Fort Devens South Post area and is off limits to civilians. Current environmental reports refer to the brook as Slate Rock Brook and the pond above the dam as Slate Rock Pond. Slate Rock Quarry is located very close to where the Union Turnpike passed through the northeast corner of Lancaster. This 1897 map with my notations shows the locations of the Slate Rock Quarry, Slate Rock Pond, Union Turnpike, Shaker village, and Nashua River...

It seems plausible that the Shakers and their ox-drawn wagons loaded with slates may have followed that route on their way to Boston. If so, they might have passed over the Sudbury River at Lee's Bridge in Lincoln, MA which is where I found myself paddling a few days later...