Assabet Bits and Pieces

 

Paddled a few sections of the Assabet River this past week.  Started on Monday launching from Cox Street in Hudson, MA where the above photo shows the river winding into Stow.

Later in the week, on Wednesday I paddled further upriver on the Assabet launching at Chapin Rd. in Hudson and heading upriver...

Made it up to North Brook in Berlin, MA from which I later followed back the Assabet...

Muted fall foliage could be seen in places...

It had been more than a year since my last visit to this section of river, but at the remains of the Four Bridges the smiling statue was still there seeming to favor one of the several passages...

In looking for information about the Four Bridges I came across a 2006 Hudson Reconnaissance Report/Freedom's Way Landscape Inventory that lists the bridge ruins at Four Bridges Road and states this was the first bridge crossing of the Assabet in Hudson.  Topo maps from 1898 and 1917 show a road crossing the river connecting River Road and Brigham Street.  Later topo maps from the 1940s don't show a road crossing the river there.  In my search I also came across Brigham's Early Hudson History as written by Wilbur F. Brigham and compiled and edited by Katherine Johnson and Lewis Halprin in which the word Assabet is mentioned as meaning the "place of reeds" and the logo of Hudson's bicentennial in 1976 is shown including reeds and arrowheads.   This is the first I'd heard of that translation.  In John C. Huden's 1962 Indian Place Names of New England  there are several words beginning with the same letters.  One, Assabasset, comes the closest and is said to mean either "at the place between small brooks" or "wild flax place".  The Assabet sure has plenty of cattails and phragmites especially between Chapin Rd. and Rt. 495.

Past a busy Route 495 and almost back to Chapin Rd...

Ended my Assabet River paddling week on Friday paddling the section between Spencer's Brook and Damonmill in Concord, MA  (photo of Route 2 bridge)...

A blue heron near Westvale enjoyed the morning's warming sunshine...

The view upriver in Westvale...

Trash from Monday...

...included 41 miniatures (aka nips) and balls for sports of all seasons.

Trash from Wednesday...

...where the lion's share of the trash was in this large plastic bag snagged on a tree limb...

The bag contained all the fixin's for a family's day by the water including plastic water bottles, a plastic DD coffee bottle, Styrofoam cups, numerous plastic bags, utensils, and condiment containers

Trash from Friday was light...