Forge Pond and Finding Counterpane

 

Explored several ponds this past week:  Forge Pond in Westford/Littleton MA on Tuesday, and the South Meadow Ponds complex in Clinton MA on Thursday and Sunday. (Above photo Coachlace Pond)

While I'd paddled Forge Pond before, I hadn't yet seen the recently rebuilt boat launch on Beaver Brook Road which was well done...

Beaver Brook offers paddlers a mile or so of a winding course through tall cattails going upstream...

...or a short trip down the brook brings one out into Forge Pond (aka Lake Matawanakee), a 203 acre Massachusetts "great pond"...

Beaver Brook and Gilson Brook are tributaries, whereas the pond's outlet is Stony Brook where a dam remains from the 1800s...

To the dam's right is a gate structure...

...which is used to lower the pond's level in late fall.  The drawdown helps to control invasive plants.

With it being a weekday the pond was very quiet...that is until I stopped for a lunch break alongside the railroad tracks on the pond's west side.  My break coincided with the passage of a long westbound freight train heading from Maine to Selkirk, NY...

Train was CSXT M427 and pulled by 4 locomotives (474, 486, 7029, 775).

After the train left the area things got quiet again much to this heron's liking...

On Thursday I made my first visit to a group of ponds sometimes referred to as the South Meadow Ponds Complex.  I'd seen the ponds on maps and couldn't tell if they were connected by navigable culverts.  Came across mention of them on the Massachusetts Paddler website where it was stated that the culverts were navigable.  Launched from South Meadow Rd. in Clinton...

Paddled from South Meadow Pond over to Mossy Pond and its Blueberry Island...

Then back to South Meadow and over to the culvert connecting South Meadow and Coachlace ponds...

View of the culvert's narrow confines (4.5' wide)...

The railroad above the culvert is the CSXT which is the same line which the freight seen 2 days earlier on Forge Pond would have passed over...

Once into Coachlace Pond I looked northward to the mills of Clinton...

At the pond's northwest corner are the remains of Gate House A built in 1881...

...which once diverted the pond's water from Counterpane Brook via culverts to the mill.

While exploring Coachlace Pond I never saw or heard any water exiting the pond.  Thus, yesterday, after studying a 1978 Army Corps of Engineers report, I returned to the pond in hopes of finding the outlet and spillway for Counterpane Brook.  The likely spot was overgrown with tall and impenetrable grasses.  However, going ashore near Gate House A allowed me to see where water exits the pond (view is looking upstream towards the pond)...

A short distance downstream and behind Gate House A is the spillway with its overhead arch...

A closer look reveals one of the splash boards still being in place (right side of spillway)...

Water is presently leaking through the wall beneath the spillway

While there I took a closer look at Gate House A and noted the opening being boarded-up...

Counterpane Brook disappears into a culvert of its own a short distance downstream of the spillway and doesn't re-emerge into daylight for nearly half a mile at the Prescott Mill on Water Street...

  

Google Maps doesn't show Counterpane Brook.  However, this Metropolitan District Commission map (from The Central Mass Railroad) shows the outlets to Counterpane Brook (red arrow) and Coachlace Pond (blue arrow) fairly well...

The map also shows the pond's proximity to the large Wachusett Reservoir created about 1900.

The only map I could find showing the area before it was altered was this 1831 map found on the Norman B. Leventhal Map and Education Center's website.  Note it's incorrectly labeled as 1851.  The actual date on the map is 1831 when Clinton was still part of Lancaster.  It shows only a 35-acre Mossy Pond and no Coachlace Pond.  Counterpane Brook was then shown as South Meadow Brook flowing through present-day Coachlace Pond all the way to the Nashua River.

The mill that once used the water from Coachlace Pond...

According to the Army Corps of Engineers 1978 report  the Coachlace Dam was built in 1846 and the outlet structures (Gate Houses and spillway) were added in 1881.  The mill was owned by the Clinton Company which manufactured coachlace used for carriages, and counterpanes for bedspreads, as well as carpets.  The Clinton Company later became the Bigelow Carpet Company and was owned by the Bigelow brothers, Erastus and Horatio.  According to The Bigelow Society's website they named their company for their favorite New York hotel, The Dewitt Clinton Hotel.  In 1850 the mill village separated from Lancaster and adopted the name Clinton.  

 Tuesday's trash from Forge Pond...

Thursday's trash from the South Meadow/Mossy/Coachlace ponds complex...

Sunday's trash from Coachlace Pond...

Held Back Waters

 

Took advantage of waters held back by three hydroelectric dams this past week.  The dams doing the holding back were the Great Stone Dam on the Merrimack River in Lawrence, MA, the Paper Mill Dam on the Nashua River at East Pepperell (Babbitassett), MA, and the Ice House Dam on the Nashua River in Ayer, MA.  

Started my week on Monday just after sunrise in Methuen, MA launching just upriver from the Route 93 bridge (above photo).  Kept the rising sun at my back while heading upriver...

...towards what looks like a floating Pine Island...

Passed the dammed mouth of Fish Brook and its fish ladder...

A  little ways before turning around at the Methuen/Lowell line I encountered this skeleton chillin'...

...with a blue heron showing little concern.

After returning to my starting point I continued downriver where this sign let me know I was leaving Andover...

Eventually the Great Stone Dam was reached with a view of Lawrence just beyond...

Stopped briefly at the last takeout before the dam...

On the trip back upriver another skeleton was encountered leanin' in my direction...

On Wednesday I launched at Petapawag in Groton, Ma and paddled the Nashua River where some fall foliage is beginning to show...

Wrapped up the week on Saturday with a paddle from the Oxbow N.W.R in Harvard, MA.  Driving down the hill to the boat launch offered this view of Wachusett...

The low clouds soon dispersed and a beautiful day set in with more fall colors on display...

This abandoned green boat continues its slow journey downriver...

The boat sports a 1989 New Hampshire registration sticker.  

Falling leaves have left this hanging bee's nest more exposed...

Trash was more plentiful this week and included 117 "nip" bottles:

Monday from the Merrimack River (Methuen)...

Wednesday from the Nashua River (Petapawag)...

Saturday from the Nashua River (Oxbow S)...

  

Stayin' Local Where Depth Allows

 

While awaiting some helpful rainfall I've been paddling waterways closer to home such as the Assabet River in Gleasondale (above).

Started the week on Sunday paddling with Oz and Roger...

...on the Sudbury River in Wayland. On our way upriver we passed this sectional sofa...

...presently aground.  Removing it someday will present some muddy challenges to whomever takes it on. 

We paid a visit to the historical marker for Wayland's Old Town Bridge...

On Monday, my grandson John and I followed-up our recent paddling of Walden Pond by paddling the nearby Sudbury River above and below Fairhaven Bay...

A couple of deer sporting their winter coats...

On Wednesday the Assabet in Stow was found to be choked in places with mats of floating grass...

A great egret waited patiently at water's edge...

Ended the week Saturday on the Concord River where the Egg Rock inscription shows just how low the water levels remain...

...despite our receiving about a quarter inch of rain on Thursday night.

Things were unusually quiet at the Old North Bridge for a Saturday morning...

...perhaps due to some repair projects being underway...possibly in preparation for next April's 250th anniversary.

Trash was on the light side all week:

From the Sudbury River...

From the Assabet River (where most was found in the grass at the launch site)...

From the Concord River...

Came across an old Sawyer's Crystal Blueing bottle from the late 1800s or early 1900s in the Concord River...

The Concord River also had this throwback 1976 Falstaff Liberty Bell Bicentennial beer can...

The glass Sawyer's bottle likely over 100 years old looks good as new whereas the beer can is approaching 50 years old and looks a lot worse for wear. 

Encountered this steel or possibly cast-iron? tank (about 3' or 4' long) with a stainless steel valve on one end...

If not for the valve, it looks a bit like an old canon.  Heavy yes, under pressure...who knows?  This sleeping dog can be left as is.

Finding Deeper Waters

 

As a result of our long stretch of days without appreciable rain this past week I passed on visiting local rivers and instead sought deeper waters.   My search brought me to Salem Sound's Misery Islands, Lake Quinsigamond (photo above) out Worcester way, and Concord's Walden Pond.

On Monday I launched at Winter Island Park in Salem, MA and headed for the Misery Islands...

Came across this floating "Big Gulp" almost big enough to be mistaken for a lobster buoy...

Upon reaching the islands I chose Little Misery Island...

...rather than the larger "Great Misery" for making landfall...

Paddled around Great Misery where one section had the look of fall...

...around the next point of land was this white-tailed deer already wearing its darker coat...

The deer's visible ribs at this point in the year may not bode well for its chances of making it through the upcoming winter.

Thought about the Misery Island's name on my paddle back to Winter Island. According to the Trustees of Reservations website "In the 1620s, shipbuilder Captain Robert Moulton became stranded here during a winter storm- he described the ordeal as 'three miserable days' giving the islands their name."  Earlier in the season, back in May, I paddled to Saint Croix Island in Maine where Pierre Dugua, Sieur de Mons, Samuel Champlain, and 77 other Frenchmen spent the winter of 1604/1605.  By the next spring 35 of their men were dead and many others still sick with scurvy.  Thus I'll always think of Saint Croix Island as being the most miserable of islands.  At any rate, I soon found myself approaching Fort Pickering Light and my safe harbor behind it...

On Thursday I got out on Lake Quinsigamond paddling it from end to end. With it being both post-Labor Day and a weekday, the lake was pleasantly quiet. The return trip offered this view of the Route 9 Bridge with Wigwam Hill further distant...

Retrieving a plastic bottle from the weeds I came across this very small snail on an arrowhead-shaped leaf...

...and realized that for him, on this day, this leaf would probably constitute his whole universe.

Back in the late 1800s Lake Quinsigamond was at its heyday as this  map from 1898 shows.

Wrapped up the week, Friday, on a moody Walden Pond in Concord, MA paddling alongside my grandson, John...

A coastal storm churning for the past several days off the coast of Massachusetts sent clouds, a northeast breeze, and occasional spurts of mist inland.  At some point we most likely paddled over the spot in the pond where Thoreau recorded a depth of 100 feet.  A United States Geological Survey article Hydrology and Trophic Ecology of Walden Pond by Paul J. Friesz and John R. Colman states "The maximum measured depth 100.1 feet was within 2 feet of that measured by Thoreau in the winter of 1846.  The article's author's also state "Walden Pond is the deepest lake in Massachusetts."

Trash for the week:

Monday on Salem Sound...

Thursday on Lake Quinsigamond...