New year, new trail: See Colonial ruins and maybe a 'Man Monkey' at Catamint Brook Preserve

CUMBERLAND – Hiking a freshly cut trail through a remote hardwood forest is a great way to start the new year. It’s an opportunity to better understand the past and think about all that’s ahead.

I found what I was looking for at the Catamint Brook Preserve, one of the newest sanctuaries in Rhode Island. The well-marked paths cross earth and stone dams built by Colonial farmers and an old quarry strewn with cut granite slabs. The trails also cross groves of white and pitch pine trees, rocky ridges and a knob of bedrock and offer quite a bit of exercise to work off the holiday excesses.

The 84-acre preserve, managed by the Cumberland Land Trust, is an example of the work done by land trust volunteers to protect wildlife habitat, native plants, historic sites and a public drinking watershed, while also giving the public a chance to explore the outdoors.

The land trust acquired the property for $830,000 with a $400,000 open space grant from the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, a $180,000 grant from the Pawtucket Water Supply Board, $175,000 from the Town of Cumberland and $75,000 from the land trust.

The main trail opened last September, and three other ancillary trails opened in December, according to Jerry Frechette, a land trust director and retired U.S. Air Force and R.I. Air National Guard pilot, who, along with other land trust volunteers, cut and blazed the trails.

What you'll see: Farmland and historic homesteads

A hiking buddy and I started out from the trailhead off Tower Hill Road, which winds through farmland and by several historic homesteads built in the 1700s.

We parked in a gravel lot by a silver gate, donned some fluorescent orange, because it’s hunting season, and set out through an oak forest on a 1.7-mile perimeter trail, marked with black arrows on yellow diamonds.

Just a few steps from the start, a short side spur blazed with green diamonds breaks off to the right and leads to what was once the site of a roadside one-room schoolhouse. The structure was built around 1830 and burned down in the 1930s, leaving a vacant, flat piece of ground ringed by a low stone wall.

After inspecting the site, we retraced our steps, picked up the yellow-diamond trail again and came to a fork. A red blazed connector path runs north through an old apple orchard, but we stayed on the yellow-blazed trail and passed through fields lined with stone walls and covered with second-growth forest. Downhill and to the right is a huge meadow behind a private home.

Happy trails: Walking RI's most-read hiking columns of 2023

At one point, we walked through an unusual 20-foot passageway between two 90-degree corners of stone walls that once separated pastures.

Water views, and wetlands

From there, the trail turned onto an old cart path, and the blazes indicated that the trail broke to the left. But after getting our first glimpse of Catamint Brook, we headed straight and walked to the stream and over a culvert that carried the water under the road. Downstream, there were wetlands and pools of water.

The brook flows east and then south into Sylvys Brook, which then joins East Sneech Brook. The area is part of the Arnold Mills Reservoir watershed, a public drinking water supply that also includes the Ash Brook subwatershed.

We crossed the brook and followed the road as it climbed north into the state-owned Diamond Hill Reservation and passed several foundations, cellar holes and a small fireplace. At the top of a hill, we retraced our steps, recrossed the brook and picked up the yellow-diamond trail again, taking it west and across a hillside.

On the left, we could see a house and private property through the trees.

The trail eventually sloped downhill and crossed Catamint Brook over a 50-foot farmer’s bridge built of earth and stone in 1750.

Much of the surrounding land was owned from 1748 to 1846 by Noah Ballou, who in 1748 purchased a 110-acre tract from his brother Amariah Ballou and another farmer named Welcome Wetherhead.

Signs of beech leaf disease

On the far side of the bridge, a sign marked the Diamond Hill Reservation, and we walked west through the state management land for a short distance before turning south back into the preserve. We noted that the terrain became much rockier and hillier.

A white, 0.3-mile loop trail opened on the right, traversing ledges and offering views of stone walls along Catamint Brook below. To the northwest and on private property is the 499-foot-high Catamint Hill on land owned by the Diocese of Providence.

Back on the yellow-blazed trail, the path runs south and crosses Catamint Brook one more time over a farmer’s culvert. To the right, we noted a grove of beech trees with a few remaining brown-tinged leaves, a sign of the disease that has threatened beech trees across the state.

Continuing on the trail, we spotted an abandoned quarry that dates to the 1750s on the left. Slabs of cut stone rest at the base of a long ridgeline that Brown University geologists reported is one of the largest glacial rock outcrops in the state.

The George Washington connection

After studying the site, we continued south. A 0.5-mile, blue-blazed loop trail opened on the right and took us along some steep ascents and descents while running to the preserve property line and the base of 556-foot-high Beacon Pole Hill.

On private property at the summit of the hill are the remnants of a beacon that George Washington ordered built during the Revolutionary War. It included an 80-foot pole with an iron kettle on top in which tar could be burned to send a signal to warn Colonists from Bristol to Boston of a British invasion. The site was selected because of the height of the hill and the surrounding pitch pines that could be tapped for tar. It was one of four such beacons in the state.

Stories of the 'Man Monkey' and other spooky sightings

We returned to the yellow-blazed trail, which led to a chain gate at Tower Hill Road, a narrow, 3-mile country road named for the Tower family, who lived near Diamond Hill Road. The area is part of a historic district, which some locals claim is haunted by the spirits of young children who stand by the side of the road. Others report unexplained sights and sounds and a shadowy Bigfoot-like creature called the Man Monkey.

We didn’t see or hear any of that as we walked a couple hundred feet down the road to pick up the yellow-blazed trail that reentered the woods, climbed a hillside and reached a huge knob of exposed bedrock, surrounded by pitch pine trees.

More: These 10 Rhode Island trails should be on your bucket list

From there, the trail led downhill and back to the trailhead.

In all, we walked 2.86 miles over 2½ hours.

In 2014, the Cumberland Land Trust first identified the Catamint Brook area as a possible public preserve. It took nine years to negotiate with the private landowners, pull together the financing, acquire the property and cut the trails.

All that hard work has paid off, and it gave me a terrific start to another year of hiking.

If you go ...

Access: Off I-295, take Route 122 north to West Wrentham Road and drive north for 3.5 miles to Tower Hill Road. Take a right and drive about a mile to the trailhead on the left.

Parking: Available in a lot.

Dogs: Allowed but must be leashed.

Difficulty: Easy on flat paths, with some moderate climbs up and down hillsides.

GPS Coordinates: 41.99543, - 71.43737

Read the 'Walking Rhode Island' book

John Kostrzewa’s new book, “Walking Rhode Island: 40 Hikes for Nature and History Lovers with Pictures, GPS Coordinates and Trail Maps,” is available at local booksellers and from Amazon.com.

John Kostrzewa’s column runs every other week in the Rhode Islander section of the Providence Sunday Journal. He welcomes email at johnekostrzewa@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: RI's newest hiking trail: Catamint Brook Preserve in Cumberland