Hike to Angle Tree Stone

The North Attleboro Land Trust Steering Committee invites you to join them on a guided hike of the Chorney Property and nearby Angle Tree Stone on Sunday, November 14th at 2pm.

The Chorney Property is town land managed by the North Attleboro Conservation Commission.

The Angle Tree Stone is a nine-foot slate monument made in 1790 by a father and son team that manufactured gravestone markers. It replaced an actual tree that had long been used as a boundary marker between the Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth colonies. Today, the Angle Tree Stone marks the border between North Attleborough and Plainville, as well as the boundary between Bristol and Norfolk counties.

Hikers will meet at the parking lot for the Chorney Property, on Ellis Road across from the intersection with Metcalf Road. The hike will first walk the Chorney trails, through three open fields and over a boardwalk which crosses the Seven Mile River. Hikers will then walk 1.3 miles, via Ellis Road, High Street, a side road, and a path, to the Angle Tree Stone monument. After viewing the monument, hikers will return by the same route to the Chorney parking lot. The total length of the hike will be 4 miles.

Participants under 18 must be accompanied by an adult. The rain date is November 21.  Any cancellations will be posted on the Attleboro Land Trust website: attleborolandtrust.org

Questions, please contact Susan Taylor at susan@susantaylorconsulting.com or 774-251-4616.

Here is a map of the hike area:  Angle Tree Hike – Map

Be like Sisyphus

As noted in a previous post, the Attleboro Land Trust is participating in the annual Big Read program of the Attleboro Public Library.  This year, the entire community is reading the book Circe, a story about Greek gods and goddesses by Madeline Miller.

If you are visiting the Phil and Ginny Leach Wildlife Sanctuary to do the Virtual Mythology Scavenger Hunt, be sure to visit Big Rock before you leave.  This glacial boulder serves as a reminder of Sisyphus, a character from Greek mythology not mentioned in the book.  Sisyphus was a dishonest and greedy king who was punished by being forced to roll a huge boulder up a hill, over and over again for eternity.  Whenever Sisyphus got to the top of the hill, the boulder would roll down again.

We invite you to take a selfie with Big Rock and post it on our Facebook page or send it to us.

Guided Walk on July 13: The History of Barrows Farm

Guided Walk:  The History of Barrows Farm
Location:  Deborah and Roger Richardson Nature Preserve, 577B Wilmarth Street, Attleboro
Time:  9:00 – 10:30 am, Saturday, July 13 (Rain date: July 20)
The Attleboro Land Trust is sponsoring a series of guided walks at its nature preserves in Attleboro.  The first, at the Deborah and Roger Richardson Nature Preserve, will be a journey back to colonial times, when the Barrows family lived off the land through farming and the manufacture of wood products.  Leading the walk will be Bill Lewis, who will point out evidence of the various activities which once took place on the land.
The Barrows House, built in 1708, still stands on the Richardson Preserve.  Note:  The guided walk will not include the interior of the house.
See 2019 ALT Guided Walks – Flyer for information on the complete series of guided walks.

Barrows House Offers View Into Attleboro History

Bill Lewis got involved with the Deborah and Roger Richardson Preserve through serving as a site steward along with other members of the Attleboro Geocachers Alliance.  After helping to repair the exterior of the Barrows House, his passion for history led him to dig deep into historical records for the property and the family that lived there for more than two centuries.  Drawing on these records, as well as a general knowledge of how colonists were able to survive and prosper using the technology of the times, Bill has developed a detailed history of the Barrows House and farm.

He shared this story at a meeting of the Attleboro Historic Preservation Society on March 21.  For a short interview with Bill, check out this YouTube clip by our local cable company, DoubleACS:

Barrows House Video

Author Confronts History in the Wilds of Attleboro

There is no end to the variety of fascinating requests the land trust has received over the years for activities to be conducted on our preserves.  Last spring, writer Jane Breakell set out to retrace the steps of banished Puritan dissenter Anne Hutchinson, who walked from Quincy, Massachusetts, to what was to become Portsmouth, Rhode Island, in April, 1638.

 On April 10, 2018, Jane, midway through her journey, spent the night in a tent on the Leach Sanctuary. Two days later, she crossed Narragansett Bay by boat to reach her destination, Aquidneck Island, as did Anne Hutchinson before her.  Below are some brief excerpts from an essay that Jane wrote about her experience for a recent issue of the New England Review (Vol. 39, No. 3).

Write Like a Puritan by Jane Breakell

“A woodcut shows a woman in a long black dress with a square white collar and a black hood, one hand at her side, one fist held to her chest, speaking, it appears, to a group of old men who are seated at a table, pulling at their beards, peering at her. If anyone can talk to God, then anyone can justify her own choices, words, actions, with or without the approval of the elders. From this kind of magical thinking, it is no great distance to amoral anarchy. When she would not recant, they kicked her right out. She had been a voluntary exile from England, braving the wilderness of the New World. She was now also an exile from Massachusetts, but she considered neither home. The bounds of my habitation are cast in heaven, she said, and walked out of Boston, into the real wilderness. She resettled herself on an island to the south, in what became the state of Rhode Island, not far from where I grew up. What takes ninety minutes by car today took her, on foot in 1638, six days. Eventually she left Rhode Island for New York. There, after refusing to evacuate during a Siwanoy raid (against the advice of her more experienced neighbors), she was killed.

“I’ve come to understand that Anne Hutchinson’s story, the struggle between doubt and assurance, the voices of elders and the voice in her own head, must be part of mine.

“…Specifically, I must retrace Anne Hutchinson’s long journey from Boston to Rhode Island in an attempt to reconsider New England—home of self-satisfied tradition—as wilderness, frontier. By reenacting this long-past drama of belonging, I want to learn about those questions we still ask ourselves: what is the right way to live? On whom can we rely to tell us? What do I need to do, where do I need to go, to be the right kind of person?

“…Instead of woolen clothes and wooden overshoes, I wear yoga pants and hiking boots with Gore-tex. Instead of carrying or gathering food, I stop for lunch at Ruby Tuesday’s; instead of sleeping out, I book Airbnbs for all but one night. And while Hutchinson sent a scout ahead to plot a route through forests, I follow a route chosen by Google Maps. She walked through forests, dunes, and swamps that have since been replaced by paved roads, village squares, college campuses, and Dunkin Donuts. When I read the names of the towns we will pass through, they evoke not wilderness but radio commercials for discount shoes and tires.

The point is to walk where she walked, which I do. It’s just different now.”

While reenacting the journey of Anne Hutchinson, Jane Breakell pitched her tent in the Phil and Ginny Leach Wildlife Sanctuary, in a spot near this lean-to, which Jane described as “a fortuitous illustration of the kind of structure the Hutchinson party probably slept in.” The exact route taken by Hutchinson is not known, but Jane said “I passed through Attleboro because it was the only place I was able to camp out that was even close to where I thought she walked–most of the way was really lacking in anything like wilderness.”    Image credit: Jane Breakell