On a drizzly Saturday in May local archaeologist Kimberley Connors led a group of twenty people on a 2-mile hike focusing on Native American features along the Trail Through Time in North Acton. The Trail Through Time is a two-mile bi-cultural heritage trail. Forming a loop around one mile of the Nashoba Brook, it passes through or accesses twelve sites where stone remains of structures from three periods of the land’s history still endure.
The Trail Through Time lies mostly within the bounds of the Nashoba Brook Conservation Land. A kiosk welcomes visitors at the main entrance off Wheeler Lane. Two additional entrances, one with parking at Davis Road, and the other from Milldam Road in the Northbriar sub-division, also provide access.
Connors’ walk focused on the Native American features including the Blueberry Stone Piles Cluster, the Plantain Stone Piles Cluster and the Princess Pine Stone Piles Cluster and Quarry Stone. In addition, she brought the group to the Old Road to Concord site and the Pest House Foundation.
The following is transcribed from Connors’ talk along the archaeology walk.
At the Old Road to Concord site
“In 2008, with the Field School, I identified this as the Old Road to Concord. Working with 6th graders, I had them do measurements showing the distance between the two walls as the correct number of rods. The distance between the two walls shows a colonial trait in road construction. The Old Road to Concord isn’t walkable anymore, unless you want to bushwhack its entirety. From here we will go to our first stone cluster pile, which is the Blueberry.”
Along the Trail
“I refer now to this area’s sachem. She was from what we now know as Arlington. This Massachusetts tribe is never discussed here in Massachusetts. The sachem’s name [and the tribe name] can’t be found in any record because she was not deemed to have any legal significance in the English mindset.”
Blueberry Stone Piles Cluster site
“We are at the first stone piles cluster. This one we call Blueberry, after the blueberry bushes surrounding this area. As you observe the piles of rocks you may note this is not typically the way that Europeans would place stones, who built in straight lines and didn’t make piles. So that’s why we believe that it’s Native American and they’re put there for a reason, by the Native Americans. We don’t always understand the reason.”
Plantain Stone Piles Cluster site
“This stone pile is significant in that it is different from the others; it’s on bedrock. When I first came here, I noted the stones on the bedrock running down the back in the shape of a Salamander. You can see some of these stones have been moved. Please understand. Any of these stones placed by Native Americans, have everything embedded with the spirit. When you mess with something that was left there by them, you impact that spirit. When it was just me out here and there was just one trail, no one would even come into the woods to get pictures of it. The Salamander is curved, appearing to come from underground.”
Pest House Foundation site
“They had communicable diseases back then, and so they had to separate the people that had communicable disease from the rest of the people, and they were placed in places like this until they recovered. I was documenting the Plantain stone pile and looked around and I found this foundation. This is a very unusual shape, with a hallway connecting two rooms on either side. This is an unusual site, one that was not necessarily meant to be found. It was not on any record.”
Princess Pine Stone Piles Cluster site
“As I said, Native Americans’ spiritual belief is [that] everything is embedded with the spirit and of sacredness. Water springs abound in this area. These clusters are different. They feel very different than the ones over by the Blueberry and Plantain Clusters. In my opinion, these are not remembrances of somebody. There are enclosure shapes, not consistent with colonial structures. In my opinion this is a much older cultural landscape. Indigenous. The belief of the spirit and celebrating as it is. Think all the way back to the Blueberry Stone Piles Cluster at the beginning. They’re very low-to-the-ground stone piles. And the Plantain Stone Piles were mostly underground, except for that one significant Salamander Stone Pile. Each of these sites tells a story in stone that I hope you all think about.”
The Trail Through Time Archaeology walk was sponsored by the Friends of Pine Hawk.
DK Halley was Acton Archaeology Coordinator from 1998-2015, and is currently the Acton Exchange’s correspondent from the Friends of Pinehawk.