Date: Fri 06-Feb-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: ANDYG

Quick Words:

Al-Goodrich-Weantinogue

Full Text:

Mapping The Walks Of Weantinoge

BY ANDREW GOROSKO

Al Goodrich scans the horizon, viewing a rolling New England landscape

stitched tight with stone fences girdling a sienna forest floor covered with

leaf litter.

He treads carefully across damp slopes and around deciduous trees blown down

in storms. Mr Goodrich looks among the tree trunks that support the forest

canopy, seeking the barn-red trailblazes which guide walkers and hikers

through the Henry Preserve, west of Sawmill Road.

Amid a stand of hardwoods, interspersed with conifers, Mr Goodrich's vision

locks onto a trailblaze painted seven feet above the forest floor, signalling

another leg of the mile-long Pond Brook Trail which loops the 28-acre parcel

that's dotted with tulip poplars and beech.

The preserve, which lies on a hilltop and its weathered flanks, overlooks a

ravine cradling the unnamed tributaries of Pond Brook, the stream that links

Taunton Pond to Lake Lillinonah and the Housatonic River.

The unnamed streams formerly bore brook trout, Mr Goodrich explained. But

development in the area has stressed the fish, making them, at best, scarce,

in the streams that drain the Great Hill section of town. As the area

developed, storm water run-off increased, resulting in lower streamflow during

dry periods and raccoons becoming the predators of the trout.

Elliott Henry, a civil engineer, had maintained the land preserve for decades

before he entrusted it to Weantinoge for permanent preservation nine years

ago.

"It is ironic that the very raccoons decimating the fish flourished because of

Henry's love of all animals. About once a week, he would drive to a bakery in

Waterbury to buy (large) bags of stale bread, and every night put out food for

the animals.... Keeping the back lights on and building a picture window in

his house to watch them, he would have a pilgrimage of 30 to 40 raccoons,

skunk, opossum, deer and red and grey foxes to watch every night," according

to a passage written by author Mary Mitchell for the Weantinoge Walks entry on

Henry Preserve.

Mr Goodrich notes that if Weantinoge Heritage, Inc, hadn't acquired the Henry

Preserve, it well may have been bought by developers and used for home

building.

Ed Camp, a farmer who had worked the land during the early 1900s, owned the

parcel before Mr Henry. When Mr Camp owned it, he used the property to grow

corn and then to raise sheep. About 1910, after marauding dogs killed half the

flock, sheep raising was abandoned and the property reverted to forest land,

according to Weantinoge Walks.

The forested area is home to more than 15 varieties of migrant birds which

require an unbroken forest canopy to survive.

To make Henry Preserve accessible to the public, Andrew George, a Boy Scout

with Troop 41, worked with John McNeely, Weantinoge's preserves manager, to

create the one-mile loop trail. George did the project as part of his work to

attain the rank of Eagle Scout. Troop 41 is sponsored by The Church of Jesus

Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormon). The church's parking lot abuts the Henry

Preserve.

Mr Goodrich, a volunteer, handles map making duties for Weantinoge, having

prepared much of the cartographic content of Weantinoge Walks.

Mr Goodrich, a Boggs Hill Road resident, uses a Global Positioning System

(GPS) Navigator electronic locating device to help him establish positions in

creating maps. The device receives signals from arrays of earth-orbiting

satellites in triangulating locations on earth. A screen on the GPS unit

displays information on latitude, longitude and elevation. Mr Goodrich also

uses a magnetic compass affixed to a measuring wheel in drawing scaled maps.

Weantinoge wants to popularize its network of preserves through the mapping

and text of Weantinoge Walks, Mr Goodrich said. The Henry Preserve map is

included in both Weantinoge Walks and Newtown Trails Book.

Weantinoge is a major land trust in northwestern Connecticut based in New

Milford. Founded in 1965 as a non-profit organization, the group protects more

than 3,700 acres in towns ranging from Newtown to Canaan. It also protects

land in Cornwall, Sharon, Kent, Litchfield, New Milford, Roxbury and

Brookfield. The organization receives land through gifts, legacies, purchases,

and open space land grants from developers.