[ Return to John Smith and Erving Castle ] [ Home ]
| New
England Naturalist Training Center |
|
| Directions to Erving Castle |
From Rt. 2 West: Travel through the center of Erving, turn right onto Mountain Rd. Travel up Mountain Rd. approx. 1.5 miles to a small parking lot on your left. While parking there don’t block the gate!! On the southern end of the parking lot, along Mountain Rd., take the Metacomet & Monadnock Trail (M&M) into the woods.
The
M&M trail is a hiking trail that runs from Connecticut to New Hampshire for
more information on the M&M Trail visit New England Cartographics, www.necartographics.com,
publishers of THE M&M trail guide.
The
M& M follows a series of old logging and forest service roads to trace its
way towards the very edge of the Millers River gorge. Please note that sections
of the trail are over grown and its unpredictable turns are easy to miss, keep
and eye out for the white rectangular blazes. At approximately 1.5 miles the
M&M trail meets up with the access trail to the site. The access trail,
which turns steeply down hill to the left, is blazed with blue rectangles. It
should take you about an hour, depending on your level of physical fitness to
reach this intersection.
The
access trail is very steep in places although only about ½ mile long. At the
base of the decent the trail merges, to the right, with the old cart road that
used to serve the Erving Castle in it’s hay-day. Just ahead on your left and
right is the site.
Alternate
hikes: At the top of the mountain, at the intersection with the M&M trail
and the access trail you could continue to follow the M&M west for a ¼ and
visit a wonderful overlook of the Millers River gorge.
Once at the site you can add about a mile to the return trip by walking past the site (west) and following the other end of the blue blazed access trail up to the far side of the M&M trail. At the intersection of the M&M turn right (northeast) and continue to the overlook and then latter back to the parking lot.
Take
a moment to look around the whole site! Little of the site and its history can
be appreciated if you only look at the cave and leave! Although the cave is
where John Smith lived for some 12 of his 34 years in Erving it is only a small
portion of what can be seen.
There
is historic graffiti in several places and small remnants of his flower gardens
still holding on to their fragile existence. There are stone walls scattered all
over the 2-3 acre site. These stone walls encompassed his flower, vegetable and
fern walks. Down slope are many stone piles called cairns. Some of these may
have been used for decoration and some just as a place to pile the stones
removed from the gardens. Then there is the stone foundation, “10 rods below
the cave” which was the home of the notorious Charles Thacher. As you stand in
the Hermit’s Cave the large flat rock to your left is called pulpit rock. John
used to have preachers come to minister to the crowds below. Directly below
Pulpit rock is what I call John’s gazebo or living room. Depicted in several pictures is
John seated below Pulpit rock with many visitors seated on long wooden benches.
Over the years the “living room” has filled in tremendously with leaf litter and
collapsed stonewalls. Just to the east of the gazebo/living room is
a spring that runs most of the year. John Described it as like the spring of
water the Mosses created when he smote the rock in the wilderness.
Take time to appreciate the natural wonders as well. Plentiful wildflowers, mosses, lichens, ferns and birds populate the site.