A journey back in time on the Pachaug River
Bright sunshine bathed a shoreline, resplendent in gold and crimson, which reflected a mirror image on the water, as my son Tom and I paddled along the Pachaug River in Griswold.
“I had no idea it would be this stunning,” I said, gazing at a steep bank of evergreen hemlocks offset by an autumnal array of oaks, maples and birches.
Over the decades, I’ve kayaked or canoed on nearly every navigable waterway in southeastern Connecticut, but until last Saturday had never dipped a paddle into this 16-mile river that meanders through forests, farmland and old mill villages from the Rhode Island border to Jewett City.
The Pachaug — its Native American name translates to “bend in the river” — empties into the Quinebaug River, which flows into the Shetucket, which enters the Thames, which drains into Long Island Sound, which connects to the Atlantic Ocean.
Thus it would be possible to travel uninterrupted by boat from the Pachaug to every continent on Earth — if it weren’t for dams that block the river to create Beachdale, Glasgo, Pachaug, Hopeville and Ashland ponds.
Had we been willing to devote all day to our voyage, Tom and I might have traversed the entire river, but this was a spur- of- the- moment outing. Around 8 a.m., I mentioned it would be fun to kayak a nearby river that neither of us had paddled; Tom, who had ridden his bicycle past Pachaug not long ago, suggested it as a destination; by 8:30, we strapped out boats onto the car roof rack, glanced at a map and drove to Route 138. We were on the water before 10.
“Not bad,” I said, looking at my watch. “We’re like a NASCAR pit crew.”
Exactly a week earlier, friends and I had donned long pants, jackets, hats and mittens
while hiking through snow in East Haddam; on this glorious, unseasonably warm day in Griswold, Tom and I were comfortable in shorts and T-shirts.
Several fishing boats were motoring on 841-acre Pachaug Pond, which contains a campground and marina on the south side of the dam, but that's not where we were heading. After dragging our boats along a section of the Pachaug Trail while using our paddles to brush away brambles, we entered a narrow, winding, secluded stretch of water to the north. This part of the river likely hadn't changed much since inhabitants from the Mohegan Tribe fished there hundreds of years ago.
For the next mile, we ducked beneath overhanging branches, slid over submerged logs and cut through clusters of lily pads before the river, backed up by another dam, widened into 137-acre Hopeville Pond, which is part of a 554-acre state park.
Created by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s, Hopeville Pond State Park contains campsites, hiking trails and beaches.
A few families were strolling along the shore and sunning in the sand while Tom and I paddled past; on a summer weekend, the park would have been packed.
Hundreds of years earlier, the area bustled with mills.
The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection notes on its website that in 1711, surveyor Stephen Gates was granted 14 acres of land within the limits of the present state park to build a sawmill and cornmill.
A century later, Elizah Abel built a woolen mill at the site, and then John Slater added a factory for making satinet fabric. He called the new building Hope Mill, which led to the village's name, Hopeville.
Hopeville thrived as demand soared for woolens in the mid-19th century, but in 1881, fire destroyed the textile mill, leading to a period of steady decline. Over the next two decades, the original gristmill, a church and four houses also went up in flames.
Today, the most prominent vestige of this era is the Avery House, a two-story home built about 1770. Following restoration, the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986, and now it serves as the park manager's residence.
Meanwhile, the natural waterfall that once powered Hopeville's old mills wound up submerged in 1917, when a dam was built to provide hydroelectric power to mills in Jewett City.
Signs now warn boaters to keep a safe distance from this barrier, so we pulled ashore upriver. Tom exited his kayak, scrambled up a steep bank and began searching for any possible detour. He returned a few minutes later, shaking his head.
“No way,” he said, explaining that the portage would require a miserable hike around fences, through brambles and over jumbled rocks, where a shallow spillway offered limited downriver access.
“Looks like a good place to turn around here and head back,” I said.
With a little more time, preparation and planning — particularly regarding ways to safely avoid the dams — Tom and I hope to return to the Pachaug River one day and paddle the whole way.
Who knows — we might not stop at the Quinebaug … or the Shetucket … or the Thames.