Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Bear's Den in New Salem, MA - from a NEARA member

[Used with permission from the NEARA yahoo group] Kevin writes:
Has anyone else been to the Trustees of the Reservation site named Bear's Den in New Salem? I noticed several things when hiking there last weekend. There is a waterfall and pool below it in a somewhat steep ravine.Looking out over the waterfall is a constructed platform with two small retaining walls made with very angular stone (Very different than the mill foundation in the vicinity which has typical rectangular block construction). Additionally the cliff face west of the waterfall has two or three narrow excavations in it about as wide as a person. It looks like possibly a quartz vein that was dug out and I could actually climb nearly ten feet back into the excavated vein. What makes this site even more interesting is that about a half mile to mile to the southeast is several cairn sites located along Route 202 west of the Quabbin [see here - Ed.]. Then about a half mile upstream to the west is a chamber ( I believe it was visited during the Northampton, Ma conference). Would love to hear of anyone else's thoughts on this, especially if they have visited the site.

4 comments :

pwax said...

It fits well within an assumption of Native American reverence for such spots.

Unknown said...

Hi there I visited the waterfall area today and hiked about 1/3 of a mile west and explored the woods.i came across a quite interesting Stonewall structure that almost made me think it was on all the bridge. However I was unable to find the chamber and plan on going back soon to explore more. I also was taking electromagnetic and electric field readings. I research electromagnetic and electric fields at Old Stone sites especially Chambers. It is to be noted that my instruments were at one point pegged out and I actually have never had that happen before. I was getting on overload reading along the Stream just passed or next to that stone structure I spoke of. Fascinating and beautiful place

Unknown said...

I too measure electromagnetic readings at Stone sites especially Chambers and my instruments were pegged out at a bend in the river approximately 1/3 of a mile up from the waterfall..Fascinating

Anonymous said...

They ran a sluice box from the top of the falls right across through the cut in the rock which is the path where you enter the falls area, down to the mill which lines up on the other side.

Nobody dug those caves. I grew up here. They used to stock Brook Trout. And the root cellar is a root cellar not some druid site. There's a cellar hole along the road right there