. “In the spring of 1996, I was shown what is known locally as the “Indian Cave.” It’s a little over two miles upriver from the floodplains that were the cornfields used by a band of local Native Americans whom local history documents as living there between 1672/1673 and the early 1700’s. A tributary branch of the river that flows through the floodplain, known as the East Spring (or Sprane) Brook, cuts through a large outcrop of bedrock, creating a zigzag ravine shadowed by hemlocks. Boulders in the stream create many pools, the largest of which was right below “Indian Cave,” before an intense summer thunderstorm caused flooding that filled the pool with stones and debris. I tended to think of it as “Plunge Pool” and imagined people leaving the Pissepunk and jumping into this pool. The “cave” is on the west bank, about six feet above the brook. It bears some resemblance to an overhanging glacial cave, perhaps a very small “rockshelter” in the approximately forty-foot almost vertical rock face. There are no obvious marks of any metal stone cutting tools or drills but I think it possible that it may have been quarried to its present size. From the brook to the floor of the “cave” there appears to be rows of stone piled and even “chinked” or mortared with clay (there was a large deposit of clay a short distance upstream) that still remains deep within this sort of “retaining wall” just beyond the drip line of the overhang. The deep pool below the “cave” seems filled with stones that fell from the wall over time, as if the “cave” itself was walled at one time.” From: https://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2007/01/indian-cave.html
On December 7, 2025, I just happened to re-read a passage from William Cothren’s History of Ancient Woodbury Connecticut that included place names related to the town’s past, including “Tousey” which “lies north-west of William Hayes' house, in the south-east part of Bethlehem, and is so called from a Christian Indian, who lived there for a time. His full name was Hatchet Tousey. A further account of him will be found on page 101.” I don’t know why it took almost thirty years for me to realize that the probable stone sweat lodge or pissepunk known locally as the Indian Cave just below the end of present day Tousi Road was related to Hachett Tousey, the father of famed Paugussett basket maker Molly Hatchett.
History of Ancient Woodbury, Connecticut, from the First ... - Page 852
