My friend dc sent me an email that simply says:
"A BING MAPS
capture close to Peppercorn Hill, Peter's latest post."
So I take a look at it, thinking, "Now that's a Cool Capture (as I take a digital photo of the screen):
So I'm pondering this and that about what I see, opening up every Rock Pile Entry that says "Peppercorn Hill," and turning the image around in the Bing Bird's Eye View:
I was also moving around to see other rows of stones right around there:
I decide to look around, try to figure out why it's called Peppercorn Hill, find a bunch of this and that like, maybe some Indian Place Names as clues to land use, discovering that:
"The name (of nearby Lake) Maspenock comes from the Nipmuc dialect of Eastern
Algonquin, and is written as MASSIBENOKIK, which means, 'The Waters At The Base
Of The Great Hill', a direct reference to the steep rise of Peppercorn Hill on
the shoreline in Upton (although elsewhere on the site I find: “Lake Maspenock”
literally means, choice fishing place or nexcellent (sp) fish pond.).
In its original and natural state as shown on an 1831 map of
Hopkinton, the lake probably had 30 or 40 acres of surface area, which made it
a Great Pond. The fact that the surface area of Lake Maspenock is considerably greater
that the natural pond was due to the construction of a dam at it's southern tip
in 1833 or 1834 and it being raised to its present height in 1901-seven feet
higher than the dam that was here in 1833…A dam at the southern end of the lake
is indicated on town maps published as early as 1794 and it is believed that this
was the site of one of the earliest mills constructed in colonial times (hardly a "natural state," but I let that go by, for History's sake)." - http://www.lmpa.org/about-lmpa/history/
As I tickle Google with word choices, I finally find a fragment of a PDF that says in the description: "Parts of Peppercorn Hill , where you will be hiking, are
privately owned, so ... --Peppercorn Hill is not Upton's highest point. Pratt
Hill is 595 ... ---Several Indian Caves Can be found in the rocky area near the
swamp."
So I attempt a time or two to open this up{ http://hopnews.com/
and a "Did You Know" text
plus legend for the numbers (that looks best in a new window):
- and I think there's a couple smoking guns in here about who just might have made some of the stone constructions as I read: "Peppercorn is really "peck of corn," as in the Indians
traded the land (or made a treaty to share usage of the land as they
traditionally had been doing for a long time) for a peck of corn. There are
Cranberry bogs (telling me just what some of those resource zones maintained by Indians I was pondering about just might be) and of course I rather like the fact that the "Mr.
Turtle" Rock Formation is the clue that you are by the Indian Caves!!!"
And when it says #3 and #8 on the map are the "old Indian settlements," I wonder what people more familiar with the area might be able to tell me about that...
Oh: I also found something new to me, a site called Peakery {http://peakery.com/peppercorn-hill/} with an interesting sort of 3D kind of topo map:
A little more: http://www.mountainproject.com/v/peppercorn-hill/106903756
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