Sunday, June 21, 2015

Obed's Hammock and Clam Gardens


So I’m thinking “Are there any CT clam Gardens??
So suddenly I’m thinking of the Menunketeset River in Westbrook CT where I spent not enough time every year “hunting and gathering” Blue Crabs.
(Westbrook CT above, Pot Hook Creek below.)

So I go to those aerial views I can find, see how they compare to the Clam Gardens of Pot Hook Creek, to see if there are any visual similarities.

      And I think, “Well, maybe. Maybe those just might be something like that,” up the river from the Village once known as the Hawk’s Nest, maybe sometimes called Obed’s Hammock or maybe just confused with another place in Saybrook and I get lost a little trying to “Google it down:”

    "The quarter was set aside to provide farm and pastureland to residents of Saybrook Point. Permanent settlement soon followed. The area became known as Pochough, a Mohegan word meaning "at the confluence of two rivers,'' the Pochoug and the Menunketesuck rivers, home of Chief Obed and his tribe. The area has long been home to Native Americans, and a large village was at Hawk's Nest, now known as Pilot's Point..."  http://www.courant.com/hc-ot-westbrook-htmlstory.html
The Gages: http://www.stonestructures.org/html/pilots-point-stone-mounds.html


     But I get back to those images, and I move around in location - and in time, as my friend d.c. in Delaware sometimes does and has shown me how.
Or go to 1934:

Look for yourself up close: http://binged.it/1fqoyyb
And feel free to move in and zoom around.
And I’m still thinking maybe.
And I’m thinking “Could I get in there with a canoe or a kayak and sort of look around?”
And I’m thinking of all that stonework all around there on the dryland above those salt marshes, trying to recall if I’ve ever seen any extending into the salt marshes, wondering if there just might be some clam gardens in there.
Especially in the National Wildlife Refuge:
McKinney Sea Turtle?

    “Why not?” I’m thinking, despite all the dredging in the river and all the mosquito channels in the salt marshes - and the next terrace or two above the marshes where some pretty good examples of Indigenous stonework remains if you have the eyes to see it…




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