The First Bridge to the Second Fireplace
One item of interest that can be seen shortly after passing the little bridge near the Dutcher Street entrance road/main road intersection, are the hornbeams. They may grow elsewhere in Hopedale, but this is the only place in town I've seen them. There are a few of them on each side of the road, a short distance before the shortcut. (The shortcut is the road that goes off to the right, up a small hill, and rejoins the main road a couple of hundred yards away. The main road stays closer to the pond.) The hornbeams are only about six inches in diameter and probably not more than twenty feet tall. The interesting thing about them is that the trunks have the appearance of a bodybuilding champ. Trees with muscular definition, you might say.
Following the main road, about a hundred yards beyond the shortcut, is a path to the left which goes up a small hill. It leads to a picnic area. This area was added in 1957. By that time, the picnic areas already established were know as the First, Second, and Third fireplaces, (and I think every kid in town years ago knew these names and where they were) so this one coming between the first and the second sort of confuses the matter. I'll stick to the old names and refer to this one as "that other picnic area on the hill."
Just a short distance further on, you can walk off to the left and go out to the middle of a narrow part of the pond on a little peninsula. I used to think that this was the remains of a dam constructed as part of the pond dredging project that was done in 1949, but a 1913 Parklands map convinced me that I was wrong about that. A pair of dotted lines cross the pond at that location on the map, with the caption, "Site of Cutler Bridge." The "peninsula" must have been the approach to the bridge. Evidently the bridge was gone by 1913. It may have been part of a pre-Parklands route from one side of the pond to the other. Click here to see an aerial photo of the area taken when the pond was drained for dredging. (The bottom picture of the four dredging photos is the one that shows the Cutler Bridge area.)
Along this part of the Parklands, described above, you can find false Solomon's seal, Canada Mayflower, skunk cabbage, starflower and multiflora rose. No matter where you go, you don't seem to be out of sight of poison ivy.
Continuing along on the road, you'll eventually reach the first point on the next page, the Second Fireplace.
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