Send in your guess identifying the May “Can You Guess The Location?” mystery Middlebury Land Trust property. (Janine Sullivan-Wiley photo)
By JANINE SULLIVAN-WILEY
Congratulations to Anne Marie Niesobecki, the first person to correctly identify April’s mystery photo as Sperry Pond. Also correct, and the first to respond to the online edition, was John Kotchian. Well done! The trail in the photo is actually not the main trail leading in, but the trail on the western edge of the pond area, facing south, along a similar flat and needle-carpeted stretch.
While probably everyone in Middlebury has seen Sperry Pond, not everyone knows it is a Middlebury Land Trust (MLT) property open to the public for passive recreation. Its entrance on the west side of Route 63, a half mile north of Park Road, is flanked by two stone pillars. The full property that includes Sperry Pond is called Juniper Hill and encompasses over 130 acres; an adjacent piece (the Fairhaven tract) has 11 acres. One of the earlier properties acquired by the MLT by way of the Nature Conservancy (the MLT did not yet exist), it was donated by Leavenworth “Lem” Sperry and his brother, Mark Sperry.
The main trail starts at the entrance and curves north along the pond and the earthen dam on the right. There also is a smaller trail that branches off to the south through more wetlands. The main trail is fairly level and smooth, making for a comfortable walk for many people.
To get some background on the tract, this writer spoke with Lem Sperry on the telephone and learned a lot of its fascinating history. It was acquired around 1900 by his grandfather, Joseph Richard Smith. He remembered many years there as a boy, when they swam in the pond created by the dike in what started as a swamp. These many decades later, it seems headed back to that state.
It was called Juniper Hill because of the large junipers along what was then the driveway and is now the entrance. At that time his family had a rustic cabin near the bend in the trail. The fireplace can still be found there. They would swim in the pond, which Sperry recalled as full of leeches and snakes as well as fish.
From a small rowboat, they caught even smaller bullheads. Not more than bite-size, they were returned to the pond to await the next lucky angler. In winter they would skate on the pond – clearer and deeper then – and then warm by the fireplace in the cabin. Their only water was what they lugged in buckets from a spring in the woods.
We discussed the wildlife of Juniper Hill. The change that has taken place in that ecosystem over the last century is striking. When Lem was a boy, snakes of various kinds (some black, some green, with the very rare copperhead), frogs and toads were plentiful. He recalled seeing partridge and pheasants, and the pond had a lively population of muskrats that kept making holes in the dike.
None of those animals are likely to be seen today, and those we might find now – deer, coyotes, beavers and turkeys – were not present then. The trees that are now large were young and small, many saplings, as earlier even than his grandfather’s time the trees had been cut down to make charcoal. It was his grandfather who planted the towering white pines that grace the side of the back trail and carpet it with their needles.
Today, the pond, the abundant wetlands, and dry, wooded uplands with trails both open and rustic are a peaceful place to walk, relax, and observe the new succession of wildlife, birds and plant life. As with all MLT properties, passive forms of recreation are permitted. Please use caution when pulling into the small area in front of the gate.
Next month’s mystery location may be the easiest yet to recognize. As before, email your best guess to mbisubmit@gmail.com, and please put “Guess the location” in the subject line. If you missed any of the previous “Spotlight” articles, they can be found on the Bee’s website, www.bee-news.com, or their Facebook page. Next month, we will name the correct email respondents; the first respondent is the winner.
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