The southern Connecticut towns of Wallingford and Durham are separated by the Totoket Mountains. My great-grandfather William E. Hall grew up on the Wallingford side, and my great-grandmother Lydia Jane Hart on the Durham side. At some point before they married in 1863, one of them must have crossed the Totokets by a now unused road and met the other.
My brother has the dried skin from an impressively large rattlesnake killed by an ancestor on one of these trips over the mountain. In a horse and buggy the journey was long and arduous. These days the drive from Whirlwind Hill to Durham Town Center takes about fifteen minutes.
The section of the mountain range that fascinates me is called “Three Notches.” In a letter written in 1944 to his future wife Betty, my uncle Austin tells her about his home and the things he loves:
“When I was a kid I used to be crazy to go out to Mother’s home [his mother was my great-aunt Ellen, my grandfather Ellsworth’s sister] and help them hay and milk. I would ride my bicycle out there every Saturday just to get in the way and watch. That must be a satisfying way of life, farming I mean…There is a range of hills beyond the farm which we love to climb for a picnic lunch…Our favorite spot on the range is called “Three Notches,” and on the highest notch, Mother’s dad [my great-grandfather William E. Hall] has his name chipped into the rock. That’s the highest point of land in Wallingford and you can see for miles around, Long Island Sound on one side and Hartford, the capitol on the other.” – Austin Hart Norton
After my cousin Margy shared this letter with me this spring, I became obsessed with the “Three Notches.” I love a mystery, and for me these mountains always seemed off-limits and mysterious. My mother warned me about unsavory people in that area, and signs around Paug Pond at the foot of the mountains still say “Danger – Quicksand.”
So when I came east this April, my brother and I began looking at maps and reading histories and going to the library to find out more about the routes taken across these mountains by George Washington in 1775 and 1789 and by our grandparents and great-grandparents in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We didn’t get a chance to climb to the top of the Notches on this trip, and we’ve only begun to discover the old routes and roads, but when we learn more I’ll give a full report. How I will ever be able to find that stone with my great-grandfather’s name chipped into it, I have no idea, but I’m determined to try.
“The Three Notches,” Carol Crump Bryner, gouache, 2014
On Monday: Cornelia and the Sea
You’re a history detective too. I’m enjoying your adventure.
Thanks Allen. Glad you are enjoying it.
Carol, I remember hiking on the Three Notches as a kid with my parents (Aus & Betty). We would park our car close to Paug’s Pond, then start our hike (I also remember the quicksand warning signs!). I think we followed the Blue Ridge Trail which I think is a branch of the Appalachian Trail (Mike Foster, Margy, anyone else, am I right about this?). I don’t remember seeing William’s name in the rock, but I do remember the views. We would pack a lunch my mother made which we devoured when we reached the top of the Notches. The hikes were exciting for us kids as we probed ahead of my mother and father, exploring the wild forest, pretending we were the first explorers to visit these hills. Mom and Dad enjoyed the foliage, especially in the fall.
I love hearing about your adventures on Three Notches, Henry. Kirt said he had gone up there on horseback, but I never climbed it. Looking forward to doing it sometime. I think these days one would have to use alot of tick spray first.
I imagine your mom’s lunches were wonderful. She was such a great cook! I think you may be right about the Blue Ridge Trail. I think it’s now part of the Mattabeset trail, but I don’t know about its connection to the Appalachian Trail.
I think it’s fascinating to think about traveling from one place to another and how the route has changed as modes of transportation change. I’m always tempted to veer off the main road on a road that’s called by the same name with an “Old” in front of it. Here in Ohio there’s Route 40 which was the National Road–the main route that people took to the “frontier”, but often there are little stretches of “Old National Road” which parallel it, and of course the next layer, which is Interstate 70.
About Paug Pond and hiking. I remember being VERY frightened and intrigued by the thought of quicksand so near our house and knew very clearly from my parents (no specifics, I just always knew) that the two places I wasn’t supposed to go were near Paug Pond and down Tyler Mill Road. Interesting how those family “myths” start and yet a few generations earlier it sounds like it was THE place to go!!
You’re right. Those roads that say “Old” on them are always so tempting. It is amazing how our parents instilled these fears into us. Especially about Tyler Mill Road, which is now a Wallingford hiking trail. And very beautiful. Paug Pond is still very pretty, but there’s no way to get to it anymore. You just have to look through the fence.
Hi Carol, your colors depicting your hill that now takes 15 minutes are so vibrant. You are going to have to find your grandfather’s name one of these years as you climb that highest notch.
Thanks Netzy. I really do hope to find that hame someday.
such interesting facts to know-I do hope you find the Rock- what a thrill it would be!!
I hope so too Edie!
Is there really quicksand? Any Whirlwindian myths about that? Does the “new” road go through one of the notches? Love that little painting.
Supposedly there is “quicksand,” but none of us has ever ventured in there to find out. One end of the “pond” is definitely swamp land. The new road goes between the mountain and the pond, and it’s hard to figure out exactly where the old one went, because there is now a rifle range and another reservoir at the base of the mountain. But people can walk over the ridge right at the top of the three notches, and that is what we’ll do one of these days.
Carol, the painting is wonderful and captures the presence that the Notches have. I never understood why they were the “Three Notches” as they are so clearly peaks. Anyway, you have hit another sweet spot in my memories of Whirlwind Hill and its surrounds. The sun came up for us from behind that ridge every morning. Dave and I hiked it, including the Notches, many, many times and camped up there at least once (and Dave many more times than I). I never heard the stories about unsavory types in the area (maybe it was us?) but there was a cabin on the ridge near the southernmost Notch. When I was young it was in good condition: one room with a nice stone fireplace and a sleeping loft above as I remember it. As the years went by, vandals and the weather took their toll and it became derelict and dangerous. At some point it was demolished and I don’t think there are even the remains of the hearth at this point. I never did hear who had built it. The views from the sheer face of the cliffs at the Notches is indeed spectacular. I used to look out over the farmland owned by the Kapaczewski’s (? sp.), that of the Bartholomew brothers (and then the Cellas) and the apple orchards of the Youngs. The land for our house had been cut from the Bartholomew’s holdings and our little white cottage and small red barn were easy to see from up there. It was fun to dream about the lives that had gone before and what that view must have been like for the early settlers and the Indians who were there before that. There were indeed initials and names carved into the rocks, but I can’t recall specific names or dates. I never saw a rattler though we were warned to be on the lookout for them sunning themselves on the rocks. I did nearly step on a copperhead once up there that nearly scared me to death.
I don’t remember seeing the signs for the quicksand but heard about them and got the warnings from my parents. There was a story about a horse and buggy going off the road there some time in the hazy past. The passengers were able to get to shore but the horse and wagon could not be saved and slowly sank in the mire. I am sure there have been embellishments over the years, but there may be some truth to it. I also remember the sweet water that ran from a pipe cross the street from the quicksand bog, piped from some hidden spring. We looked forward to a cold, refreshing drink when riding our bikes out there to go hiking on a hot summer day. The blue trial crossed the road just beyond that, heading north up the ridge toward the notches and the trap rock quarry, and south toward Northford. I am sure the trail is part of a larger system, but don’t think it belongs to the Appalachian Trail proper.
Let me know if you are mounting a Three Notches expedition. I haven’t been up there in twenty-five years or more and would love to match my fading memories to the present day reality.
I love getting all these memories, and so much extra information about the Three Notches. I, too, always wondered about why it was three notches when there are clearly only two. My brother also mentioned to me the old cabin. We were constantly warned about copperheads when we were growing up, and I still have a fear of stone walls for that reason.
I will definitely let you know if we’re going on an expedition. It would be so interesting. And the views from there must be wonderful.
Thanks, Mike!
Regarding Mike’s comment regarding why the name “Three Notches”, indeed, why did our ancestors focus on the gaps between the peaks instead of the heights which is how we normally name hills and mountains. Were they more focused on how to get around them?
Carol, I appreciate your reply to my comment. If you would like to take a walk to Three Notches someday i would be glad to show you great- grandfathers initials as well as another set that was found on a boulder given to me by Eddie Cella. Pehaps you have already found them on the moutain if you were brave enough to go where they are.
Thanks, Dean. I haven’t been brave enough yet, so maybe someday I’ll go up there and would love company. I have to admit that the biggest deterrent for me are ticks!
Let me know when you’re going and I will tag along. I went up a few weeks ago, prompted by these posts, and found it disorienting. Some of the vistas along the trail were very familiar, others not at all. It’s strange how our memories are not indelible snapshots, but are affected by our focus at the time and our intervening experiences. I remember the carved initials but didn’t find them on the last walk. I would be very glad to see them again.
Our memories do play tricks on us. It’s interesting that you went up so recently. It will be spring at the earliest that I get there. We should all go on a big picnic (and take lots of tick spray). Do you think there are more trees there now? Since I’ve never been I have nothing to compare it to.
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