Where Time Stood Still in Worcester County

For our last trip before the Labor Day weekend, we ventured out to Moore State Park in Paxton, http://www.mass.gov/dcr/parks/central/more.htm which is a small town in Worcester County.  After parking our car in the lot, we headed out on the Healthy Heart Trail, which after about ten minutes, brought us out to the "Artist Overlook".  And an overlook it certainly was!  Looking up the stream was a series of waterfalls leading from an old sawmill.  In the 1800's, this was a mill village, complete with a swamill, gristmill, tavern, school house, blacksmith's house, and the mill owner's house.  The sawmill is the only house that is still standing, and it has the distinction of being one of the original sawmills in New England that is on the spot where it was originally built.   There are foundations of the other buildings scattered throughout the park.   Heading upstream of Turkey Hill Brook, there is a series of ponds and waterfalls that lead down from Eames Pond.  When we got to the pond, there was a beautiful structure, called Enchanta Bridge that had chairs for people to sit and look out over the beautiful pond.

There were many trails throughout this state park, but the 90 degree temperatures did not make it a day where you really wanted to keep walking.  According to the maphttp://www.mass.gov/dcr/parks/trails/print/Moore.pdf, there is also a bird sanctuary on the park property as well.  This was a wonderful way to spend our afternoon in Worcester County and I would highly recommend it if you would like to travel back in time.