Up to Potter Hill and the Mystery Bridge

I put in on the Pawcatuck using a rough access near the Gingerella Sports Complex. The plan is to paddle 4 miles upstream to the Potter Hill Dam, checking off another section of Pawcatuck. 

Below this put-in is a section of whitewater where an old mill dam was removed. It can be paddled downstream, but I have no idea if it is reasonably passable going upstream. I leave that for a later date. Even here, the current is fairly quick. I put in and hug the shore as I head upstream. It's not as bad as it looks.

The usual method of ascending - heading for shallow slower water on the insides of the bends doesn't work on this river. Clearly, the bottom geology has a different idea. The river bottom is a series of gravel bars and rocky shelves and it takes a little reading of the water to find the easy path. The half mile takes about a half hour and requires a bit of wading and a few boulder hops to get past some fast water. But, after that the space between fast sections gets longer and easier and about a mile up it becomes pretty easy paddling with a minimal current. Great Blue Herons appear on a regular schedule - to me, they always seem to be territorial in feeding keeping a quarter mile or so to themselves. There is also an occasional Osprey and several Kingfishers.

This section of the river is forest with no significant attached marshland. There is some farmland on the north shore, but except for one pasture, it is atop a fifty foot high forested hillside - not only unseen, but also buffered from the river. The other side (river-left) is all forest and only once does a road come near. All in all, it's has a wild feel. The only people I see are two fishermen near the bridge at Boombridge Road.

The Post Office Lane Bridge

Potter Hill comes a bit quicker than I expected. I recognize Post Office Lane, a bit of state owned access land. I did not know that there was a bridge at Post Office Lane. It is a curious structure. The foundations are stone and I would not be surprised if there had been a covered bridge here at one time. But, now there is a concrete deck on steel I-beams with wood cross bars underneath and a concrete central pillar. It looks like about four generations of various bridge building techniques cobbled together without any plan other than "make it work". It is a narrow one lane width with nothing other than a three inch high curb to keep you from falling fifteen feet into the river.  I do some map research when I get home, and the bridge does not show on the 1889 or 1921 topographic maps. The first time it shows on a map is 1953 USGS topo, and every bit of this bridge predates that, for sure. The 2001 map shows a pond on river-right with the road passing through...the pond is not there anymore, and satellite photos from the time don't show it either. And, it is an interstate bridge, connecting Rhode Island and Connecticut. At least the name, Post Office Lane, has a reason as there was a post office here at one time.

The Potter Hill Dam

I paddle up past the bridge riddle. I find an old riverside trash burn and recover three bottles that I might get a date from. Next, I turn the bend and start seeing the remains of the Potter Hill Mill. 

The first mill on this site was built in the 1760's. In the early 1800's it was converted from a grist mill to textiles and operated until 1958.

The return is a very pleasant paddle with the quick water at the end being easy to navigate in the downstream direction.