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G.O. Snow Letterbox LbNA #62938 (ARCHIVED)

Owner:Everyone Outside
Plant date:Aug 16, 2012
Location: Wadsworth Mansion
City:Middletown
County:Middlesex
State:Connecticut
Boxes:1
Found by: Chrissy
Last found:Apr 3, 2017
Status:FFFFFFFaFFFFFFFFFFam
Last edited:Nov 1, 2016
G.O. Snow Letterbox
Here are the clues to find the G.O. Snow Letterbox. G.O. stands for Girls Outside, which is a program to enable girls spend time outside for fun and learn about the natural world. Girls Outside is one of several Everyone Outside programs and is made possible by dedicated volunteers, a grant from the Middlesex County Community Foundation’s Fund for Women & Girls, and support from the N.M. YMCA and Kids Korner Staff.

The clues for this letterbox are at the beginning of each paragraph. The rest of the paragraph provides some interesting information about the Wadsworth Mansion grounds, but is not required to find the letterbox.

Find your way to the intersection of the Path and White Oak Lane on the grounds of Wadsworth Mansion. If you walk north from the mansion along the entrance road to the mansion, White Oak lane will be on you right. White Oak lane (or the Olmstead Carriage way) is the original grand entrance to the mansion and is lined by white oaks with beautiful walls on either side. Where the wall ends at the east end of White Oak Lane it intersects an old road known as “the path”. The path was a major north/south Indian trail in Algonquin Indian Territory (pre-1675). They used it to travel from what in now New Haven to what is now Hartford, CT. Colonist the Path used as a bridle trail, including for post riders carrying mail. Gunpowder for Revolutionary troops stored in powered house near the path (1776-1780). The path became an early carriage road and then a stagecoach route used by many (including George Washington). You can also take the orange trail (A.K.A. the path) north past the pond (vernal pool) to get to the intersection of White Oak Lane & the Path.

From the intersection, follow the continuation of White Oak Lane to the East and zigzag up the hill. This means you will follow the blue trail up the hill to the east and south. As you walk up the hill notice all the American Beech trees with very smooth bark. Notice that some of them have been carved on. You can tell the older carvings from the more recent ones because the letters have widened with age. As the tree grew larger in diameter (width) the bark must expand too. Why do you think it is a bad idea to carve into a live tree? The bark is the trees skin…bugs can get in and kill the tree if it has holes) Can you guess why people call the trunks of the big beech trees “elephant legs”? Did you know that when the beech leaves first emerge in the spring they are edible…they are soft, not papery like they are most of the year.

When you get to the top of the hill, follow the trail south along the ridge. This hill is known as “Long Hill”. The Wadswoth’s estate is still known as Long Hill Estate. Do you know how “Long Hill” was formed? Long hill is a drumlin. It is made up of glacial till (sediment of a large range of sizes (poorly sorted)) deposited shaped into a streamline north/south hill as the glacier moved over it. As you walk south along the drumlin (long hill) you are walking in the direction that ice flowed. About 20,000 years ago the ice was over ½ mile thick on top of this area.

Walk past many ghostly white trees. These White Birch trees are the “children” of trees planted by Cornel Wadsworth. White Birch trees naturally live further north. They prefer climates colder than what we have in Connecticut. If you find a dead birch log it is fun to pull the bark off. You can write on it like paper. (Please remember not to pull the bark off a live tree. The bark is the trees skin…bugs can get in and kill the tree if it looses its bark).

Stop when you get to where the blue trail heads to the west and down the hill. From this point take 20 big steps or 25 little steps. Find a tree right next to the trail with prominent roots. Look between the roots for your quest.

PLEASE remember to hide the letterbox the way you found it. Please make sure it cannot be see from the trails so that others can enjoy it.

Please do NOT go up on the cement structure south of the letterbox. It is slowly disintegrating and may no longer be safe to stand on. This is the site that the Wadsworths originally planned to put their house. This large cement structure is a cistern. Can you guess why did the Wadsworths decided not to build their home on Long Hill? At the time of the Wadsworths there were no trees on Long Hill. The view must have been superb, but the winds were very tiresome. Do you know how did the mansion got its water? Water was pumped 210 ft up from Laurel Brook west of the mansion to the cistern on top of Long Hill for storage. From there it was gravity fed to the mansion. This meant they had indoor plumbing with flowing water.

You can return to the Mansion by continuing on the blue trail down the hill through some lovely White Pine trees. Just before you head down the hill look for a couple dead trees with some large rectangular holes made by a Pileated Woodpecker. Did you know that woodpeckers have many special adaptations? A woodpecker’s skull has a special design to protect the brain when it hits the tree with great force with its beak. The woodpecker has a special toe arrangement so it can hang on while “hammering”. The woodpecker has a long, narrow tongue it uses to probe, dislodge and extract insects from the hole it drills. The woodpecker tongue can extend 4 – 5 inches.

At the bottom of the hill you will see a vernal pool and Wadswoth Mansion just beyond it. The mansion was built for Colonel Clarence S. Wadsworth and Katherine Hubbard Wadsworth approximately 100 years ago.

If you find a problem with this letterbox, please contact us at info@everyoneoutside.org. For information about fun Everyone Outside hikes and activities visit www.EveryoneOutside.org.

Hike length: 1 mile