PAX Letterbox - information (see next entry for clues)

I placed my first letterbox today: PAX, at Turner’s Pond in Milton, Mass.

Please come visit. Stamp your logbook and leave your stamped sign in the little box in the letterbox. There is one more treat in this letterbox. I have put a small paperback book in the box. If you bring another book, you are welcome to take the one in the box. Regular paperback size books will fit fine.

Turner’s Pond is very accessible... Easy walking - no hills. Probably accessible with motorized wheelchair or cart. Kid friendly, pet friendly, bicycle friendly. Beautiful plantings of native plants - a lovely setting.

Bicycle/Walking: Cycling route around Turner’s Pond, a half-mile loop. Links to the Neponset River Greenway bike route.

Public Transit: You can use a number of MBTA buses to reach Turner’s Pond by public transit. See the map at this link and zoom in on Turner’s Pond to see the bus routes that go past.

Easy to reach by car, with parking at either end. The parking lot on Central is gravel, and is currently in good shape. In the past, it has gotten rutted and I have had a car stuck there in winter once. The lot is on Central in Milton, MA, just opposite Hinckley Road. The pond is visible from the road and this lot has a sign for the Pond as well. The Central entrance is the starting place, so use this lot.

Be aware that the area is heavily used around 8:30 - 9 AM and again 2:30 - 3 PM to drop off and pick up students at the nearby Glover Elementary school. Traffic can be a bit hairy along nearby Brook Road at those time, as well, with school buses and parents, pedestrians and crossing guards all busy. Lots of walkers, too, so guard against discovery!

The Pond is beautiful, and you might want to walk the loop path (1/2 mile) while you are there. If you are in a wheelchair, beware that the path beyond the letterbox location has lumpy roots, but not much hill. It might get muddy on the trail beyond the letterbox location in winter, or after lots of rain.

Lagniappe (a little something extra):
History:
During the 1800's, harvesting ice from New England’s ponds became big business. Farmers and laborers cut ice and stored it in sawdust. Some was used locally to cool dairy products and such. But ice became big business as well. The “Ice King,” Frederick Tudor, of Boston, shipped ice all over the world, as far as India, the Philippines and Singapore. The ice shipped at very favorable rates as otherwise, ships traveled empty from America to the east to import Asian goods to the west, or to the southern states and Caribbean to import cotton and rum to New England. See Harvard Business School’s site and this blog from India discussing the history and book, The Frozen-Water Trade: A true story, by Gavin Weightman.

As ice became more valuable, Jacob Turner found it worth while to dam a brook in a wetland area of Milton, to create a shallow ice pond. He built an ice house and harvested the ice that formed each winter in the 1-2 foot deep pond. (See Turner’s Pond Quest developed by Janet MacNeill for the Milton Historical Society. You might want to try her quest while you are there.

More recently, the pond was deepened and stocked with fish. There is still a brook that passes along the side of the pond, and into which the pond feeds. Several years ago, a family of coyotes denned at Turner’s Pond, producing a litter, and preying on neighborhood cats and small dogs, as well as the garbage from Glover School. The coyotes left when Glover School underwent an extensive renovation, and heavy machinery moved lots of dirt and destroyed a number of trees in the area of the den. Janet MacNeill oversaw the creation of Schoolyard Habitats, beginning with Glover School. The school is planted with native plants and school lessons can be planned to take advantage of the setting.

Turner’s Pond also includes a science experiment disguised as a swan. See this link from U-Mass, Boston for info and a link to a Boston Globe story about the partnership between the University and Milton school children developing the swan and its monitoring equipment.