Preservation has saved a part of Glocester's history. These trails will show you.

GLOCESTER – Rhode Islanders have done an impressive job protecting tens of thousands of acres of public land across the state where hikers, dog walkers, trail runners and others can explore the best of the outdoors.

And they’re not done yet. The state, land trusts, towns and nonprofit groups recently announced the preservation of 383 more acres of forest, farmland and riverfront property.

Besides the land acquisitions, volunteers in preserves continue to add new trails through woodlands, natural habitats and historic sites.

I found a great example in the Klutz Woodland at the southern end of the Sprague Farm Town Forest, a 1,200-acre sanctuary where the Glocester Land Trust has been adding trails since 1990.

Several years ago, Roy Najecki, a trailblazer and the land trust’s treasurer, began shaping the Klutz Trail. He and other volunteers cleared thickets, painted blazes on trees to mark the path and cut out and dug out  “toe catchers,” which are roots, stumps and rocks in the path. The new trail is now an easy walk in the woods that also has exposed some early history, including an unusual 25-foot stone chimney in the foundation of a farmhouse.

It all makes for an interesting hike.

To reach the trailhead, a few hiking buddies and I drove down Joe Sweet Road, which is lined with thick stands of trees and wetlands and marked with black and yellow “Wildlife Crossing”  signs to warn motorists of the turtles that cross the road.

From a kiosk at a small dirt lot that once had been planned for a house before being acquired by the land trust, we set out west on an old logging road, part of the trail named for the late Dr. William Klutz and Lydia Klutz, who owned part of the land. Their daughter, the late Andrea Keating, donated the parcel to the trust.

The path soon rises gently through dense mountain laurel, which will bloom with white flowers in June, before leveling off on a ridge with some dead oaks – victims of the gypsy moth infestation a few years ago.

After descending through a pine forest, the trail reaches a junction with a green-blazed trail that will take you through unusual striped maple trees. But we turned left to follow a red-blazed loop through a second-growth forest on land cleared for pastures years ago.

Stone walls, chimneys reveal history

We passed a line of stone walls – some of about five miles of stone walls in the preserve that were built from 1775-1825 to set property boundaries and form paddocks for sheep and cattle. Najecki said that while cutting the trail, he also found barbed wire strung between trees to fence off sections of the land.

As the trail turned right, we spotted to the south a tall, crumbling chimney surrounded by a stone foundation. I’ve seen many chimneys in the woods, but the height of this one was unusual. Najecki told me that it was built to heat a two-story farmhouse and has openings at different levels of the chimney to heat rooms on several floors.

The J. Moffit and Angell families may have lived in the house while farming there from the 1860s to the 1880s. Najecki said they are not listed on town land ownership records, though, and may have leased the land.

Behind the house foundation, we found stone-lined cavities in the ground that may have been root cellars.

Returning to the red-blazed loop, we followed it to a junction with the green-blazed trail, turned left and headed west on the Klutz Trail as it ran along the base of a high rocky ridgeline.

The path intersected with the purple-blazed Coleman Trail, named for Thomas Coleman, a land donor, and we took the footpath on the left for a short distance to unpaved Elbow Rock Road. Just across the road are old cellar holes for Joe Sweet’s house and farm, which dates to the 1880s.

Rhode Island’s Stonehenge or just a corn crib?

Nearby, there is a curious set of six stone pillars in three lines several feet above the ground. What looks like Rhode Island’s Stonehenge was actually the support for the floor of a corn crib or granary, where farmers stored crops to air and dry before hauling them to market. The wooden floor and roof are long gone.

I also found rusted buckets and pieces of metal, perhaps the remains of farm equipment.

We returned to Elbow Rock Road, which was muddy and pocked with pools of standing water. We walked northwest and at a fork picked up the yellow-blazed Haystack Hill Trail, which ran up a long grade and passed the end of the Klutz Trail on the right. The old farm lane crossed a stone slab bridge that once carried heavy farm wagons over a tributary of Shingle Mill Brook.

Just ahead on a rise on the right are cellar holes, two capped wellheads and the foundation of a barn at the Smith and Adah Sprague Farmstead. They lived there in the mid-1800s and were the third generation of Spragues to farm the land.

After studying the remains, we took the blue-blazed John’s Ridge Trail, which crossed wetlands and the edge of an Atlantic White Cedar swamp, once called the Chepachet Swamp. The trail led to the orange-blazed Col. Anthony Trail, named for Col. Anthony Sprague, a farmer and officer in the local militia.

Sprague’s ancestors first migrated here in the 1600s, and over the centuries the elders set aside plots of their land for their children and relatives. The result was a large farming community.

The orange-blazed trail followed a ridgeline until it dipped down to a stream where we rock-hopped over the rushing water. Najecki said the land trust plans to build a bridge there.

Just ahead on the right is a sedge fen, a 5-acre area of peat-forming wetland that is fed by groundwater.

Continuing on, we reached the white-blazed Sprague Trail, the main path in the preserve, and turned right to pass the cellar hole for the homestead of George Sprague, who was Smith Sprague’s brother, and his wife, Sarah. The site includes the huge base of a chimney and smaller foundations for what were once tool sheds, workers’ quarters and a barn.

Past the remains, we picked up the green-blazed trail,  walked south to the Klutz Trail and took it back to where we started.

In all, we walked 4 miles over 2 hours.

A network of trails that keeps growing

The network of trails at Sprague Farm Town Forest have been added year after year since the Glocester Land Trust took over the land.

There’s always more to do, said Najecki.

He and his crew are currently completing the Mountain Laurel, Desnoyers and Woodward Rock trails in the northwest corner of the preserve.

I’ll have to head back to hike those and to try to keep up with all the new trailblazing being done at Sprague.

ACCESS: From Route 44 in Chepachet, take Chestnut Hill Road west to Pine Orchard Road. Turn left on Joe Sweet Road.

PARKING: Available at the trailhead.

DOGS: Allowed, under owner’s control by voice or leash.

DIFFICULTY: Easy to moderate, with some hills and ridges.

GPS COORDINATES: 41.90652, -71.0368

John Kostrzewa’s book, “Walking Rhode Island: 40 Hikes for Nature and History Lovers with Pictures, GPS Coordinates and Trail Maps,” is available at local booksellers and at Amazon.com. He’ll sell and sign books after the following presentations:

Thursday, June 13: Rhode Island Night, with Martin Podskoch, author of “Rhode Island Civilian Conservation Corps Camps,” sponsored by the Association of Rhode Island Authors at Borealis Coffee Company, Bristol, 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Tuesday, June 18: North Kingstown Free Library, 6:30 p.m.

RI conservation projects, funding and purpose

The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management has awarded $2.6 million in matching grants to protect 383 acres of public land in 11 communities. The funding comes from the 2022 Green Bond approved by voters.

The grant winners, the amount and the projects are:

Town of Burrillville: $54,500 to acquire 6.5 acres of forestland along the Pascoag Rail Trail that includes a wellhead-protection area, a watershed and a tributary of the Clear River.

Aquidneck Land Trust: $400,000 to acquire farmland in Portsmouth, including prime soils that will be kept in agricultural use with designated habitat areas.

Audubon Society of Rhode Island: $20,500 to acquire 36 acres of core forestland in Coventry east of Fairbanks Corner. The property abuts Audubon’s 75-acre Perched Boulder Woodlands and contains a coniferous wetland complex supporting stands of middle-aged eastern hemlock.

City of Pawtucket – Riverside Burial Society: $250,000 to acquire 4 acres along the Seekonk River south of Tidewater Landing. The property is an undeveloped portion of the Victorian-era Riverside Cemetery, just north of Providence’s Swan Point Cemetery.

South Kingstown Land Trust: $300,000 to acquire a Conservation Easement over 10 acres of the historic Kinney Azalea Gardens in Kingston, which includes 500 varieties of azaleas.

Westerly Land Trust: $400,000 to acquire 90 acres of farmland and forestland containing more than 1,000 feet of frontage on the Pawcatuck  River.

The Nature Conservancy: $185,000 to acquire 25 acres of core forestland in Hopkinton contiguous with Rockville Management Area and Canonchet Brook Preserve.

Town of Smithfield: $117,500 grant to acquire 3 acres across from Whipple Ave south of Georgiaville Pond. The acquisition will expand trailhead access to Smithfield Land Trust’s Olivia’s Woods Preserve and protect riparian land along Whipple Brook east of its confluence with the Woonasquatucket River.

Town of Bristol: $400,000 to acquire 120 acres on Tower Street that is slated to become the Mount Hope Community Forest and will protect a site of Native American history.

Westerly Land Trust: $87,500 to acquire 4.6 acres along the Pawcatuck River abutting the Riverwood Preserve and including a paddle craft launch on the Pawcatuck River.

South Kingstown Land Trust: $400,000 to acquire 34 acres along the South County Bike Path contiguous with DEM’s Great Swamp Management Area and with more than 500 feet of frontage on White Horn Brook upstream of the Chipuxet River.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Klutz Woodland trails put Glocester's history on display for hikers