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Yarmouth Historical Society Trails

Location
This walk is located just south of the Yarmouth Post Office, off Route 6A. Follow Route 6 to Exit 7. At the end of the off-ramp turn right and follow Willow Street 1.2 miles to the T-junction with Route 6A. Turn right onto Route 6A and follow it .6 miles. Turn right just before the Yarmouth Port Post Office onto the paved driveway marked "Yarmouth Historical Society & Nature Trails" and park near the gatehouse.

Description
These lovely trails are located on land that was originally owned by Anthony Thacher, one of Yarmouth's first three European settlers who began cultivating the property as early as 1639. An easy walk, this route includes just a few hills and consists of two overlapping trails, the "Main Trail" and the "Pond Trail." The former runs past the quaint Kelley Chapel, while the latter offers scenic views of Miller Pond and skirts the Yarmouth railroad tracks and Woodside Cemetary. The trail also starts near the lovely Bangs Hallet House, home of Yarmouth Historical Society.

Thoreau
When Thoreau came to Yarmouth in 1857, he stopped less than a mile from these trails at the Yarmouth Railroad Depot and asked for directions for walking to "Friends Village" (also called Quaker Village"), which was then located in South Yarmouth near Bass River. The author was frustrated, however, when a stagecoach driver at the station provided him with directions along the Old Kings Highway (today's Route 6A), right through the center of Yarmouth Port. Thoreau complained in his journal:

Thus it is commonly; the landlords and stage-drivers are bent on making you walk the whole length of their main street first wherever you are going. They know no road but such as is fit for a coach and four. I looked despairingly at this straggling village [Yarmouth Port] whose street I must run the gauntlet of- so much time and distance lost. I have found the compass and chart safer guides than the inhabitants, though the latter universally abuse the maps I do not love to go through a village street any more than a cottage yard. I feel that I am there only by sufferance; but I love to go by the villages by my own road, seeing them from one side, as I do theoretically. When I go through a village, my legs ache at the prospect of the hard gravelled walk. I go by the tavern with its porch full of gazers, and meet a miss taking a walk or the doctor in his sulky, and for half an hour I feel as strange as if I were in a town in China; but soon I am at home in the wide world again, and my feet rebound from the yielding turf.

According to his journal, Thoreau followed Old Kings Highway just past the site of today's Yarmouth Port Post Office before heading south onto today's Strawberry Lane, which runs directly adjacent to the Yarmouth Historical Society trails.

The Trail
The trailhead to this walk is located just behind the Historical Society gatehouse. The Society requests a 50-cent donation for adults and 25-cent donation for children be placed in the slot by the gatehouse door. Trail guides are available and include a numbered plant identification system. Benches are also located along the trail for rest in while enjoying the woods.

Just a few hundred feet past the gatehouse the trail comes to a fork. Follow the arrow on the stone marker and take the path to the left.

After turning left at the fork continue along the Main Trail. On your way you will encounter Eastern white pines, Eastern red cedars, apple trees, bayberry, cherry, sumac, honeysuckle, and, of course, pitch pine.

When you arrive at the next fork, proceed to your left and continue onto the Pond Trail. NOTE: Just after turning onto the Pond Trail, the path bends hard to the right.