Travel News

Choose some destination that will provide exercise for body and imagination as well, and kids will have a great day. Ask three of my grandkids, Shawn, Muffin and Nathan. They gave a recent trek to King Philip’s Rock high marks in the fun department. Gram also gave the outing a high score as a good way to amuse youngsters on a spring vacation day.

Shawn had been there with me before, but a second- or a third- time around is still fun. For the others, it was a new experience. Potential excitement waited beyond every curve in the road: When would we ever see the rock? Meanwhile, Indians lurked behind each tree, ready to surprise our party.

Any walk in the woods is pleasant this time of year. The air is soft and fresh, if you’ve picked a good day, and sunlight dances through the trees. You can look at least for some of the early spring blossoms, hepatica and early saxifrage and spring beauty (claytonia). I have to admit that last week, the kids’ finds were mostly restricted to “pretty stones.” There was no dearth of those. Everyone was loaded down with a generous supply in backpacks and pockets before the hike was done.

LEGEND OF ROCK

Legend surrounds the massive King Philip’s Rock in the southern part of Winchendon. Sometimes called Indian Rock, it was commonly reported as a camping spot for native American tribes, especially the Wampanoags led by Massasoit’s son Philip. Some tales expanded on that, identifying the boulder as one of the nighttime stopovers for Lancaster resident Mary Rowlandson and her Indian captors before she was redeemed at Princeton.

Some documentation for Indian Rock is seen in Elbridge Kingsley’s “Picturesque Worcester: Part II – North,” published nearly a hundred years ago. The “protected camping place” by the large rock was “undoubtedly used in many a rendezvous and council fire of the Indians,” Kingsley stated. “Arrowheads and stone implements have been dug up beside it, proving its use as an encampment.”

POPULAR PICNIC SPOT

The stories about King Philip’s Rock and the route to its remote location were better known when I was a kid than they are now. When a friend of mine was a youngster, she and some other members of her family snowshoed to the rock for a winter picnic.

About 30 years ago the late Hosea Sargent, then in his 90s, told of having frequently driven a local livery wagon filled with young people to Indian Rock. With Millers River flowing close by, it was a popular picnic spot. In an aged newspaper account pasted into a scrapbook, I read that arrowheads were once dug up by the bushel basketful in the vicinity of the rock.

With the passage of years, fewer people remember the lore and fewer still know where to find the rock. Little is done to promote this picturesque chunk of history. A long missing sign just off Goodnow Road has been replaced, but then the route is barricaded to vehicles. Most of the way must be made on foot, and when you get to a crossroads, there is no sign to tell the novice which way to go.

There was great excitement when at last we could see the huge rock beside the river: “I never thought it would be THAT big!”

The kids debated the merits of the name King Philip’s vs. Indian Rock. Then they decided: From now on in our family, it will be known as Metacomet Rock, Metacomet being Philip’s Indian name.

Small adventures can be little lessons in history which kids will probably remember longer than the ones they learn at school.

TIMBERDOODLES

This is the time of year to watch for the unusual courtship flight of the woodcock.

Woodcocks live in moist woods and sheltered bogs. If you know an area they frequent, you may have it made.

Twilight sets the stage, or a moonlit night. Woodcocks are usually unobtrusive because of their color, wood brown with black bars. They are unique standouts when they do their courting. First circling as they ascend the sky, then the cocks tumble down like falling leaves while twittering their courtship serenade.

Woodcocks are strange-looking birds with short legs, long bills and a silly-sounding alternative name kids like, timberdoodles.