Andover Trails Beginner Hike: Skug River Reservation

Join us for a beginner-level hike in the woods in the beautiful Skug River Reservation, one of Andover’s treasures. This hike is for anyone who enjoys a slower pace and shorter distance. We anticipate covering just over one mile on a there and back hike. Families and age-appropirate chrildren welcome. Dress for the weather, wear boots, and bring a water bottle. Meeting Point: Parking lot located off Salem Street, approximately 1/4 mile from Jenkins Road. The hike is approximately 1.5 miles.

Make sure to dress in layers, wear comfortable hiking shoes, and bring plenty of water. lease sign up so we know who will be joining us.

Just adjacent to the Skug Reservation, in Harold Parker State Forest, you can find a glacial erratic, which is an enormous stone monolith dropped here by the receding glacier at the end of the ice age. This erratic is sometimes used by climbers to practice elementary climbing techniques.

Soapstone, or steatite, once quarried here is a soapy, greasy-feeling rock, very soft and easy to cut. It was used for tombstones, building stone, and small carved hand-warming blocks.

The Skug River was thought to have gotten its name from a phonetic mis­spelling of Skunk. An article by Eugene C. Winter in the Mass. Archaeological Society Bulletin (Vol 71-2), Fall 2010, convincingly shows that Skug was the Native American name for Snake. Over 200 years ago, its waters were dammed to power a pro?table sawmill and grist mill. The dam has long since washed away, but the massive stone walls of the millrace can still be seen in adjacent Harold Parker State Forest from the Skug River Reser­vation trail. William Jenkins quarried soapstone here, leaving behind the massive outcropping of wedged rock near the bridge. Mr. Jenkins was also a renowned abolitionist and his home on Jenkins Rd. was a station for the Underground Railroad and a gathering place for William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass and Harriet Beecher Stowe.

The Reservations’ woodlands were once cleared farmlands. The stone and earthen causeway in Hammond Reservation was originally a dam, creating an ice pond and livestock watering hole.

Hammond Reservation was named for Edmond E. Hammond, a former AVIS president, and was purchased with funds provided by Edmond Hammond, Jr.

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