Terrace Trails6.6 acres of floodplain forest located behind Cutchins Center on Pomeroy Terrace. Text contributed by Laurie Sanders.
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It is hard to believe that just sixty years ago the land behind the former Northampton School for Girls, now Cutchins School, was an open clearing. Today this area is entirely wooded and includes a network of well-maintained trails. The dramatic change was due in large part to the land’s acquisition by the State of Massachusetts, which donated the surplus land to the City as conservation land.
Vegetation Patterns
Created over time by the Connecticut River, this nearly-level property lies within the 100-year floodplain and includes a long swale that was once part of a river channel or flood trough. Today the swale receives water during extremely high flood events and more regularly, from drainage off the fair grounds, which flow into the swale via a long ditch adjacent to Cross Path Road. Historically this water would have drained to the Montview Conservation Area, but the dike (located at the conservation area’s southern border and constructed after the 1938 hurricane) acts as a barricade and the water eventually evaporates. During the last fifty years, this property has been left idle and over time, what was once a former playing field has developed into a seemingly mature forest. The canopy is dominated by silver maple, but includes impressive catalpas and an abundance of elm and Norway maple. The understory is fairly diverse, but unfortunately many of the most abundant plants are non-native. These include Asiatic bittersweet, Japanese knotweed, moneywort, privet, goutweed and more wintercreeper than anywhere else in Northampton. The common native species are, in order of abundance, touch-me-not, sensitive fern, jumpseed, avens, poison ivy, wood nettle, mad-dog skullcap, elderberry, and silky dogwood. A small clearing near the dike has a swath of sensitive fern, touch-me-not, avens and goldenrod, as well as clusters of staghorn sumac and silky dogwood. North of the property, along the wet swale, are some massive pin oaks; they show up in the 1952 photograph. |
Trail map
