Bugs Swamp, Scythes, Past Residents, and Diminished Expectations

At nearly 65-square miles it was big - a land area bigger than Worcester or Boston. It was half the size of modern-day Detroit or Philadelphia, it was one and two thirds the size of Disney World, and almost as large as Washington D.C.

More than three hundred years ago, a grant was approved to create a new town southwest of Worcester. It would encompass a large part of what is now Charlton, a quarter of Auburn, a fifth of Dudley, several square miles of Southbridge, and all of present-day Oxford, which bears the name. (History of the Town of Oxford, Massachusetts by George F. Daniels, 1892.) 

Oxford, Massachusetts was named after Oxford, England, the “city of dreaming spires,” and home to the oldest university in the English-speaking world. Today, from the U.S. Virgin Islands to Colorado, there are more than two dozen Oxfords throughout the U.S., but our Oxford was the first.

Oxford or Oxenforda, “ford of the oxen.” It’s a word that’s as old as England itself. Ox (a castrated bull) and ford (a shallow area in the water that can be crossed) are two ancient, Old English words with Germanic roots going back centuries. The origin of “Ox” goes back thousands of years and has a Proto-Indo-European origin with a rare linguistic connection to several language families.  

The names of the first three roads of the Midstate Trail in Oxford reflect more recent times. Lovett, Brown, and Dana are old Oxford family names going back to colonial days. These street names are probably where their homesteads were once located.

In his 19th century History of the Town of Oxford, Massachusetts, George F. Daniels mentions brothers Herbert and Walter Lovett owning land in 1738, a tailor named Joseph Brown, making jackets for soldiers during the American Revolution in 1775, and John Dana, serving on a town committee dealing with an ecclesiastical and legal matter in 1783.

The Midstate Trail typically runs north and south, but in Oxford, it’s west and northwest, if you’re a NoBo (northbound) hiker. It crosses farm fields at the top of Whittier Hill in Sutton and leads into the forest toward Oxford where it crosses a small stream between Sacarrappa Pond and Bugs Swamp. 

This is a hidden and secluded place with no public roads running around it. There’s little to no development here. You would never know it looking at it now, but there was once a lot going on here.

In his History of Oxford, Daniels tells us about a saw-mill (built in 1792) located on the uppermost part of Bugs Swamp stream. He noted that it was “unserviceable in dry seasons.” 

There was also a second sawmill located on the lower end of the stream (built in 1788), that didn’t fare well in drier spells—it probably didn’t help having another built upstream from it. This lower stream mill was sold in 1801, when the owner, whom I’m guessing was fed up or bored, packed it up and moved to Maine.

 The new owner of the lower end mill, David Lilley, built a shop there to manufacture scythes – those long, curved blades with bent handles used for harvesting and reaping (think Grim Reaper).

When Lilley died in 1815, Joab Maynard tried his hand at scythe making for a couple of years before selling it to the original scythe maker’s sons. The Lilley brothers made scythes for four more years until leaving the property “unoccupied.”

 A half dozen years later in 1827, two brothers, Lawton and Joseph Pratt, bought the property to make shingles, washing machines, and “other household utensils,” before they went broke and disappeared for “parts unknown,” three years later. As Dante wrote about another place, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here”

 After all these attempts to give it a go, two more guys gave the scythe making business a shot before finally abandoning the place. The property was later purchased by Slater & Co.

In 1792, there was also a house, a blacksmith shop and a coal house on the brook at Saccarappa Pond where they made scythes and nails. They built two shops and two dams there.

The only activity I found passing through there was of the flying and biting variety. Bugs Swamp really lived up to its name, especially in May, following rising temperatures and springtime rain. 

I enjoyed a scenic stroll through this area that turned into a mad dash, outrunning swarms of black flies and mosquitoes. They’re evil suckers. You can evade them if you move fast enough without stopping, but it’s better to bring bug spray and mosquito face netting, or wait until colder and drier weather.

After emerging from the woods chewed up, the trail hit pavement for several miles, going across Oxford under I-395, across the railroad tracks, before it reached the center of town at Rt. 12/Main St.

Continuing onward to the end of Rocky Hill Road, the Midstate goes back into the woods. This is a beautiful stretch of hiking under the pines, along the flood plains of Hodges Village Dam. 

You eventually cross a footbridge over the French River that was built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. According to their website at nae.usace.army.mil, “there are approximately 22 miles of trails weaving their way around the Hodges Village project area,” which has nearly 1,200 acres of land.

At more than 25-miles long, the French River (a name stemming from Oxford’s early French Protestant/Huguenot settlement) drains into dozens of lakes and ponds, eventually flowing to rivers in Connecticut before reaching Long Island Sound via the Thames.

 The hike continues past nearby sand and gravel pits posted with hazard and danger warning signs. It goes uphill for a nice stretch, along a winding stream with small, tranquil waterfalls, before reaching Charlton.