Johnny Appleseed State Park

As you know, Leominster is the birthplace of John Chapman, aka Johnny Appleseed.  Since we live here on Johnny Appleseed Lane, of course we know much of the local "JA" lore.  However, until today we have never visited Johnny Appleseed State Park.  

By some accounts, the park is listed as "permanently closed".  But I was able to find the trail map shown at right.  On the map you can see Johnny Appleseed Lane and I've mark our house with a big red dot.  The Nashua River runs within most of the park's boundaries and the Fall Brook joins the Nashua here as well. 

One of the parking areas is now within the borders of the Leominster Babe Ruth baseball fields, adjacent to the old Italian American Center.  My, how things have changed here in 33+ years we've lived here.  Anyway, this is where we will start our hike today.

Along this section of the Nashua are the remains of the old Leominster dam.  When the boys were younger, they would ride their mountain bikes down along the river and actually found this dam.  Moreover, I once padded down the river and actually went right through some of the dam's remains.

The dam is actually one of the first things we see after starting our walk.  Now decorated with unsanctioned artwork, one must be super careful here as there are no railings and it's a long way down to the river.

Looking downstream, there are logs laying across the river creating additional paddling obstructions.

I walked upriver a little to get another view of the dam.  You can see how high it is above the water.

As the park doesn't seem to be an official "park" any more, the trail markings are kind of poor.  We wander arounds the trails that we can find.  There seemed to be more trails across the Fall Brook,  but were unable to find a way to get to them.

We're thinking "x marks the spot", but we're not exactly sure what the "X" is for.

Here's our actual track.  We covered 1.22 miles exploring in 49 minutes.

Because we're along the river, there was only a total of 103 ft of elevation gain.  

It should be noted it is April, which means the ticks are out.  It's great to get out even for an hour so enjoy the outside, but avoid tall grasses and check yourself when you're done.