Brainerd Quarry Preserve

A Flipping Success
Middlesex Land Trust’s Brainerd Quarry Preserve, Haddam
October 2024

This is the 3,254th page I’ve published on CTMQ and I believe it’s the very first time I’ve done a specific thing.

I’ve stolen a punny title from someone else. In this case, something called the Connecticut River Gateway Commission came up with it while writing about Brainerd Quarry. Now, the funniest part of it to me is… I truly wonder if they weren’t even trying to be funny. You know, using “flipping” in place of a more incendiary f word. Like, is it possible that the wonks at the Connecticut River Gateway Commission were just being literal, as the article is about how this 50-acre property was “flipped” – similar to what house flippers do.

The whole process seemed very convoluted and involved multiple entities: Middlesex Land Trust, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and the aforementioned Commission. You see, the feds had money to expand the footprint of the nearby Silvio O. Conte National Fish & Wildlife Refuge but being the feds, they couldn’t move on the available property fast enough. So check this out: A grant of $166,000 from the Commission was advanced to the Middlesex Land Trust, which negotiated for the purchase of the long-abandoned Brainerd Quarry site and closed the sale. The land trust then sold the property to USFWS to add to its refuge. When proceeds from that 2nd sale were received some time later, the land trust reimbursed the Commission.

Whoa. A “flipping success” indeed. And totally worth the effort too, as this is a cool little property.

To access the trails, you must drive down the unfortunately named Injun Hollow Road – but not to the end of it. For at the end of it is a gate. A big black gate. I drove to that big black gate and you know what happened? A disembodied voiced boomed, “STOP! TURN AROUND! YOU ARE BEING VIDEO RECORDED. TURN AROUND! WHOOOOP!! WHOOOOP!! STOP! TURN AROUND…”

I stopped and turned around.

This is the property of Connecticut Yankee, the now decommissioned site of a nuclear power plant. The southernmost (of two) trailheads is just north of this big black gate, so there’s a good chance that you, too, can enjoy this experience if you come to hike here.

I parked and began on the yellow-blazed Ridge Trail. I immediately noticed that a couple trails veered off of the official trail, heading south. Towards the Connecticut Yankee property. I didn’t follow them, but I thought that was mildly funny. “Oh sure, you can stop cars but I’m just going to walk right in.”

According to the Haddam Historical Society, the land is named the Brainerd Quarry Preserve to reflect the historic importance of the Brainerd Family in Haddam. Daniel Brainerd was one of the 28 founding settlers of Haddam in 1662, and a century later, in 1762, Deacon Ezra Brainerd opened a quarry on this now preserved site. The quarry operated for more than 150 years, shipping stone down river to New York and as far south as Maryland, Virginia and New Orleans.

Funny Haddam fact: it was originally incorporated as “Hadham” like all the other “hams” around New England. But since it was phonetically “Haddam,” the name was changed later.

The ridge trail is quite nice and will take you through tunnels of laurel to the top of the hill overlooking the Connecticut River. If you take care to notice the things around you, the top of the hill is littered with some interesting remnants of the former quarry. There are lots of blocks and long cuts of granite littering the ground – and the trail designers were sure to take you amongst as much of that as possible, a detail which I greatly appreciated.

To be honest, I thought that was it for any quarry related stuff. And I was happy with that.

I followed the yellow trail to where it branched off to the other trailhead down on Injun Hollow Road. Now, “injun” is considered a pejorative and offensive. At least it was until January 2025. I guess nothing racist is racist anymore though, so Injun Hollow Road will remain as is. (I happen to think it should – no matter the tenor of the country. Historic road names are pieces of history after all.)

It took me a minute to find the red-blazed Quarry Trail. Now you’re thinking, “dude, there’s a trail called Quarry Trail and you thought you were done with the quarry stuff?” Fair point.

I had no idea what was ahead of me, as I noticed the trail was rockier before pausing to look at a massive granite wall. Wow. Awesome.

And not just a regular rock wall, but one scarred with chisel marks from all those years ago. Old school quarry marks. The trail took me past piles of tailings and right along the rock wall. I was imagining cutting huge chunks of rock from this hill and just allowing them to roll down the hill to the river for transport.

Yeah, yeah, they say they loaded them onto carts and trundled them down the hill for proper loading, but… how could the quarrymen resist the temptation? It would have been so easy!

I loved this section of trail. The only downside for you, if you’ve never been, is that now you won’t be surprised like I was.