Roaring Brook Falls is a

waterfall A waterfall is a point in a river or stream where water flows over a vertical drop or a series of steep drops. Waterfalls also occur where meltwater drops over the edge of a tabular iceberg or ice shelf. Waterfalls can be formed in several wa ...

in the southwestern hills of

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

in the

Northeastern United States The Northeastern United States, also referred to as the Northeast, the East Coast, or the American Northeast, is a geographic region of the United States. It is located on the Atlantic coast of North America, with Canada to its north, the Southe ...

. Formed as the eponymous Roaring Brook descends a wooded cliffside on West Mountain, the waterfall is an 80-foot horsetail and ranks as one of the tallest in the state.

History and conservation

Recovered arrowheads suggest that Algonquian Native Americans frequented the vicinity of Roaring Brook Falls prior to the arrival of settlers from the

Connecticut Colony The ''Connecticut Colony'' or ''Colony of Connecticut'', originally known as the Connecticut River Colony or simply the River Colony, was an English colony in New England which later became Connecticut. It was organized on March 3, 1636 as a settl ...

. Beginning as early as the 17th century, the surrounding landscape was clear-cut for agriculture and the falls were harnessed to power a stream-side mill. By the late 1800s, Roaring Brook Falls had become something of a local landmark with visitors from the nearby city of

New Haven New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,02 ...

touring the area and enjoying the scenery.{{cite book, title=Trails: Cheshire, Connecticut, date=1994, agency=The Environment Commission of Cheshire, publisher=Cheshire Land Trust, location=Cheshire, Connecticut, isbn=0-9644539-0-8, pages=61–63, url=http://www.cheshirect.org/media/44090/trails%20book.pdf, accessdate=20 February 2016 The property encompassing the waterfall was still privately owned in 1974 when concerned locals discovered that it might be sold for development. Significant efforts were launched to save the property and, by 1978, the waterfall and surrounding forest was cooperatively preserved by the Town of Cheshire and the Cheshire

Land Trust Land trusts are nonprofit organizations which own and manage land, and sometimes waters. There are three common types of land trust, distinguished from one another by the ways in which they are legally structured and by the purposes for which th ...

References

Waterfalls of Connecticut

History and conservation

See also

References