The Swift River Reservation is a open space preserve located in

Petersham, Massachusetts Petersham is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 1,194 at the 2020 census. Petersham is home to a considerable amount of conservation land, including the Quabbin Reservation, Harvard Forest, the Swift R ...

, United States. The property, named after the East Branch of the Swift River (a tributary of the

Ware River The Ware River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed April 1, 2011 river in central Massachusetts. It has two forks, its West Branch, which begins in Hubbardston, Massa ...

), is managed by the land conservation non-profit organization The Trustees of Reservations and offers of trails available for hiking, horseback riding, mountain biking, and cross country skiing. Ledges, river corridor, woodlands, scenic vistas, and wetlands characterize the preserve. The property is divided into three contiguous parcels, the ''Slab City Tract'', ''Davis Tract'', and ''Nichewaug Tract.'' Trailheads are located off

Massachusetts Route 32 Massachusetts Route 32 is a state highway in the U.S. state of Massachusetts. The highway runs from the Connecticut state line in Monson, where the highway continues as Connecticut Route 32, north to the New Hampshire state line in Royalston, ...

/ 122, Glen Valley Road, and Nichewaug Road in Petersham. A network of trails runs between the Davis and Nichewaug tracts; the Slab City tract is not connected to the other two parcels via trail. The East Branch of the Swift River passes through the Slab City and Nichewaug tracts.

History and Conservation

The reservation was farmland until the late 1880s. Small scale mill industries also stripped the area of trees. When farming migrated to the

Midwest The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four Census Bureau Region, census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of ...

and the industries closed, the land became wooded again. The property contains cellar hole remains of farmsteads. Scenic vistas are located on the Slab City and Nichewaug tracts. The tracts were acquired in 1983 and 1985 by the Trustees of Reservations. The Swift River Reservation is part of a larger area of protected open space including the Trustees of Reservations' Brooks Woodland Preserve,

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

's Harvard Forest, and state owned land.

References

External links

Swift River Reservation
The Trustees of Reservations
Trail mapHarvard Forest
The Trustees of Reservations Protected areas of Worcester County, Massachusetts Open space reserves of Massachusetts Petersham, Massachusetts 1983 establishments in Massachusetts Protected areas established in 1983 {{WorcesterCountyMA-geo-stub