Trail Map​

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  1. The 1.6-mile Trail begins at the Parking Lot.  You can walk the trail clockwise or counterclockwise. Trash, recycling, and toilet are located near the kiosk.
  2. In 1926 Jeff Penn had his rock mason build a furnace for cooking stew, a storage shed, rock tables and benches, and a spring house with a slate roof to create the picnic grounds, now known as the Stew Site.    Betsy and Jeff Penn’s guests partook of Jeff’s famous Brunswick Stew, homemade wine, and white liquor while they played cards.
  3.  Turkey Pond is home to ducks, herons, fish, turtles, and other water fowl.
  4.  A low stone dam on the brook creates a small waterfall called Little Niagara, paying homage to Betsy Penn’s family connections to the Niagara Falls Power Company.  
  5.  The Pump House, built in 1935, contained an electric motor to pump water from the irrigation pond through an underground iron pipe up to the mansion to irrigate the flower and vegetable gardens. 
  6. The half-acre irrigation pond was named Lake Betsy for Betsy Penn.  The boardwalk was built in 2006. 
  7. The Dam was constructed in 1935 with stone mined from a nearby surface quarry.  The Observation Deck, built in 2008, provides a view of the waterfall, seven millstones embedded in the face of the dam, and a metal plaque with Jeff Penn’s poem for the dam’s dedication.  The Summer House overlooking the pond was built with six millstones used as tables.  The Penns would often ride their horses here from the mansion.
  8. Two surface Quarries were used to excavate rock to build the mansion and other structures on the plantation. The smaller quarry is hidden by bamboo on the creek side of the trail.  Just up the hill, on the other side of the trail, you’ll see the concrete foundation of a stone crusher at the entrance to the larger quarry.  Two groundwater monitoring wells were installed here by the state in 2002 to trace the movement of underground water.
  9.  ​The Bull Pasture is adjacent to the Hay Barn on the farm road.  The cows and calves are on the other side of the road or hay barn.   These are all descended from the herd of Black Angus cattle Jeff Penn acquired in 1943, and the UPRS has maintained this historic herd for more than 60 years.
  10.  At the Hay Barn, also maintained by the UPRS, the farm road and the trail take a perpendicular turn.
  11. Ten of the Penns’ beloved cocker spaniels and English setters are buried in the Dog Cemetery. ​​