Teale Time

Teale Time Earl Plato

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Writer’s Note: I Have been writing a series on the
late naturalist Bert Miller and the giant Tulip tree of Rosehill, Fort Erie for l local history articles. The great tree some 16ft. 51/2 inches in circumference was cut down circa early 1950’s. Edwin Teale, great nature writer, wrote the following: “For a great tree death comes as a gradual transformation. Its vitality ebbs slowly. Even when life has abandoned it entirely. It remains a majestic thing.” Not so with our Tulip tree, alas. Have you visited the Comfort Maple of North Pelham recently? It’s worth it! Majestic? Yes.
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I want to visit Trail Wood the long time home of Edwin Teale, nature writer and his wife Nellie in Connecticut. I have written the Audubon Society there for they run the nature site now asking for any information. Teale has been my writing motivator for my nature offerings for many years.
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I have a map of Teale’s Trail Wood. Seven trails lead away from the white cottage with its black shutters nestled under a grove of hickory trees. With its pegged beams and great blocks of foundation stone, it stands on a knoll above the flow of Hampton Brook.
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I have drawn a map this year of Marcy Woods enhanced by Neil Reichelt. It shows the site of the rustic Marcy log cabin perched on a treed sand hill. There are two main trails - Upper and Lower and two smaller trails - Little Hemlock Trail and the Roller Coaster Trail. Many of us have walked these trails for years. Thanks to the owners, the DiCienzo family, we can still walk there again.
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Teale’s Trail Wood, which is on the same latitude as our Macy’s Woods, has seven walking paths radiating from his cabin. They cross the fields that surround the house. They become trails and thread their ways through the woods and into wetlands, along brooks, across boulder fields and over ridges. Then into ravines among ferns and wildflowers until you reach the pond and a waterfall. Climb up the juniper clad hillsides and back by the beaver dam and past Teale’s little log writing cabin nestled among the aspens.. Hampton Creek is ahead with a cascade foaming over its rocks as it crosses Old Wood Road. Winding, branching, and crisscrossing these seven trails of Trail Wood run for a total of a little more than three miles (6 km). I could handle that!
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This past July, 2007 I realized my goal. We reached Trail Wood and walked the paths of Pulitzer Prize Winner, Edwin Way Teale. A great thrill.