Community Corner

Hidden Gems Of Hartford And Tolland Counties

This week's Gem can recreate an historic route or serve as a nice hike.

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The Regan Preserve in Tolland.
The Regan Preserve in Tolland. (Chris Dehnel/Patch )

TOLLAND, CT — The latest trip to a Hidden Gem takes us to Tolland and a patch of land in the woods.

Welcome to the Madeline Regan Preserve, a Joshua's Trust property located on Route 74.

One key feature of the Regan Preserve is a half-mile section of the Connecticut Path, which originally served as an Native American trade route and was later used by Thomas Hooker and other European settlers as they moved from the Massachusetts Bay Colony into the rich farmlands of Central Connecticut in the early 1630s.

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The trail network includes an upper loop through a wooded section of the property and a ridge-top trail that runs along a glacial esker ridge that parallels the Connecticut Path, according to Joshua's Trust. From the top of the ridge one can look down 70 or 80 vertical feet into what looks to be a" glacial kettle hole," which the trust describes as "a closed depression (and vernal pool) that likely resulted from the melting of a large block of glacial ice at the end of the last ice age about 10,000 years ago."

See more on Joshua's Trust properties and the Regan Preserve here.

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The Hidden Gems series features out-of-the-way mom and pop restaurants, small specialty stores you may have never heard of, little-known historical markers or beautiful nature spots that may be a bit off the beaten path, all located within Hartford and Tolland counties. Do you have a favorite "hidden gem" in the area that you wish to see featured in this column? Email your ideas to tim.jensen@patch.com.

Other Gems in this series:

2022

2021 and earlier:


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