Charcoal Mounds

While hiking along the trails in Woodbridge, hikers occasionally come across large raised circular mounds that appear odd and out of place. These 20 - 40 foot wide circles are the remains of charcoal hearths on which colliers burned logs to create charcoal used to power Connecticut's nineteenth century iron, steel, and brass industries. At that time, Connecticut's forests would have looked far different after its hills were stripped of trees and wood piled to make charcoal. Charcoal burners, called colliers, arranged the cut wood into particular patterns up to fifteen feet tall, covered the logs with leaves and dirt, and then set fire to the mound so that the wood would bake. After ten to fourteen days, the resultant charcoal was raked out, cooled, and transported by carts along charcoal roads to industrial buyers along the Naugatuck River.

Twenty charcoal hearths can be found here on the Milford Meadows trail system of which six can be found in this flat area. Each hearth contains small remnants of 100 – 150 year-old charcoal. Local colliers lived in a small teepee-like hut located next to the rocky outcrop on the left. Note the crescent cairn-like rock structure. This structure was once a cooking hearth that the wood burners used for cooking food and making coffee. The slightly raised location here enabled the colliers to continuously monitor the wood burning process. The six charcoal mounds can be found in a semi-circular pattern about 40 - 100 feet below the stone-cooking hearth (to the right of this post). Three mounds were likely active at any given time, each in a different stage of completion. Once the charcoal was raked out and cooled, it was transported to local buyers and industries. Wood was cut during the winter months and burned from early spring to late autumn.

Like stonewalls charcoal hearths are considered archaeological artifacts of past agricultural, industrial and forestry history, but unlike stonewalls, few people are aware of charcoal hearths.

This project was funded by The Connecticut Recreational Trails Program with a grant from the State of Connecticut administered trough the Department of Energy  and Environmental Protection