Hancock Brook Archives – J. G. Coleman Photography

Sheffield Revenant (Old Sheffield Street Iron Bridge, Mattatuck State Forest, Waterbury, Connecticut, USA) — “Sheffield Revenant”
Old Sheffield Street Iron Bridge,
Mattatuck State Forest, Waterbury, Connecticut
© 2016 J. G. Coleman

The year was 1884. The Waterville manufacturing district in the north of Waterbury had grown to be quite the industrial powerhouse, churning out a seemingly endless supply of brass and cutlery. But Hancock Brook, a tributary of the Naugatuck River which coursed through a steep ravine along Sheffield Street, was a routine impediment to the transport of goods eastward.

Iron Relic of Waterville (Old Sheffield Street Iron Bridge, Mattatuck State Forest, Waterbury, Connecticut) — “Iron Relic of Waterville”
Old Sheffield Street Iron Bridge,
Mattatuck State Forest, Waterbury, Connecticut
© 2016 J. G. Coleman

In an era when wooden covered bridges were still being phased out of mainstream construction in New England, the famous Berlin Iron Bridge Company was contracted to build a hefty iron bridge over Hancock Brook that would accommodate two lanes and exceptionally heavy loads. For years afterward, as countless tons of product fresh from the Waterville factories began their journey to distant destinations, they first cleared Hancock Brook over the Sheffield Street Bridge.

But that was then; this is now. As Waterbury’s golden age of manufacturing declined, the industrial landscape it occupied atrophied and eventually grew wilder than it had been in over a century. Today, the forgotten bridge off Sheffield rusts away in the forest near an isolated quarry. Much of the old wooden decking has long-since decayed, though stray planks sometimes still break free and plunge into the waters below. All that remains of the Sheffield Street Bridge is a haunting, iron skeleton hung high above Hancock Brook… an eerie, lonesome witness of bygone times marooned in a vastly different world from the one in which it was born.

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Plymouth Wildlands (Buttermilk Falls, Buttermilk Falls Preserve, Plymouth, Connecticut) — “Plymouth Wildlands”
Buttermilk Falls on Hancock Brook,
Buttermilk Falls Preserve, Plymouth, Connecticut
©2013 J. G. Coleman

“The tempered light of the woods is like a perpetual morning, and is stimulating and heroic. The anciently reported spells of these places creep on us. The stems of pines, hemlocks, and oaks, almost gleam like iron on the excited eye.”

-Ralph Waldo Emerson (1844)

Nestled in the forests of Plymouth within Connecticut’s Central Naugatuck Valley, Buttermilk Falls Preserve is among those small and relatively obscure nature preserves that most of us will never set foot upon. It’s not that there’s anything stopping us, mind you; the public is welcome anytime to visit this shady grove of hemlocks that crowd the boulder-laden banks of Hancock Brook. It’s simply that, at a size of only a dozen acres, folks tend to assume that this diminutive swath of open space is just not worth the trip.

As part of my years-long project to capture in photographs the aesthetic essence of Connecticut’s waterfalls, I became familiar with Buttermilk Falls Preserve in the Summer of 2011. In fact, I was so impressed with its incredible beauty and arresting atmosphere that I’ve returned several times since then. My goal has been simple: to catch conditions that help me tell the story of this jewel in a way that is befitting of the magical impression it makes upon its visitors. As it would happen, I managed to get out to the Preserve on an early May morning last year as a dense fog drifted through the forest, producing subtle tones and contrasts that brought to the surface what Emerson would have called the “anciently reported spells” that linger in the wilds of Buttermilk Falls.

Hymn of the Hemlocks (Hancock Brook, Buttermilk Falls Preserve, Plymouth, CT) — “Hymn of the Hemlocks”
Hancock Brook, Buttermilk Falls Preserve, Plymouth, Connecticut
©2014 J. G. Coleman

One of the pieces that emerged from that morning, Plymouth Wildlands (photo at top), brings us to a magnificent whitewater cataract on Hancock Brook. Plummeting more than 50 feet over a steep rock face, Buttermilk Falls is the namesake landmark of the Preserve, as well as its aesthetic epicenter. This glade feels like some verdant amphitheater where soft light filters through the greenery of the hemlocks overhead and every surface of the forest understory lays cloaked in a generous blanket of moss and ferns.

Another of my works, Hymn of the Hemlocks (above), takes us upstream from the falls and into the imposing vertical expanse of the seemingly primeval woodlands that envelop Hancock Brook. We find ourselves surrounded by towering hemlocks, most perched mightily upon bare rock, that cast whorls of wizened branches into the air as they reach skywards from the shadowy gorge for a taste of precious sunlight.

Hancock Cascades (Hancock Brook at Buttermilk Falls Preserve, Plymouth, Connecticut) — “Hancock Cascades”
Hancock Brook at Buttermilk Falls Preserve, Plymouth, Connecticut
©2013 J. G. Coleman

Finally, in Hancock Cascades, we find ourselves squarely in the middle of Hancock Brook, almost as if we are wading barefoot in its cool waters. Peering ahead, we watch the stream spread and splinter into myriad cascades as it struggles to clear ancient boulders and weather-scarred bedrock. Wherever the water cannot reach, the mosses have staked their claim, thriving amidst the cool, moist air that settles in troughs of the gorge.

Rendered in a written chronology, the story of Buttermilk Falls is long and varied. People have enacted their influence upon this place for centuries, if not millennia, and there’s little doubt that the landscape has been shaped and re-shaped by the rigors of time and water. But for me, all of those disparate verses of bygone times found a focused voice in the tranquil mists that drifted over Hancock Brook on a quiet morning in May.

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To see more of my work from Buttermilk Falls or buy a fine art print of the pieces introduced here, be sure to visit the Buttermilk Falls collection at my online galleries.