Veiled Realm of Black Rock

Connecticut’s Black Rock State Park hearkens back to an ancient history of graphite mining which is still largely shrouded in mystery.

Sublime mist drifts through the woodlands of Western Connecticut, rendering distant hills in hazy silhouette against an airy, cerulean sky. Deep in the basin below, still waters of Black Rock Pond yield unblemished reflections of a lakeside forest daubed with the lustrous light of dawn.

Connecticut’s Black Rock State Park encompasses over 400 acres of wildlands in the lower Litchfield Hills, its name hearkening back to an ancient history of graphite mining which is still largely shrouded in mystery. Legend holds that, long before European settlers arrived in the region, Native Americans living in these hills would collect graphite to make body paint for ceremonies and warfare.

Traditional stories go on, relating that the prospect of a large-scale graphite mine was among the earliest draws to these rugged forests for Connecticut Colony settlers in the 1600s. When historian Sarah Pritchard published an extensive history of the territory in 1896, she concluded that pioneering “explorers of the region reported the discovery of graphite, and samples of the mineral seem to have been carried away, but the location of the mine, if there was one, has been lost and never re-discovered.”