Bullhead Rock Drill Holes by Michael Germain

Drill holes were a standard way of marking property lines along shorelines in early days, so there are other rocks all around the lake that are now underwater but at one time indicated boundaries (personal communication, Linda Thorpe).

Another common use of drill holes was to reference and record water levels in bodies of water.

In 1847, Frederick D. Ingersall, representing the Tyringham, Hartsville, and Mill River Hydraulic Association, was seeking flowage (flooding) rights on land to the east of Brewer Pond (so called). (See note on names at the end.) The deed between them and James M. Fargo read in part as follows, “the rights to flow the lands of the said James M. Fargo adjoining the Brewer Pond (so called) to the lower hole in a large rock which hole is six-and one-half feet higher than the ordinary level of the pond… covering about three acres and a hundred and nineteen rods of land.” (One acre equals 160 square rods. One rod, 16.5’ squared equals 272 square feet.)

The deeds of the other property owners affected on the east side of Brewer Pond all agreed, and signed deeds that referenced the specific rock on the Fargo property. I know of two stone walls that were flooded by the raising of the water, so the area was open fields at the time.

An increase in the number of mills along the whole Konkapot River during the next twenty years created a growing need for more waterpower. By 1870 the Marlboro Paper Company went back to the landowners surrounding Brewer Pond and requested a raising of the water level. The new deeds read in part, “as will naturally be flowed by raising the water of said pond as high as two drill holes in the northerly side of a large rock, on my land at the easterly side of the bay, which holes are four feet higher than a hole in said rock made in 1847 to indicate the height to which my land might be flowed under a deed dated December 8, 1847.”

In 1900 the property was purchased by the Parker family of Parkersburg, West Virginia. Ownership is still retained by their descendants and is now called Bracken Brae Farm, which people are familiar with as the vegetable stand on Route 23 east of the village.

Heights of the Drill Holes

Beginning at the ground level upon which the rock sits, lowest hole is 27” above the ground, the middle hole is 54” above, and the top two holes are about 78” above the ground. (For reference the ski pole in the photo is 54” and the handle is 3 1/2”.) The “ordinary level of the pond,” the water level of the natural impoundment, was 51” below the level of the ground at the base of the rock.

The “ordinary level” was 93” (nearly eight feet) below the current high-water mark today, and 129” below the upper two holes, which were the highest permissible level of the 1870 deed. For reference, we currently draw down 72” (six feet) each fall. This is about one foot below the culverts under Tyringham Road (there is a drain at that depth).

During the summer, when the lake is at its maximum height, the middle hole is about one foot above the water, and the double holes are about three feet above the water so you can paddle over and view them.

The current high-water level is 4” higher than the lake level was with the pre-1972 dam. The maximum permissible flowage of the 1870 deed would have required a dam that was an additional forty inches higher than the old pre-1972 dam (36” higher than the existing dam), so perhaps they never did this even though they had the rights.

For more details and pictures, read the chapter on Monterey in Bernard Drew’s superb book on the eighteenth and nineteenth century, Water powered Industry in the Upper Housatonic River Valley. The book is available in the Monterey Library. Also, on the Friends of Lake Garfield website (friendsoflakegarfield.org), under the “History of Lake Garfield,” is the excellent four-part article on the lake and dams researched and written by Linda Thorpe which was published in 2020 by the Monterey News.

All the research for this article was done by Linda Thorpe. Without her help and Bernard Drew’s book, it would not have been possible for me to write this. Bernard Drew and Linda Thorpe have given permission for me to use the pictures here.

— Michael Germain, Monterey News, November 2021, Edited by Stephen Moore and Kateri Kosek

Editor’s Note: In paragraph three the body of water is called “Brewer’s Pond.” What is now called Lake Garfield was mostly a smaller pond and wetland in the eastern part of the current lake. What we now call Brewer’s Pond lies to the west of the dam over which Tyringham Road crosses and was created with the construction of the current dam in the 1970s. The original Brewer’s Pond was named for Colonel John Brewer, an early proprietor (landowner) in Monterey.