Location: 82 French King Hwy, Gill, MA 01354
Just by French King Bridge, you can reach Lily Pond by following the trails through Barton Cove. This path is not too intense or difficult for an inexperienced hiker, but it does require some agility as there are steep, rocky slopes and some stairs.
In 1842, Dexter Marsh acquired a piece of land in Barton Cove containing the Lily Pond quarry. Lily Pond is a plunge pool, a type of small lake that forms at the base of a waterfall as tons of water erodes away the base of the rock beneath it. The rocks that were collected at the quarry are a type of sedimentary formation called a sandstone. They formed as layers of sediment were deposited over time; each layer representing a slice of history. Many critters, including dinosaurs, left tracks in the sediment and were preserved when covered quickly by the next layer, so when Marsh and others cracked the stones open, they found footprints! It is believed that most of Hitchcock’s specimens, especially those discussed in his Ichnology of 1858, were sourced from this location, earning it the moniker “Bird Track Quarry.”
There are many small slabs lying around the quarry today, but you should not remove any (even if you find good tracks). Make sure to climb the stairs and check out the slab inlaid in the trail; you’ll definitely see some footprints there (and you can hit the Ichnology Collection in the bottom floor of the Beneski Museum)!
