Mendell’s Folly

The largest property belonging to the Bethany Land Trust, Mendell’s Folly was given to the Trust in 1971 by Elizabeth “Tibby” Mendell. One of the original incorporators of the Land Trust, Tibby and her husband Clarence Mendell, the former Dean of Yale College and Sterling Professor of Classics at Yale, had purchased the property and adjoining pieces in 1936.

In all, the Mendells acquired 190 acres. Some of the land had been a cow pasture, some an apple orchard, some just plain Bethany woods. It’s been said that one of Clarence Mendell’s students, on seeing this wilderness of muddy fields and rocky hillsides, called it Mendell’s Folly, a play on the name Seward’s Folly given to the U.S. purchase of Alaska. After Clarence Mendell died, Tibby remained in Bethany on her “Folly.”

Mendell’s Folly includes heavily wooded hills, rocky outcrops and ridges, a charming brook, a marsh, beaver lodges and a dam, a ravine, and lots of wildlife and wildflowers. Hockanum Brook, or Lebanon Brook as it is sometimes called, flows into the wetlands westward from Bethany’s Veterans Memorial Park, then through a magnificent gorge below the beaver dam toward Beacon Falls and eventually the Naugatuck River. The stream widens into a marsh in the middle of the property, where beaver have felled many trees and created a small pond behind a dam.

Trails:

Mendell’s Folly provides hiking on moderate to difficult trails that course through wetlands, pass the beaver pond and dam, climb up ridges and pass through other natural features on the property.

• From the parking area on Route 42, a trail (0.5 miles; moderate) begins across Beacon Road along the wetlands edge starts out easy but presents some difficult passages near the beaver pond and Hockanum Brook crossing.
• Tibby’s Trail (0.7 miles; moderate) begins at the Hockanum Brook crossing and also offers good views of the marshland with its beaver lodges before its ends at the bottom of the abandoned portion of Northrup Road.
• A short spur trail (0.05 miles; easy) leads to a wildlife viewing platform constructed by local Scouts.
• The West Ridge Loop Trail (0.7 miles, difficult) starts near Beacon Road and climbs over 100 feet to a ridge overlooking the wetlands. It courses through the forested western uplands before it loops back. A spur drops down to the beaver dam.
• The White Birches Trail (0.5 miles; difficult) has some steep, rocky inclines and rises to 560 feet. It connects with the Green Grobe Gadabout Trail (0.15 miles; moderate) that then passes into the Grobe Preserve and the Red Trail (0.2 miles; moderate) which climbs into the Woodward Nature Preserve and its trails.