Directions:
From Boothbay Harbor travel north on Route 27; take a left at the monument in Boothbay Center onto Corey Lane. Proceed 0.3 of a mile. Turn right onto Barters Island Road and travel 2.2 miles, crossing two bridges. Turn left on Kimballtown Road. Proceed 0.5 of a mile and turn left onto a dirt road. Proceed 0.1 of a mile to a small parking area on your right just beyond the cemetery. Please do not block the road as it is used by other property owners.
In 1983 Nathaniel Porter donated 19 acres on the southern tip of Barters Island to the Boothbay Region Land Trust. This property is heavily wooded with old growth spruce, oak and pine. The central area has been managed and thinned to present a high canopy of trees with a soft open carpet of needles beneath. The trails meander along nearly one half mile of shorefront on the Sheepscot and Back Rivers with lovely scenic vistas
en route. There is a sheltered cove with a beach and a small off-shore island known as Lydia Ann’s Island.
Nathaniel Porter’s father purchased this land from the Hulls and the Goddards in the early 1900s. An old cellar hole still can be seen along the edge of the Sheepscot where the Hull home was. Nathaniel and his wife were childless and as time progressed they were pressed to develop or subdivide the property. Courthouse records show several
deeds from the Porters establishing conservation restrictions on all their property.
The Porters told Lois Barge that few unspoiled areas existed along the shorefront, and that they wanted future generations to be able to enjoy this type of land. We will ever be grateful to the Porters for their foresight and generosity.
In 2005, through a generous donation from Robert and Linda Jones, the BRLT was able to acquire the 1.9 acre Roberts property adjacent to the Porter Preserve. Over the years, the Roberts family allowed fishermen to access the water and its deep cove on the Sheepscot River from the property. In a letter stating their intentions for use of the site,
the Joneses wrote:
Our intention (collectively) from the beginning was to allow... waterfront activities to continue that we and others in the community have viewed as endangered. Namely we mean that various fisheries and the entrance to them by young men and women of limited means. We have cherished the mixture of communities and shore and water uses that our parents and forebears found here and were drawn to a century ago. It appears to us that the scales have tipped toward large scale residential/recreational uses and away from small scale intrinsic uses.
The BRLT hopes that Roberts Wharf will serve as a model for other environmental organizations interested in pursuing strategies that link objectives for shorefront preservation with working waterfront goals.
PORTER PRESERVE
INVENTORY OF PLANT LIFE
WILDFLOWERS
Blue-eyed Grass, Bunchberry*, Canada, Mayflower, Chickweed, Common
Cinquefoil Daisy (Ox-eye), Dandelion, Goldthread, Goldenrod, Pink Lady’s
Slipper, Sarsaparilla, Starflower, Thistle, Violet (White Wood), Vetch (Purple), Wild Geranium, Wintergreen*
*woody stems, may be classified as a shrub
TREES
Alder, Black, Alder, Speckled, Apple, Birch, Gray Cedar, Fir, Balsam, Hemlock, Eastern
Horse Chestnut Maple, Red Mountain Ash Oak, Red Poplar Pine, Pitch Pine, White
Spruce, Red
SHRUBS
Arrowwood, Bayberry, Barberry, Bamboo(Japanese Knotweed), Blackberry, Blueberry
(lowbush and highbush), Chokeberry, Currant, Wild Elderberry, Red Gooseberry (Roundleafed), Honeysuckle, Bush, Huckleberry, Juniper, Trailing (or Field Juniper), Laurel, Sheep, Lilac, Meadow Sweet, Poison Ivy, Raspberry, Wild Red Staghorn, Sumac, Wild Raisin (a viburnum)
FERNS
Bracken, Hay, Scented Interrupted, Polypody, Sensitive Spinlose, Woodfern
MOSSES AND LICHENS
Hairy Cap, Silvery Brynum, Reindeer (a lichen), Usnea Moss (a tree lichen), Lycopodium
(Clubmosses), Tree Clubmoss, Ground Cedar (or Ground Pine)
Download Trail Guide PDF
[Download Discovery Trail Guide PDF]
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