Comassakumkanut Preserve

110 Roxy Cahoon Road

Plymouth Parks & Forestry: 508-830-4162, ext. 12116

Owned By: Town of Plymouth

• Directions
• Trail Map

Plymouth’s Comassakumkanut Preserve is a quiet, 187-acre woodland near Great Herring Pond. Follow the 0.8-mile trail through a mixed upland forest, and down into a secluded valley, where it connects with a historic cart path. Look for trail expansion in the future. Also known as Comassakumkanit Preserve and the Commassakumkanut Preserve at Roxy Cahoon.

HUNTING: Hunting is allowed, in season, by licensed persons in compliance with Massachusetts law. Please be sure to understand state and local hunting guidelines before proceeding. Non-hunters, be mindful of hunting seasons, and wear bright orange if you’re entering the property during those times. Hunting is not permitted on Sundays.

Features

According to the Plymouth Trails Guide, the Herring Pond Wampanoag tribe sometimes refers to the area around the south and west of Great Herring Pond as Comassakumkanit. The tribe has inhabited the area for thousands of years. To learn more about local Native American tribes, we encourage you to interact with their members. The Herring Pond Wampanoag and the Mashpee Wampanoag share information on their websites.

English settlers renamed the area Bourndale. (Camp Bournedale is just down the road.) The trail intersects with a historic cart path known as Valley Road, which once connected to Bourne. According to the Plymouth Trail Guide, “It leads southwest toward the infamous ‘Thousand Acres’ which is a very large tract of undisturbed forest which owes its preservation to a Byzantine tangle of deed irregularities.”

For more information about the Great Herring Pond watershed, follow the Herring Ponds Watershed Association.

Trail Description

The 0.8-mile out-and-back trail is level for the first half mile and then turns sharply downhill. There is a T-intersection at the bottom of the hill, where the trail joins the wider Valley Road, which extends in both directions, and once connected to Bourne. The property boundaries are easy to miss.

Habitats and Wildlife

The woods here are composed primarily of oak and pitch pine. There are some beech and sassafras trees as well. The understory contains a lot of fern, blueberry, and sweet pepperbush. The sandy soil is barely concealed beneath the leaf litter. This is a quiet place, relatively undisturbed, and ideal for birding.

This property is within the Herring River watershed of Plymouth and Bourne. The waters here flow south into Great Herring Pond, which drains to Herring River and eventually Buzzards Bay.