QUICK TRAIL FACTS
- Preserve Size: 95 acres
- Trail Mileage: 1.4 miles in network
- Pets: yes
- Difficulty: easy
- Sights: old family cemetery, Sweat Homestead, mature forest
Louise Virginia Hurd Morin was a lover of nature and wildlife, and she left 95 acres of land and her house — a two-century-old home — to the Mousam Way Land Trust. The house first belonged to Reverend Moses Sweat, the pastor of Sanford’s first congregational church, which he led from 1786 to 1822.
The purplish-chocolatey-colored home is now the land trust’s headquarters. You can park at the back of the house and start your walk, but it’s nicer and probably more convenient for the land trust if you park in the large lot just 200 yards or so down the road, at the official trailhead, which has a kiosk and is next to a small, pretty field.
The trails in the preserve are mostly flat and easy, bringing you through a “relatively mature forest of pine, oak, and maple.” A highlight is the well-tended old cemetery, in which there are tombstones for Sweat family members, many of whom died young.
Directions: The address for the Sweat Morin Homestead is 374 School Street, but the best place to park and start your walk is just 200 yards farther along School Street, right before the intersection with Oak Ridge Road.
