Bara-Hack

Overview

A farm settlement with a borrowed Welsh name

In 1778, with British forces advancing during the Battle of Rhode Island, Jonathan Randall and Obadiah Higginbotham left the Randall farm in Cranston, Rhode Island, for land Randall had bought in Pomfret two years earlier. Higginbotham had been born in Lancashire, England, in 1750. The two families built farms on the hillside above Mashamoquet Brook, a water-powered mill, and a business making spinning wheels for the textile trade, and they set aside a small burial ground that both families used.

It never grew into a village. Wikipedia puts it plainly: the place never reached the size or scope of one, which is why it suspects the name "Bara-Hack" is a 20th-century invention. The name is usually explained as Welsh for "the breaking of bread", and traced mainly to the 1920s writings of Odell Shepard. The settlement was empty by 1890, possibly since soon after the Civil War, and 1890 is also the year of the last burial. Research by the Wyndham Land Trust and the Pomfret Historical Society indicates that enslaved African Americans may be buried in unmarked graves at the burial ground, and in 2022 the trust placed a memorial stone at its entrance.

The forest took the fields back, and the cellar holes became a destination for ghost hunters, which is how the site came to be closed. The land passed from the Townshend family, who had bought about 1,200 acres here in the late 1950s, to the land trust in stages between 2000 and 2024. Today it is part of the 1,300-acre Nightingale Forest Preserve, and the part with the ruins is opened only for guided events.

Timeline

What we know

1. 1750Obadiah Higginbotham is born in Lancashire, England.
2. 1776Jonathan Randall buys land in Pomfret.
3. 1778As British forces advance during the Battle of Rhode Island, the Randall and Higginbotham families leave the Randall farm in Cranston for Pomfret. They build farms, a water-powered mill and a business making spinning wheels, and lay out a small burial ground both families use.
4. 1800sThe settlement never grows past the two families' farms. The land trust's research suggests enslaved African Americans may lie in the burial ground in unmarked graves.
5. 1890The last burial in the family ground. By this year the settlement is empty, possibly since soon after the Civil War.
6. 1927Odell Shepard's The Harvest of a Quiet Eye is published. Wikipedia traces the name "Bara-Hack" mainly to his writing.
7. 1991Doris B. Townshend publishes The Lost Village of the Higginbothams. Her family had bought about 1,200 acres in Pomfret in the late 1950s.
8. 2000The Townshend family donates 2.6 acres to the Wyndham Land Trust, the start of a partnership.
9. 2016DamnedCT describes the site as posted private property, closely watched, whose owners are unlikely to grant permission to visit.
10. 2021–2022The land trust buys 364 acres from the Townshends, its largest purchase in 46 years, and places a memorial stone at the Randall/Higginbotham burial ground for the enslaved people who may lie there in unmarked graves.
11. May 2024A further 227 acres off Ragged Hill Road are protected, bringing the Townshend tract to 1,018 acres inside the 1,300-acre Nightingale Forest Preserve.
12. Jun 2026A registered history hike visits the burial ground. The land trust's undated preserve page keeps the southern Townshend section closed except for pre-arranged, guided events, citing the cultural remains and past vandalism.

Legend and record

The village of voices

Bara-Hack's fame rests on sounds. Visitors have reported children playing, singing, livestock, and wagon wheels on a road that no longer exists; DamnedCT collects stories of wagon wheels and livestock. Investigators claim recordings, a bearded man in the cemetery and a child's figure in a tree by the burial-ground wall. DamnedCT, which collected these accounts in 2016, presents them as claims, and so do we.

The record is a farm settlement that failed quietly, and a burial ground that the land trust and the historical society have spent the last few years studying and restoring. The crowds the legend drew are the reason the ruins are now off limits except on guided walks.

Site map

Where the settlement stood

Our point, from Wikipedia, sits on the hillside east of Nightingale Brook and north of Taft Pond Road, about 330 metres from the road. The 1945 and 1953 USGS sheets in the historic maps below show the same ground: Nightingale Brook coming down from the north, a single building beside the road, Taft Pond, and Mashamoquet Brook along the south. The 1892 and 1983 sheets cover the site but couldn't be cropped, and the 1921 sheet runs off its eastern edge here, so we left it out. On today's map the site is unbroken forest between Taft Pond Road and Abbott Pond, and the aerial view shows nothing but tree canopy, with a field to the north and a few houses along the road to the west. We haven't confirmed exactly where the cellar holes and the burial ground lie within the preserve.

• Cellar holes and foundations
• Wells
• Stone walls
• Randall/Higginbotham burial ground, with a 2022 memorial stone
• Mill site on the brook (unlocated)

Historic maps

Bara-Hack on USGS maps, 1945–1953

Crops from the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection, centered on the townsite. Each sheet shows what surveyors mapped that year; compare them with today's topo and aerial on this page.

19451:31,68019531:24,000

Map & directions

Getting there

Putnam is the nearest city, about a quarter of an hour away. From Hartford it is I-84 and then US 44 across the Quiet Corner to Pomfret. Both routes end on Taft Pond Road near the mapped settlement point; this is not a confirmed visitor entrance. The ruins are in the restricted section. Registered participants should use the meeting and parking instructions supplied for their guided event.

Base map: USGS The National Map (public domain). Routes: OSRM on © OpenStreetMap contributors data (ODbL), computed October 2026. Times assume dry roads.

Photos

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Visitor reports

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Nearby

Other sites near Bara-Hack

Straight-line distance from the townsite to other mapped sites in our Connecticut index.

• Gay City State Park24.5 mi SW · Tolland
• Johnsonville Village35.7 mi SW · Middlesex
• Bloomfield37.2 mi W · Hartford
• Dudley Town69.2 mi W · Litchfield
• Easton79.4 mi SW · Fairfield

Sources

Sources and credits

1. ghosttowns.com, "Bara-Hack": fact sheet fields (climate, best time and remains); its undated road classification is not a current access check.
2. Wikipedia, "Bara-Hack, Connecticut", retrieved October 2026: the 1776 purchase, the 1778 move, the founders, the mill and spinning wheels, the burial ground, abandonment by 1890, the name and Odell Shepard, private property and closure, coordinates, and its reference list (Townshend 1991, Shepard 1927).
3. Wyndham Land Trust, "Nightingale Forest Preserve", read October 2026: the tracts and acreages, which sections have open trails, the southern Townshend section's restriction to pre-arranged and guided events, the cultural remains and vandalism, and the Walktober pointer.
4. Connecticut Land Conservation Council, "Out of the Shadows", July 16, 2022: the memorial stone at the Higginbotham Cemetery and its inscription.
5. Connecticut Land Conservation Council, "Townshend family donates Pomfret property", June 15, 2024: the 227 acres off Ragged Hill Road.
6. Putnam Town Crier, January 6, 2022, and June 6, 2024: the Townshend purchases, the 1,018 acres, Harry Townshend's late-1950s purchase of nearly 1,200 acres, and the 2000 donation.
7. DamnedCT, "Bara-Hack, Pomfret", November 20, 2016: the reported sounds and sightings, and the posted private property and permission notes of that time.
8. Connecticut Land Conservation Council, Black History Hike, June 27, 2026: registered guided access to the Randall/Higginbotham Burial Ground, with meeting and parking instructions sent to participants.
9. Elevation: USGS 3D Elevation Program point query. Routes: OSRM on OpenStreetMap data, October 2026. Not field-checked.

Photo and map credits

• The 1953 USGS Eastford sheet: Nightingale Brook, Taft Pond and Mashamoquet Brook, with the settlement site in the woods north of the road: U.S. Geological Survey, USGS catalog, Public domain
• Area base map, topo and aerial imagery: USGS The National Map (public domain).
• Historic maps: USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection (public domain): Eastford 1945, 1:31,680; Eastford 1953, 1:24,000.