First Attempt, Saturday, August 24, 1991
I left the Gould home in Dudley, Massachusetts, and drove southeastward on Gore Road to the Tri-State area. I then continued southwestward on East Thomson Road, crossing into Connecticut. I had planned to park at that point for the shortest cross-country walk to the Tri-State point, but the area was heavily wooded and also flooded. So, I continued south, and turned left onto "New Road", hoping to get to the place where a track crossed the Connecticut - Rhode Island line, and then hike north to the goal. But the road petered out in some private property. I then decided to try the third approach, from the Buck Hill Game Management Area in the northwest corner of Rhode Island--the fact that there was public land right up to the Tri-State point was appealing. I drove into the Game Management area, parked near a gate, and asked a person who had just arrived whether he was familiar with the area, and with the Tri-State point. It turned out that he often hiked in the area, or walked his dog, "Max", there, and thought he had seen the Tri-State monument some years before, in the hunting season. He was an MBA student who had lived all his life in Rhode Island. I thought he said it would take about 45 minutes to get to the marker, so we headed off. But after 45 minutes, the trail northwestward ended, and we were still (apparently) some distance from the corner. I tried tentative forays both northward and westward, hoping to find a trail in the right direction, but did not, and was put off by walking within 6 feet of a very large hornet's nest on the ground! Since I did not have much time before I was due back at the Goulds' for the reception that had brought me to the area, I gave up, undecided as to whether to try the next day, or to wait until some other year.
Second Attempt, Sunday, August 25, 1991
After saying goodbye to Mike and Carmina Gould, just before they left for their flight to Spain, I decided to have another shot at reaching the Connecticut-Massachusetts-Rhode Island point. I drove back to the Tri-State area again, but this time I parked on East Thomson Road, in Massachusetts just east of the Connecticut line, and about 850 meters due north of my goal. I walked southward down a rough surveyor's cut that seemed to follow the state line for a while, and then hiked southeastward to the bank of aptly-named "Rocky Brook". I found some rocks that allowed me to ford the brook, and was pleased to find a trail, running roughly north-south, just a few yards up the other slope. Heading southward, I eventually came to a dirt road that ran along the grade of the abandoned Conrail railway line. My trail continued on the other side of the grade, but now was heavily marked with trail-bike tracks. The trail ran mostly southward, and after what seemed like 500 meters or so, I came to an old stone wall. Perhaps it marked the trace of a cadastral boundary marked on my USGS map, about 100 or 150 meters north of the state line. But within a few meters the trail swung eastward and headed up a steep slope. As I neared the grove of white birches on a small hill-top, I saw a trail off to the right that was a short-cut to the southward continuation of the dirt-bike trail. Since the map seemed to show that the Tri-State point was on a hillside not a summit, I cut across and headed south. In about 150 meters, I suddenly came upon a very old-looking monument, with "RI" on the east side, "CT" on the west, and a piece of orange survey tape tied around it.
Was this the Tri-State marker? If so, the north side would be Massachusetts, but the was no "MA" to be seen on it. Just a few yards east, there was a small aluminum marker about 9 feet up a small tree, and on the marker was a green, diamond-shaped sign saying "Rhode Island State Boundary". I looked for another such marker to the east, where the Rhode Island line ought to run if this were indeed the Tri-State point, but couldn't see one. I carefully photographed the area from many angles, and sketched it in case I could later confirm the location by using air photos, and then walked back northward along the trail, looking for more "Rhode Island State Boundary" signs on the trees, since if this was not the actual Tri-State point, then the Tri-State point must logically lie north, as the corner point marks Rhode Island's northernmost extent. I found a "Rhode Island State Boundary" almost immediately, meaning the photos had been wasted on a "bi-state" marker! And continuing northward, I found another aluminum, and another, all the way back to the hill with the white birches. And just a few feet beyond where my short-cut had joined in, I found a bench-mark on a rock at the edge of the trail, with "Tri State" and "1937" and "Coast and Geodetic Survey", and some other annotations! (There was an arrow in the center, pointing northward, with a number "2" next to it, but at the time I did not know what it meant.) I carefully photographed what I thought was the Tri-State benchmark--after all, it did say "Tri State" right on it.
For some reason, I decided to walk up the remaining few feet to the hilltop. And there in front of me was a granite monument, about a meter tall, dated 1883, and with the state abbreviations on the three sides! I was photographing this, thinking that it was just a better place for a monument than the actually Tri-State point about 50 feet south, when I found another C&GS benchmark, also marked "Tri State", and this one with a south-pointing arrow with the number "1". Since it pointed toward the first benchmark, I checked half way between, and there, sure enough, was the actual Tri-State benchmark, a first-order triangulation point. My guess is that the 10 meters or so between the monument and the benchmark represents an error determining the location of the Tri-State point in the 1880s.
The walk back to the car was quite pleasant, and I didn't mind much when I inadvertently waded the brook, rather than crossing it on the stepping stones. Two down, 58 to go.