The Purgatory Chasm State Reservation is located at 198 Purgatory Rd, Sutton, MA 01590. Before it was made into a public attraction, the land use to be owned by a textile company called Whitin Machine Works. A member of the state legislature at the time Mr. Herbert L. Ray wanted to make the area into a public park, so from his efforts therein created the Purgatory Chasm State Reservation under the Acts of 1919. From that, the Purgatory Chasm Reservation Commission was formed which consisted of three members who were residents of Worcester appointed by the governor. The commission’s duty was to acquire land for the reservation in the Town of Sutton by either purchasing it with a $5,000 budget they had to work with or having it be donated to them.
From when the land was acquired, the park has been developed over the years into a public attraction bringing in all kinds of people from kids to adults. You can go there to enjoy nature’s finest unusual beauty, you can bring your class there on a field trip, go on a picnic, etc. From the time you come out of your car in the parking lot you can see huge rocks with ridges surrounding the place with many trees that bore many different colored leaves from yellow, to green, to orange, and even red. Once you begin walking through the entrance there are two different trails that you can take which are Chasm Loop and Charley’s Loop. Of course, there are more trails if you go deeper into the park than those two, such as Old Purgatory, Forest Road, Spring Path, and Little Purgatory. Keep in mind the whole reservation is 100 acres, giving you a lot of land to explore through. As you explore, you will…show more content… The tectonic forces in the area that could generate such faulting have been silent for 200 million years. Thus, the fault caused a weakness in the rock, but not an open fissure. This crack in the rock across which there was displacement, was then taken advantage of by ice and water to form the chasm”
