At the start of the tour
Welcome to Brandywine Falls
Welcome to Brandywine Falls, in Cuyahoga Valley National Park. I'll be your guide on the walk around the Brandywine Gorge Loop.
This valley was a home long before it was a park. About five hundred generations of native people have lived here, starting with travelers who followed large game at the end of the last Ice Age. Later people lived in seasonal camps that became more permanent, hunted and gathered in these forests, traded local flint for materials from far away, and held ceremonies along the streams and on the bluffs above the river. Warfare killed or drove out most native people from Ohio by the mid-1800s. Today more than twenty-five federally recognized tribes are associated with this valley, among them the Delaware, the Shawnee and the Wyandotte.
Our loop is about a mile and a half. We'll take the boardwalk to the falls first, cross the creek above them, pass an old family house, then follow the gorge trail down to the creek and back up through the woods. That part is hilly and rocky, with steps. I'll tell a story at each spot and stay quiet in between.
One rule before we start: stay on the boardwalk and the trails, keep well back from the top and the bottom of the falls, and don't climb the fences or the rocks.
Point 1 · At the stop
Brandywine Falls Trailhead
This is the trailhead, and the story here starts with water power.
In 1814, George Wallace built a sawmill at the top of Brandywine Falls. A gristmill and a woolen mill followed, and the Village of Brandywine grew up around them. It was one of the earliest communities in the Cuyahoga Valley.
In 1825, Wallace handed his mill and his property to his children. For about thirty years the village did well. Its mills and its distillery turned out wool, animal feed and whiskey, and the gristmill ground flour for families around the valley. But Brandywine had no direct access to the canal, so goods moving between Akron and Cleveland passed it by. When the railroads came to the valley a few decades later, they only sped up the village's decline.
The boardwalk here leads to the falls. There are two places to see them: an upper viewing area, which you can reach without stairs, and a lower deck, about eighty steps down into the gorge, and either one is a fine place to start.
History, on the way there
On the way: Brandywine Falls
Now for the falls themselves, and how a creek made them.
Brandywine Creek carved this waterfall. The top of it is a hard cap of Berea Sandstone. Under that cap lie softer layers of shale, the Bedford and the Cleveland shales. The shales began as mud on the floor of an ancient sea, somewhere between three hundred fifty and four hundred million years ago. The hard sandstone protects the softer shale beneath it. If you get a close look at the sandstone, you can see the individual grains of sand it's made of.
That same stone was useful to the people who settled here. It went into buildings, and into the locks of the canal down in the valley.
Point 2 · At the stop
Brandywine Falls
Here is Brandywine Falls.
Watch how the water comes down. The shale here is made of thin layers, and those layers spread the water out into what the park calls a bridal veil. When the creek runs low, that veil pattern shows even more. In winter, the falls can turn to ice.
Now look at the walls of the gorge. Moss grows on the damp sandstone, and the dark evergreens clinging to the slopes are eastern hemlocks. In the fall they stand out against the red maples, which turn a brilliant red.
This was a working waterfall for a long time. Its power drove the grist, saw and woolen mills of the village. Then, about a century later, it was the beauty of the falls that drew artists here, to build a progressive community of their own.
Please stay on the boardwalk. The park asks everyone to keep at least fifty feet from the top and the bottom of the falls, and not to climb the fences or the rocks.
History, on the way there
On the way: The James Wallace House
Now for the old Wallace family house, and the paved trail you're on, which has a history of its own.
This path was once a railroad. The Akron, Bedford and Cleveland line opened in 1895. In the early 1900s, the Plain Dealer newspaper pointed its readers to places like Brandywine Falls that they could reach on it. It was an electric passenger railway, and it ran until 1932.
Today the old route is part of the Bike and Hike Trail, one of the first rail lines in the country to be turned into a trail. Bikes use it too, so keep to one side and listen for riders coming up behind you.
Point 3 · At the stop
The James Wallace House
The house beside the trail here is the James Wallace House. George Wallace's son James built it, and it's the one building left from the original village. Besides the house, only traces and ruins of Brandywine remain. Today it's a private inn, so please enjoy it from the trail.
The village had one more chapter. In the 1920s, Willis Hale built the Champion Electric Company here. It made restaurant appliances until 1937, when lightning destroyed the factory.
Then came the interstate. In the 1960s, Interstate 271 was built across this valley, and its construction took most of what was left of the village, including historic houses. The park describes the highway as a noisy intrusion on this scenic area. It's a reminder of how much of this valley could have been lost, and how much was saved.
History, on the way there
On the way: Into the gorge
Now for the Brandywine Gorge Trail. Before we go down into the gorge, here's how this valley got its shape.
Between two million and ten thousand years ago, an ice age gripped the planet. Four major advances of ice moved through like bulldozers, pushing sand, silt, clay and rock. The glaciers here were too thin to scour the land. Instead, they polished the old river valleys and filled them with debris.
When the ice pulled back, the rivers cut their valleys again, sometimes along the old buried ones and sometimes along an easier path. In this valley, the closely spaced ravines can drop nearly six hundred feet in just a few miles.
Point 4 · At the stop
Into the gorge
This is where the gorge trail begins, and the walk changes character. The path is unpaved now, rocky in places, so take your time.
Look at the trees. Eastern hemlocks do well in this cool, damp gorge, and they keep their needles all year. In spring, low spots in these woods fill with water. They're called vernal pools, and salamanders come to them to breed.
Please stay on the marked trail. It protects the plants and the pools. And if you ever spot an arrowhead or a piece of old pottery in the park, leave it where it is. It's illegal to disturb cultural sites or collect artifacts here.
Native history in this region isn't only in the past. In the 1950s, a relocation program brought about five thousand people from thirty-three western tribes to Cleveland, and the native community here today works together to preserve and celebrate its cultures.
History, on the way there
On the way: The Stanford Trail junction
Now for the Stanford Trail, which meets our loop here, and the family who farmed this land.
James Stanford was one of the original settlers of the Western Reserve, and a surveyor for the Connecticut Land Company. He claimed land here in 1806. His son George built a Greek Revival farmhouse and kept adding land, until by 1853 the family farm covered two hundred eighty-three acres, raising wheat, cattle and sheep.
Point 6 · At the stop
The Stanford Trail junction
This is the junction with the Stanford Trail. The climb from the creek is behind you.
The Stanford Trail runs about a mile and a half from here, down into the valley. It passes the Stanford farm, and near the house it meets a connector to the Towpath Trail. The house is usually closed, except for special programs, but the grounds have picnic tables.
Farms like the Stanfords' and villages like Brandywine are a big part of why this park looks the way it does. It isn't a wilderness. It's a valley where people have lived and worked for a very long time, and where much of that history was kept rather than paved over.
History, on the way there
On the way: Back toward the trailhead
Now, as we head back toward the trailhead, here's how this valley became a national park.
For years, the river this creek feeds was better known for pollution. Downstream in Cleveland, industrial waste on the river's surface burned at least a dozen times. The last fire was a brief blaze on Sunday, June 22nd, 1969.
At the same time, people who loved this valley were working to protect it. Congressman John Seiberling led that effort. On December 27th, 1974, President Gerald Ford signed the bill that made this valley a national recreation area. Then, in 2000, a line in a House appropriations bill changed its name, and on October 11th of that year it became Cuyahoga Valley National Park.
Point 7 · At the stop
Back toward the trailhead
This is the end of our tour. The trailhead and the parking lot are a few minutes further along this trail.
Think about what you've just walked through. A waterfall that powered a village. A railroad that brought the first visitors out from the city. One house left standing from a whole community. And a creek that has spent thousands of years carving this gorge, and is still at it.
Thanks for walking with me. If you have time today, the Boston Mill Visitor Center tells more of the valley's story, including how the valley recovered after the river fire.