Forty Acre Rock (some say it is only 14 acres), a National Natural Preserve, is out in the Boonies, the Outback, the backwoods. It is where my mother's family came from, nearby the land that was bought generations ago from the person granted it "by the king", so that story goes. You can get there by traveling 521 South to Lancaster from Charlotte or on hwy 9 from Spartanburg, then turn from 521 bypass onto 903, go 15 miles. Drive past the abandoned Flat Creek High School, merge left onto 601. Go across the bridge over Flat Creek. Take the next left. Go several miles and turn left again onto Conservancy Rd. There are no signs, just ask people if you see anyone. They are very helpful. Shortly you will come to the end of the road. You can park on the side of the road. You will be facing a dirt road, impassable by car as there are two piles of gravel in the way.
It looks as if you would take a trail through the woods where there is a partial wooden gate, today with two hiking sticks leaning against it, but the trail is the dirt road, a beautiful walk of about 3/4 mile to the rock itself.
It is very much worth the effort.
There are large boulders covered in graffiti at the entrance. There is also graffiti on the rock, but I found it
charming. It is not obscene writings, rather it is about who loves who. There are round indentations in the rock where the elf orpine, a small red, white flowered plant, grows, now in bloom, a very rare plant. The little ponds of flowers look as if someone has planted small landscaped gardens.
I was here with my friend, Kathleen. We searched for the trail into the woods. I came here as a child and at that time, the waterfall was visible from the rock. Now trees and shrubs have grown up and we could not see it, much less the trail. We came upon a group of men and boys from Lincolnton, NC who had camped overnight somewhere on the Lynches River. They also could not find the trail. We found an entrance onto a pine needle covered way to the right and followed it steeply downhill until we reached the trail by Flat Creek.
We took that to the right until it ended onto another outcropping of the rock and we turned back. Soon we met a couple who told us to follow the trail where we had met it to the left and we would find the waterfall.
We would also find a nest of copperheads in the water. They showed us photos of the snakes on their phone. We did find the waterfall and never spotted the camouflaged snakes (probably a good thing).
The trail took us back up to the rock face, an entrance and exit far to the left of where we entered.
The trail may be five miles, counting the dirt road. It is incredibly beautiful, a heritage preserve, a hidden paradise for birds, small animals and deer.
We drove back past the small white house where my grandparents lived after the old home place burned down. My mother and her sister were at nursing school in Union, NC that year. The family with the younger children had to move into an outbuilding. The winter was cold and the oldest brother and the youngest sister became ill, the brother, James, with pneumonia and the little sister, Helen Lee, with an ear infection that drained into her brain. They sent for medicine from the North, but it was hopeless. It was a few years before the discovery of the penicillin which could have saved them. My mother remembers her father pacing back and forth interminably.
Now someone else lives in the old house. The lines of plum trees that grew along the entrances are gone.
Most of the family has moved away. A few cousins remain on the land. One has a Christmas tree farm along the highway.
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