Starting at Park HQ, if you venture down the Allen trail about half a mile, you will come around a bend before a steep decline in the trail and reach a gap in the forest canopy to the left.  This is the site of the Allen homestead; a site with a rich human history heavily influenced by its natural environment, and vice versa.

Just a quarter mile from Lake Champlain, our site is underlain by Monkton quartzite, which played a role in the development of the three distinct vegetation stands on the site.  To the north, the drainage from the rocky ledges outside of our site has created a wet understory with a vernal pool running south towards a manmade dug well. 
This, along with foundations of a house and a barn are the only remaining evidence of the homestead built by the Allen family who farmed and pastured most of the land within the park during the 1800s.  As a result, the soil, which was once very fertile due to its location in a floodplain, became depleted and is now a very sandy loam upon which many horsetails thrive.  When the homestead was abandoned in the late 1800s, it was colonized by eastern white pines (which grow better on sandy sites), mature trees that now occupy the canopy under which mixed hardwoods grow.

Today, the site is a popular stop for runners and dog-walkers who use the park extensively.  It is also a good site for wildlife, as the many standing snags provide habitat for squirrels, mice, chipmunks, woodpeckers, and other birds.  In addition, if you visit our site during the spring, you will most likely encounter some of the amphibians that breed in the vernal pool.

All of these factors make our site a great destination during your visit to Niquette Bay State Park.  We hope you enjoy exploring it as much as we did!