by Jim Kevlin

Montville, Connecticut (AP)

Towering Cochegan Rock, now the locale of dirt-bike riders and Boy Scout camping trips, may soon return to its legendary function as site of Mohegan tribal councils.

The Hartford-based Connecticut Council, Boy Scouts of America, wants to give the rock – declared the largest boulder in New England by Harvard scientists in the 1870s – back to the Mohegan more than 350 years after it was claimed by European settlers.

All that’s needed to transfer the 50-foot-tall rock, plus nearly 100 acres, is Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal’s signature, said Harry Pokorny, Connecticut Council executive director.

The paperwork is now being reviewed in the attorney general’s office. Blumenthal said recently that he’s not yet ready to give his approval.

Pokorny said tribal officials expressed interest a year ago in regaining ownership of the land and offered its continued use to the Boy Scouts. The Scouts infrequently use the land and were eager to unload liability of owning it, as it is frequently used by ATV and dirt-bike riders and rock climbers.

Tribal officials consider the rock an important piece of their heritage – the 17th-century chief Uncas, who founded the Mohegan Tribe and made peace with the colonists, may have held tribal councils there – and sought to include it when the 700-acre reservation was formed in 1994.

The tribe, which owns the Mohegan Sun Casino, and the Scouts have agreed that the tribe will pay $50,000 for the land, although the Scouts were willing to sign it away for free.

The deal is beneficial to both sides, said Mark Brown, former Mohegan Tribal Council chairman. “It’s interesting what can happen when someone picks up the phone and two sides talk to each other,” he said.

The agreement also has been approved by the family that gave control of the land to the Scouts in 1963. The family includes Montville native Sidney Frank, who sold his Grey Goose Vodka to Bacardi & Co. for $2 billion in 2004.

Cochegan Rock is a hidden giant, but accessible, set back in the hills and trees a few hundred feet west of Interstate 395, a mile south of Norwich. A path is lined by rows of ancient mountain laurel and 18th century gravestones dot the area.

Brown said the tribe plans to keep the land in its current state and would help the Scouts maintain its trail. Officials may also build an interpretive center where the tribal council could meet, steps from where its distant predecessors may have, Brown said.

Cochegan Rock was proclaimed New England’s largest boulder after it was measured in the 1870s by Harvard University scientists, who calculated it at 176,000 cubic feet.

The most recent measurement, in 1986, showed the rock at 54 feet long, 50 feet tall and 58 feet wide, and weighing 7,000 tons.