Then as Now

Over the past year we’ve increasingly been drawn to “character trees,” inside the Quabbin Reservoir.  The typical definition of character tree (it is really a subjective one to be sure) has more to do with it’s shape and the apparent story it tells by the twists, turns and gnarls in its trunk.  I now add a qualifier:  they were planted, by humans.  This highlights for me the idea that we can understand something about a society’s relationship with nature by the way they planted trees.  And, trees last a long time, particularly away from an urban environment (less pollution, fewer dogs). The story they tell can last longer than the communities that planted them, as we see here along the Road to Millington, inside Gate 30/29 at the Quabbin Reservoir.  (Click on the images for a better view.)

We were quite surprised to come upon this carefully ordered stand of trees last December.  What stories can we infer?  It’s fun to image.  This area, a part of North Dana, was relatively prosperous.  There was manufacturing nearby but it was still largely a farming community.  The land owner was trying to make a statement. There is graphic order here, but it’s kind of a friendly order.  After all, these are shade trees.  Just the thing for a hot summer day, pre air conditioning.  The temperature under row of trees on a summer day might have been 15 degrees cooler than the hot sun.  A nice place to stop and rest the horses perhaps.

These rows of trees, along stone walls, are not, however, just an artifact of the past. They are still with us today.  Here’s a recent image from “downtown” New Salem, just a few miles away.

Perhaps this is something like the scene along the road to Millington would have appeared were North Dana here today.

Artillery Practice at Gate 52, the Quabbin Reservoir

I beg your pardon?  Must be some mistake.

No, not really.  In fact, during World War II the Reservoir (which was still in the process of filling) was used for a variety of forms of target practice.  Gate 52 is actually inside Quabbin Park, just west of the Goodnough Dike.  It’s a short walk from the Gate to the Reservoir itself but along the way, you will see platforms for, you guessed it, artillery.

Thankfully, the stewards of the Reservoir have seen fit to leave them be.  Perhaps as a reminder.  Your next question may then be, “is it wise to pump artillery shells into public drinking water?”  Didn’t those things contain all sorts of chemicals?  I don’t have enough details to respond to the question.  J.R. Greene says the following in his wonderful book, Historic Quabbin Hikes.  ”The shells were fired into the flooding valley and their effectiveness (and the gunner’s accuracy) were checked.  Many guns made at the Springfield Armory were tested here.”  Here’s the powder house where ammunition and firing powder were stored.  There was a war on, after all and I don’t say that sarcastically.  The way we make decisions is influenced by a host of factors. And we’re always making trade offs.

The reality is that we know so much more about the vulnerabilities of the environment now than then.  Lead for example was everywhere, particularly in paint.  What we didn’t know is how easily children could be poisoned by that lead. Many were and some died.  Policy leaders in governments at all levels have made it much more difficult for our children to be exposed to lead in the same way, thankfully, though the danger still exists.  In this case, the Reservoir is so vast, that perhaps it could absorb whatever toxins might have been involved.   I think the lesson here is that we need to be respectful of what we don’t know.  Hubris is not indicated.

This is the end of the trail at Gate 52.  Old State Rt. 109 which used to run from Belchertown through Enfield to Ware goes underwater here.

More to the Story at Gate 30 – The Quabbin

Happy New Year!  I hope the year brings you and your loved ones peace, happiness and meaning.  (Well, meaning and happiness sometimes conflict it seems.  You will have to sort that one out yourself.)

If you’re familiar with my work or with the Quabbin area, you are almost certainly familiar with this iconic image from the Quabbin, the bridge at Gate 30. (Located in Petersham, MA, near the intersection of Routes 122 and 202.   Click on the images for a better view.)

This wonderful bridge was built in 1866 by Adolphus Porter for less than $50.  Mr. Porter accomplished his task with NO mortar or cement.  These are keystones.  This wounded Civil War Veteran obviously was a man of serious talent.  The bridge still stands after all these years.  This is the middle branch of the Swift River, a major source of water for the Quabbin. I have to imagine that it is vulnerable to flooding.  But, it still stands.

Strangely, Chris and I hadn’t ever gone beyond the bridge at Gate 30.  It’s so easy to get distracted by icons, even worthwhile ones such as Mr. Porter’s bridge.  But where does his bridge lead?  We had actually walked a bit down the road in the past.  To the right, heading south, are wet lands. Good places for Moose (when we’re not there of course), but not terribly dramatic, or at least that’s what I thought.  In fact, when you walk through Gate 30, you’re walking along the Orange Millington Road. Millington was one of the largest villages taken to create the Reservoir. “Where Millington was,” is now at the bottom of the northern end of the Reservoir, perhaps three miles due south of the entrance to Gate 30.  I had assumed, erroneously, that the walk south would be through fairly dense forest as it often is on the western side of the Reservoir.  There, you really can feel the absence of people or the press of history.  That isn’t the case at Gate 30.  We decided to follow the well worn road south.  Evidently we weren’t the only ones.

It appears that quite a few representatives of various species survived hunting season in reasonable shape.  But for us, the trees were telling the story.

As we walked, we quickly began to note the presence of character trees, with a growing sense of regularity, until our breath was literally taken away by this scene.

I’m not sure I was able to do justice with this image but the light struck these carefully arranged trees wonderfully, as was intended to be the case. Prosperous individuals planted, or had planted, these trees to provide shade to the traveler.  Along this stretch, quite a voluptuous amount of shade it would appear.  That was of course long ago.  Nature, and the Division of Conservation and Recreation, are now in charge. At the Quabbin the hand of man, or woman, and nature is so closely intertwined through history.  It is easy to be struck by the industrial level impact of the region’s transformation, even though it’s largely out of sight.

But in other ways, the interaction of man and nature is still evolving.  As we continued south we came to Bullard’s Corner.  If you haven’t looked through a guidebook, you’d be surprised to see the following.  (We expected it and were still surprised.)

In case you have trouble reading the sign, here’s a crop from the image above.

Quite a sentiment isn’t it?  There is in fact an orchard beyond the sign.  I didn’t get a great image of it unfortunately, and it’s hard to tell how fruit trees are doing this time of year.  But here’s a glimpse…

What was once a stop over for people, is now a stop over for wildlife.  This is Herrick’s Tavern, or what was Herrick’s Tavern.

I continue to find a sense of grace here that always impresses.  If you continue south along the Orange Millington Road you quickly come to Rattlesnake Hill.  (Love the name.)  Putatively, Rattlesnake Hill is the wildest part of the Quabbin.  More about that in a future post, maybe…

Time Travel – Dana Common

Historical sites and artifacts are spread throughout the Quabbin Reservoir. Few locations, however, provide a more powerful reminder of what happened here than Dana Common.  (Click on the images for a better view.  You can see a full size version of the first panorama here.)

Dana Common is just under a two mile walk from the entrance to Gate 40, on Route 32A in Petersham.  I doubt that images can effectively convey what it is like to reach the Common for the first time.  New Englanders will know that feeling well.  You ARE in an old New England center of town. The layout of the roads and sidewalks make that crystal clear.  But, there are no buildings and there are no people.  It’s very peaceful there, too peaceful.  A cold December day seems fitting for a visit there. If you’d like to know more detail about the Common and the walk along the Petersham Greenwich Road from Gate 40 to the Common, I’d strongly recommend you consult J.R. Greene’s Historic Quabbin Hikes, which is available from most bookstores in the area.  (Unfortunately I don’t have a good web link for the purchase of the book.  If any reader can suggest one, please do so.)

There’s plenty of parking available at Gate 40, and the experience begins immediately.  Though it is now difficult to see, and nearly impossible to photograph effectively, there’s an old cellar hole from the residence of one Asa “Popcorn” Snow who led a colorful life, and death.  He was very concerned about premature burial it seems.  So prior to his death, he had a coffin, with a window, prepared, so that the undertaker could double check his work.  Mr. Snow, as is the case with many of the residents of Dana who passed prior to the building of the Reservoir, is now interned in the Quabbin Cemetery just off Route 9 in Belchertown.  To the left, however, is a beautiful brook, which I believe is known as Moose Brook.  Water is always key here and like history, you can find it everywhere.  This was something like the view Popcorn might have had from his back window.

The walk along Petersham Greenwich Road is classic New England in and of itself.  The old shade trees, now character trees though, share the landscape with the millions of pines that were planted when the Reservoir was built.

They also share the landscape with artifacts of the people who once lived here.  Little details tell the story.

Along the Road are numerous cellar holes and foundations.  This one from the Carter home, which had been the Dana Poor Farm up until the 1920′s. Yes, such institutions once did indeed exist.

There had been a garage here once.

The road itself was straightened in the eaerly 1900′s.  It is actually still paved, though the pavement is crumbling. The old road that is visible as you approach the Common runs parallel.

Arriving at the common, one of the first sites you come to is the old Town Hall.

Not far to the right, is the old School.

The town Cemetery also bordered the Common, the only reminder now being the old stone fence.

Houses, or rather cellar holes, ring the Common.  This was the Dunn homestead.

Evidently the Dunn’s didn’t feel it was worth the effort to remove the safe you see.  Hopefully they did remove the contents.  A different kind of cellar hole is just down the street.

This was the Cooley Langley home where smaller stones and cement were used.  The stories are too numerous for this blog, but I could go on.  Perhaps as a lap stop, we can revisit the Common itself.  Again as every New Englander knows, the town common is where you’ll find memorials to those who fought in the Civil War.  Those monuments are gone from Dana Common. We can only see where they were…  (They can be seen at the Quabbin Cemetery in Ware.)

The Memorial you will find here, placed in 1996, reminds us of the enormity of the sacrifice that the families of Dana endured.

The Town of Dana ceased to exist on April 28, 1938.  It was one of four towns (including Enfield, Greenwich and Prescott) taken to make way for the Quabbin Reservoir, the main source of drinking water for the people of Metropolitan Boston.  By that time, the residents had all been moved off the land. There was compensation involved, but it was generally considered to be inadequate.  Besides, can you compensate for the loss of a “way of life?”  When I look at that Memorial, I’m struck by just how many times people from eastern Massachusetts have said to me “people in Boston have no clue” as to the origins of their water.