Water for Boston, part 3 – Lost Towns of the Swift River Valley: Drowned by the Quabbin, with Elena Palladino (episode 322)

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Jake:
[0:03] Welcome to Hub History, where we go far beyond the Freedom Trail to share our favorite stories from the history of Boston, the Hub of the Universe.

Introduction to Lost Towns

Jake:
[0:13] This is Episode 322, Lost Towns of the Swift River Valley Drowned by the Quabbin, with Elena Palladino.

Jake:
[0:22] Hi, I’m Jake. In just a few minutes, I’ll be joined by Elena Palladino, author of the recent book, Lost Towns of the Swift River Valley, Drowned by the Quabbin. This book outlines the 20th century development of Boston’s modern water supply system through the eyes of the residents of four towns in north-central Massachusetts that were sacrificed to create the Quabbin Reservoir. Greenwich, Enfield, Dana, and Prescott. The story’s bookended by the farewell ball. an event held on the night when the four towns legally ceased to exist, and it’s largely told by following the lives of three prominent valley residents. The book reaches back to the last ice age to describe the forces that shaped the Swift River Valley into the ideal site for a reservoir, to English colonization to explain why the valley remained less populated and less developed into the 1930s and thus easier to take through eminent domain, and forward through today to understand the immense benefits that modern Bostonians enjoy thanks to the sacrifices of Swift River Valley residents of a century ago.

Listener Support Acknowledgment

Jake:
[1:30] But before we talk about the Quabbin Reservoir and the lost towns of the Swift River Valley, I just want to pause and say thank you to John S. and Jeremiah J. These two listeners recently supported the show with generous one-time gifts on PayPal.

Jake:
[1:46] I almost always promote our Patreon as a way to help support the show because it provides ongoing stability. But PayPal is great for listeners who want to help me make the show without making a monthly commitment. One-time gifts help with the costs of books for research and things like headphones and mic cables, while the ongoing support of our Patreon sponsors offsets our ongoing hosting and security costs. No matter how you choose to support the show, thank you. And if you’re not yet supporting the show and you’d like to start, it’s very easy. Just go to patreon.com slash hubhistory, or visit hubhistory.com and click on the Support Us link. And thanks again to all our new and returning sponsors.

Upcoming Talk Announcement

Jake:
[2:30] Before we get started, I also want to plug my upcoming talk on behalf of Old North Illuminated. On Tuesday, March 18th, I’ll be talking about the very first streetlights in Boston, which came over from England on the forgotten fourth tea ship in 1773 and managed to survive the Tea Party and a shipwreck, but fell victim to Boston politics on the eve of revolution. It’ll be a virtual talk held on Zoom, so you’ll be able to tune in from wherever you happen to be at 7 p.m. Eastern on March 18th, 2025. I’ll include a link to register for the event in the show notes this week.

Jake:
[3:09] Just over a year ago in January, I recorded two episodes about water in early Boston.

Water in Early Boston

Jake:
[3:15] In episode 292, I discussed how improved access to water attracted early English colonists to move to the Shawmut Peninsula from Charlestown. They relied on natural springs, hand-dug wells, and cisterns, until these water sources started to fail at the turn of the 19th century. Then rich Bostonians turned to privately owned water sources like drilled artesian wells and the Boston Aqueduct, which brought water from Jamaica Pond into the city through wooden water mains.

Jake:
[3:43] In episode 293, we picked up the story with the heated debate over public versus private ownership of Boston’s water supply in the early 19th century, which debate led us to the ambitious Cassituate Aqueduct project that concluded with a grand water festival in 1848, when plentiful, publicly owned water was introduced into the city. That episode continued through the construction of the Sudbury Aqueduct and wrapped up as construction began on the Wachusett Reservoir in the 1890s. If you haven’t heard him, I suggest that you go back and listen to episodes 292 and 293 before you dig into this one. I concluded that second episode with a promise that we would soon have a third part, where I would talk about our modern water system that revolves around the marvelous Quabbin Reservoir. A few months after I made that promise, listener Arun Guha sent an email in May saying just how eager he was to learn about the Quabbin, and how disappointed he was that we hadn’t gotten to it yet. I promised him that we would get to it at some point. Now, over a year after the second part aired, part three of Water for Boston is ready to go.

Meet Elena Palladino

Jake:
[4:54] I’m joined now by Elena Palladino. Elena has a bachelor’s from Simmons College and master’s degrees in literary and cultural studies from Carnegie Mellon, and in higher education from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. She works in the president’s office at Smith College and lives in Ware, Mass., where many of the residents displaced from the four towns that were flooded to create the Quabbin moved to. In our conversation, you’ll learn about the surprisingly personal connection to the dam project that she discovered after moving into her home in Ware, a connection that inspired her to write this, her first book, on the construction of the Quabbin. Elena Palladino, welcome to the show.

Elena:
[5:35] Thanks so much.

Jake:
[5:36] So we’re here today talking about your new-ish book. I say new-ish because it has been on my to-do list to reach out to somebody about this book for months or maybe a year or more. The book is Lost Towns of the Swift River Valley Drowned by the Quabbin, which is perfect for this show because I’ve been promising our listeners some sort of episode about the Quabbin for about two years now and not delivering. So I’m very glad to have you here today. I think, I hope that most or all Bostonians know that their water, their drinking water, they turn on the tap comes from the Quabbin Reservoir. But I don’t know that all Bostonians really consider what that means.

Understanding the Quabbin Reservoir

Jake:
[6:17] So for folks who have never thought about where the water that comes out of their tap comes from, can you just take a second and orient the listener a little bit to what the Quabbin Reservoir is, where the Quabbin Reservoir is, how big it is, some of the basics of the Quabbin before we get into what you actually wrote about here.

Elena:
[6:34] Yeah, absolutely. The Quabbin is 65 miles west of Boston. It’s located in what I think of as Western Central Mass, although that’s up for debate. And it’s one of the largest unfiltered water supplies in the country. It has a capacity of 412 billion gallons of water, which is pretty remarkable. The Quabbin is part of the water system that feeds Metro Boston. It also includes Wachusett Reservoir. And the two reservoirs combined supply an average of about 200 million gallons per day to consumers in the metro Boston area. In order to build the Quavin in the 1930s, four towns in what’s known as the Swift River Valley were destroyed. More than 2,000 residents were moved out of that area so that this reservoir could be built. And of course, today, Boston doesn’t have to think much about its water or worry too much because this supply is vast and very clean. And I think one of the little known facts about the Quabbin is that folks who live around it don’t actually get to use it or have access to the supply. So the towns around the Quabbin steward this resource, but don’t get to draw from it.

The Lost Towns of the Valley

Jake:
[7:47] While we’re doing the name check, what were the four towns that were lost in the construction of So.

Elena:
[7:54] The four towns were Enfield, Greenwich, Dana, and Prescott, Massachusetts.

Jake:
[7:59] Ooh, Greenwich, because reading your book, I assumed Greenwich. So I’m glad you just said that.

Elena:
[8:05] It’s Greenwich, and actually there are a number of roads around the Quabbin, Greenwich Road, and the folks around the reservoir still pronounce it that way.

Jake:
[8:15] The book actually opens and closes basically on the night of the Farewell Ball in the town of Enfield, which is being held on this evening when everybody knows that at midnight that night, the town’s going to cease to exist as an official entity under Massachusetts law. It’s going to be disincorporated. And at the beginning of the book, you use this night of the ball to introduce some characters that you follow throughout the story.

Key Characters in the Narrative

Jake:
[8:42] Doc Seeger, Edwin Howe, and Marion Smiths, who are sort of town elders. So, can you talk a little bit about these three characters and why they’re important to your narrative?

Elena:
[8:53] All three of them had spent the better part of their lives in the valley. Marion and Edwin had been born and were, you know, second, third generations in the valley. Doc Seeger was a transplant to the valley, but had lived there for most of his life and was a very important town leader. And so the three of them were in attendance that night and played important roles in the ceremony of this ball. So Doc Seeger in particular was the chair of the Board of Selectmen at that time and planned the evening and held a moment of silence at midnight for the towns officially passing into history.

Elena:
[9:30] Edwin Howe had owned a general store in town for many, many years and was a postmaster. And later, his son was the postmaster. And Marion Smith was born to a very influential family. Her grandfather, then her father and uncles, had owned one of the most prosperous mills in the valley. And so her family not only had quite a bit of money, but they did quite a bit for the town and the valley at large. She and her mother were the first women to serve on the Library Association. They had founded a women’s club in the Valley. And so all three of these people had really been part of building up these communities throughout their lives. And then, of course, as a result, were especially devastated to get the news that the reservoir was going to be built and that they would need to leave the towns and also that their relatives who had pre-deceased them and were buried in valley cemeteries would have to be exhumed. That was among the more painful things for them and having to depart from the valley.

Jake:
[10:33] And that’s definitely a topic I want to come back to a little bit later in the conversation, because I feel like other than, hey, my water comes from the Quabbin, if there’s one piece of trivia that Bostonians know about the construction of

The Swift River Valley’s Geography

Jake:
[10:45] the Quabbin, it’s that people had to be disinterred and moved. But before we get to that sort of grim task, I want to go way back and talk about the valley itself. I was struck as you started to tell us about the four towns that that affected about 2,000 people. What was it about the Swift River Valley that led it to be developed later, more sparsely populated, in a way a wilder place than the Connecticut River Valley, towns like Springfield, which are essentially just one ridgeline over from the Swift River?

Elena:
[11:19] Just by nature of its geography was a little bit separated from its neighboring towns. And it is a bowl-shaped valley, which now is filled with water.

Elena:
[11:30] It was a challenging area to farm. There were farmers, but particularly certain towns, the northern towns of Prescott and Dana, were rockier soil and more. There were farms and orchards, but maybe a more difficult area than further west. There were some woolen mills and some industry in the area, but by the time the valley was being considered as a possible location for a reservoir, a lot of the industry was declining and the population was no longer increasing in this area. So it’s true, they were very small rural towns. They were a little bit cut off from other areas of the state. There were very few significant historical or cultural landmarks in the valley that drew people’s attention. So it seemed like a place where not many people were living and industry was thriving. One other thing I’ll say, which may be getting a little bit ahead, but it was a little bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy as well, because the valley was eyed for a reservoir for decades. And as a result, people were not painting their houses, or maybe it influenced people not to move to the valley. People weren’t opening new businesses. And so over time, it may have been that just the threat of the reservoir decreased the businesses and the population in the valley.

Jake:
[12:59] We know there were some pretty significant businesses because there were, among the four towns, there were neighborhoods that had nicknames like Bobbinville

Industries Before the Reservoir

Jake:
[13:07] and Hat Town and things like that. So what kind of industries were there in the Valley pre-reservoir?

Elena:
[13:14] There were a number of mills. And as you say, many of the villages surrounding them were named for whatever that particular industry was. The one I can speak to the most is Smith’s Village of Enfield, which is where Marion Smith’s family had their mill, and they lived very close by. And these little mill villages had their own schools. In some cases, they had general stores, They had a post office, and they were thriving little villages within each town.

Jake:
[13:47] I live in a neighborhood of Hyde Park that used to be part of Dedham. And when we were part of Dedham, it was called the Dedham Mill Village, was this part of Dedham. Dedham had a very, at the time, had a very agricultural self-identity, even though there were a lot of mills springing up along the Charles and along the Motherbrook, which is where I live. in a rural farming community, I can see why the sort of little mill villages spring up. That was sort of a separate way of life than the more agricultural parts of town.

Elena:
[14:15] And they often had housing for mill workers too. So it was a much more local area for those workers to live and go to school

The Name Quabbin

Elena:
[14:26] and shop and things like that.

Jake:
[14:27] One thing I learned was that all of these towns sort of sprang out of sort of an informal township early in the valley history called Quabbin, which I didn’t know as a name for anything besides the reservoir. So where does that name come from? How does it get attached to these towns and geographic features? And I guess much later, how does it get attached to the reservoir that gets created? Yeah.

Elena:
[14:54] Quabbin is a word from the Nipmuc, which was the group of people that was an indigenous to the central Massachusetts area. Quabbin means something like the meeting of many waters. And there was a settlement named Quabbin that’s likely where Enfield was. It was where its two branches of the Swift River met. And so that word was in use then. And as colonial settlers came, I think it was in use locally. After the King Philip’s War, there was a land-grant settlement for veterans, and it was called the Quavin Township. And basically, that later became Greenwich, which was the first town of the valley. And the other towns broke off from that, including Enfield, which was originally a village of Greenwich.

Population and Growth in Enfield

Jake:
[15:48] By the time we get to closer to the turn of the 20th century, is Enfield then the largest of the towns that’s created out of Greenwich?

Elena:
[15:56] It is. It’s the largest population-wise, at least, and the most prosperous.

Jake:
[16:02] From your descriptions of the Swift River Valley as sort of standing a little bit apart, being less developed, I was really sort of trying to wrap my head around how goods would get anywhere, whether it’s farm products, crops, or manufactured goods. In 1870, we get the Athol and Enfield Railroad. But before that, where was the market that these folks were taking their goods to?

Elena:
[16:27] I think it was fairly local. And then in the 1870s, as you said, this railroad was constructed that connected the railways that ran east to west, north of the valley in the Athol area and south of the valley through Springfield. But this train was very slow moving and made a lot of stops. The affectionate nickname was the Rabbit Run because it sort of hopped along and took quite a while, I guess, to get to make the full the full route.

The Impact of the Railroad

Elena:
[16:54] But it was a very welcome addition to the valley. People were so excited as it was being built. And then during its destruction, it was very difficult for the residents to watch that go away.

Jake:
[17:08] The book opens with the farewell ball, but it’s by far not the only sort of valley celebration that’s discussed in the book. One of the other celebrations that you structure the story around is in 1916, the centennial of, I think, Enfield, either Enfield or Dana.

Elena:
[17:26] Yeah, that’s right.

Jake:
[17:26] And Old Home Day and Independence Day all sort of falling on one weekend in July.

Celebrations in the Valley

Jake:
[17:34] Reverend Frederick Richards gives a sermon for that event. I think it’s as part of the Old Home Day celebration, but you could correct me, where he talks about the valley. He talks about his love for Enfield. then he basically has a prophecy in the midst of this sermon saying that one day he’s going to stand on the hills above Enfield and look down in the depths of a great lake and say, that’s where I was born. First, why did he have dams and lakes and depths of water on his mind? And then if you have any sense about how the audience reacts, that’s a very dark sentiment to bring to this celebratory weekend. I don’t know if you have any sense of how the audience reacted to.

A Prophetic Sermon

Elena:
[18:13] He was thinking about this because in 1895, there had been a report commissioned by the Commonwealth to consider how they might expand Metro Boston’s water resources. That was actually when they were thinking of building the Wachusett Reservoir. But even in that report, it said Wachusett was a great choice because if the state ever needed more water, and even at that time, they knew eventually it might, they could go even further west to the Ware and Swift River Valleys. And that was, you know, reported in papers, both in Boston and locally near the valley. So people knew about this. And this goes to the decades of shadow cast over the valley. It was an interesting moment, I think, because it was the celebratory occasion, the centennial.

Elena:
[19:08] There were so many events and speeches and things that were honoring the town’s founding and founders and the sort of cultural values and the wishes that the residents had for the future of the town and the valley because the towns were so closely knit. And then for him to say that, I mean, I only wish I could know exactly how people reacted in reading so many documents from that event. I didn’t find any other mention of a reservoir. So, I can imagine it was somewhat startling to people and probably exactly the thing they were trying to not think about in that moment. And it still was only a vague threat at that time. It wasn’t until after 1919 that everyone turned again to consider the valley. But yeah, certainly interesting that he noted it and in such a public way.

The Need for More Water

Jake:
[20:04] It’s interesting. Somebody like Reverend Richards could look at the experience of Clinton or West Boylston and what they had gone through with the construction of the Wachusett, which transforms that valley. A lot of us have driven past the old stone church in West Boylston that sort of sits on the bank of the reservoir and is sort of the last remaining part of the old West Boylston downtown. So somebody like Richards could probably look at that and shiver a little bit about thoughts of the future. I’m trying to get my timeline right. The Wachusett Reservoir was proposed in 1895. I think it was authorized in maybe like 1898. And the promise, of course, was that it’s going to permanently solve the Boston water crisis. But by the time it’s completed, about 10 years later, in 1908, it’s already barely meeting demand. And there’s a very obvious future coming where it’s not going to meet demand. What changed in those few short years to go from, oh, this is a permanent solution to, oh, no, we need to look to the next valley very quickly?

Elena:
[21:09] It was a convergence of factors, the first of which it was immigration. Of course, this population of Boston was rapidly increasing with immigration. Around the time that Wachusett was being built, other towns were being added to this infrastructure. So the state was adding additional towns in Metro Boston and others, including Worcester, were interested in potentially being added to this system. Another reason was the advent of indoor plumbing, which just increased water usage overall. All of these things together made it so that there was more needed than anyone could have predicted.

Jake:
[21:53] I’ve read some interesting accounts about when constituent water was introduced into Boston. People were so excited about having access to water. And it was right around the time when indoor plumbing was increasing so quickly. But there was no metering on constituent water. So in the very early time, there’s no immediate sense of, oh, when I’m done with this spigot, I should turn it off. And so they would have monitors who are going around listening at people’s doors to see if they could hear water running to say, you better shut that off. We need to conserve some water. So I can see where the demand might be higher than expected if people were just like, great, water, let’s let it run all day. It sounds cheerful in the kitchen.

The State’s Water Commission

Jake:
[22:33] Shortly after this centennial celebration, shortly after Reverend Richard’s prophecy about looking down into the depths of water where he was born, the state legislature appoints a commission to finally, this time really permanently, this time really forever, solve Boston’s water needs. What was their charge, or what was the mission that X.H. Goodno, I think is how you would pronounce his name, although every time I see it written, I read it as good enough in my head. Well, first of all, do you have any idea what X.H. stands for? That stood out to me in the book. What was he charged with, or his commission charged with?

Elena:
[23:17] Xanthus Henry Goodno.

X.H. Goodnow’s Mission

Jake:
[23:19] Xanthus Henry Goodno is one heck of a name. So what did the state charge Xanthus Henry, Mr. X. H. Goodnow, with figuring out starting in 1919?

Elena:
[23:29] So this commission was charged with coming up with a plan for where this additional water supply should come from. Goodnow was a protege of this man, Stearns, who had written that 1895 plan that ultimately recommended that the Wachusett be built. And as I said, it stated that if Boston and the state needed more water, it could go further west to the Ware and Swift River Valleys. So, that is the direction that he went in. And he recommended following that path in part because it would expand the supply so much, in part because the water supply was so clean and good, wouldn’t need to be treated. And also in part because it followed this existing system and wouldn’t need to be pumped because of the elevation change between central Massachusetts, western Massachusetts, and Boston, the water would flow by gravity toward metro Boston.

Jake:
[24:34] Still, I know that people have understood that water flows downhill since time immemorial, but anytime I just sit back and contemplate either our water system or the New York water system or even the San Francisco water system and just the –, The work it takes to get the water by gravity to where it needs to go with siphons taking it across valleys and aqueducts and all the – you only become aware of it when something terrible goes wrong. I know about a year after I moved into this house, there was that massive delivery main break in Weston, Mass, where the aqueduct that carries the Quabbin water over the Charles ruptured. And so we had to boil water notice. We had to tap back into the old Sudbury aqueduct supply. And all of a sudden, I was very conscious of where my water was coming from for the first time in a while.

Goodnow’s Connection to the Valley

Jake:
[25:22] One thing I thought was very funny in the book was that Goodnow’s hobbies very much played into this mission that he was tasked with. It seemed to be played up in a lot of the news coverage at the time. So how was he so intimately familiar with the rivers of Massachusetts?

Elena:
[25:40] He was a fisherman. And the lore was that he knew every river and stream in Massachusetts. And so he had supposedly his eyes on the valley for quite a while, just by virtue of being there so often to fish.

Jake:
[25:59] His mission was not only choosing a river or a valley to use as the source of Boston’s water. It was also choosing between a newer, larger reservoir and an elaborate filtration system to be able to tap into known water sources that were more heavily polluted, like the, at the time, incredibly industrialized Merrimack or Charles Rivers. Do you have any insight into how a reservoir won that argument?

Elena:
[26:26] He really was pushing for this, moving toward the Quabbin system, which, as I said, was a cleaner supply of water and would feed into this existing Wachusett system. And that was sort of the proclivity of him and of this commission was to not have to treat the water. And that was newer technology at the time.

Opposition from Valley Residents

Elena:
[26:49] And so the desire was to go with the cleaner water that didn’t have to be pumped. That was the preference. But of course, people who lived in the valley towns opposed this plan. And as the hearings were happening throughout the state, they were asking that other avenues be explored. There was some discussion of where else the water could be taken from and how the water could be treated so that it could be used. But as those plans were explored in more populated areas of the state, there was more vocal opposition from folks who would be affected. And so, the commission kept coming back to this original plan that would affect this smaller number of people. And I think the thought was that it would be the best solution for a number of reasons.

Jake:
[27:44] Yeah, as somebody who drinks Quabbin water daily, I’m glad to be getting this basically untreated, minimally filtered, protected reservoir water over something that’s being discharged downstream from a paint factory or whatever. So I’m pretty pleased about that, speaking through modern Boston eyes.

Elena:
[28:05] And the water, it’s continued to be protected and stewarded in such a way that the quality is still great.

Jake:
[28:14] I will come in after the fact and drop in a clip where I list off some of the water quality awards that Quabbin Water has gotten over the years because I’m always impressed with it. In September 2023, our MWRA Water won the People’s Choice Award from the New England Water Works Association after winning the American Water Works Association’s Best of the Best Water Taste Test in 2021. Before that was the DEP’s Public Water System Award in 2019, and going back further, the Platinum Award for Utility Excellence from the Association of Municipal Water Agencies. Municipal water professionals, at least, always choose the Quavin as one of the top sources in the country.

Elena:
[28:56] So I lived in Framingham for years, and we drank Quabbin water, and it was wonderful. I didn’t appreciate it, actually, until I moved further west, and now I’m in a town that has a town water system that actually has some serious issues. But to have that kind of quality of water, and I always thought it tasted really great, to have that coming out of your tap is pretty great.

Jake:
[29:21] Goodnow and his commission study the problem, coming to sort of the inevitable conclusion that a reservoir is needed, that the Swift River Valley is sort of the most promising location for one, at least for those who are going to drink the water, maybe not for those who live in the valley. Not quite six years after that centennial party we talked about, there was a big public hearing at the Enfield Town Hall in 1922, in spring of 1922. I get the impression from the book that Valley residents felt pretty early on

The Public Hearings

Jake:
[29:53] that they were going to get steamrolled in this discussion, and they weren’t wrong. What were the counterarguments that were getting made on their behalf, on behalf of the industries in the Valley? What was the counterargument to damning the Swift River Valley? Yeah.

Elena:
[30:10] Residents of the Valley at this point were at the point of these hearings were fairly resigned to the fate because of the watching the Wachusett be built. They had already seen this happen. They had already seen people have to leave their homes. They had already heard the arguments of these folks, you know, who basically were pleading with the state to just make a decision as quickly as possible, because one of the hardest things was being in limbo and waiting to find out, you know, will my home get taken or won’t it? Will I have to leave or won’t I?

Jake:
[30:44] Should I invest in upgrading my factory? Should I even plant a crop next year?

Elena:
[30:49] Should I paint my house? And of course, watching over time as people stop doing these things and feeling that in their neighborhoods and in their towns. That was the sort of emotional argument. And then in hearings in Western Mass that were in Enfield, but also in Ware and in Springfield, people were really worried about the effect it would have on the area in terms of the industry and the economy. The towns around the Quabbin have suffered and the Quabbin has effectively put a gash down the state right in the center, it’s 20 miles long. And for folks who live around the Quabbin, they know it’s not so easy to get from one place to another, depending on where you are in relation to the reservoir. So undoubtedly, the Quabbin affected the local towns. And now, of course, the watershed is so large, it is protected land, it does also kind of tamp down a certain industry or growth that the area might have had otherwise. So anyway, way all of these arguments were being made, even back at that time.

Legislative Actions

Jake:
[32:00] Two laws, two new acts of the legislature. There’s the Swift River Act, but there’s also a Ware River Watershed Act. How did those work together? And how were the waters of the Swift River, the Ware River, meant to be incorporated into the existing Boston water system?

Elena:
[32:15] Together, the acts authorized the construction of a tunnel at Coldbrook in Barrie, actually, which is related to the Ware River. And it diverted water from the Ware River to the Wachusett Reservoir. And then after that, the Swift River Act took the Swift River Reservoir watershed lands, and that tunnel, the Wachusett Coldbrook tunnel, was extended to the Swift River. So the first part of the construction of the Quabbin was the aqueduct to the Ware River and that portion of the project. And then it was connected with the Swift River.

Jake:
[32:55] There was a lot more preparatory work ahead of a shovel hitting the ground than I ever understood. With a group coming out in the 1920s to survey and photograph properties and structures and take inventories of everything. Why was it so important to have this very detailed study of everything in this valley if it was all just going to be torn down and flooded anyway?

Elena:
[33:19] They needed to document everything in part because they were compensating the landowners for their homes and land. And also, you know, they were doing the same thing in cemeteries, and they were being very careful to ensure that they had documentation as to what they were moving and who the next relatives were for those who were buried in Valley cemeteries. So all of this being very painful for people who lived in the valley, even just being at home and seeing these engineers surveying your property and sort of just being a really present force in the valley at that time. I do think that the engineers who were there and the surveyors were doing their

Surveying the Valley

Elena:
[34:04] best to be as meticulous as they could with this project because it did affect people’s lives. All of this needed to happen so that then the valley could be dismantled, people could be compensated, the remains that were exhumed could be moved, and that all of this could be done as carefully as possible.

Construction Begins

Jake:
[34:25] And then it’s years more before finally in 1933, we have a groundbreaking. Can you talk a little bit about how does the construction of something this big get done in the 1930s?

Elena:
[34:41] Through a lot of manpower and many years. And again, this not being my area of specialty, I’ll do my best to describe how these caissons were lowered, which form the barrier that are the basis for the dam and the dike. They were these concrete structures, these enormous chambers that were lowered into the ground all the way to bedrock. And as these things were being lowered into the ground, the earth was being dug out and then lifted out by these men who are in the pressurized chambers.

Jake:
[35:18] So it’s like taking the soil out from under yourself as you go, which is kind of scary.

Elena:
[35:24] Yes. Yeah. And the chambers were pressurized, which were difficult conditions. And the men who were working in them had time limits and would have to – I’m losing the word, but they would have to come out and sort of –.

Jake:
[35:41] Like for scuba divers.

Elena:
[35:42] To keep from getting the bins.

Jake:
[35:43] You have to – it’s not depressurized. I don’t think there is a word for it.

Elena:
[35:47] Yes.

Jake:
[35:47] We can agree it exists.

Elena:
[35:50] All of these caissons were then, were connected down at bedrock and then filled the dam and the dike, you know, as you’re walking on them today, you can, they’re sort of like mountains with a road that goes over the top and you can, as you’re walking, you can kind of imagine what’s beneath that’s holding back the water in both of those cases.

Jake:
[36:12] And there’s a DCR park at the dam today. So you could actually go in the right season, the right time of day, we could go visit the dam. But for those of us who haven’t, me, for instance, how big is it?

Elena:
[36:23] I can tell you that when I walk at the dam and do like an out and back, it’s somewhere around a mile and a half. And both of those, the dam and the dike are in Quabbin Park, what’s known as Quabbin Park, which is in the Ware Belcher Town area. And DCR does have their office and a visitor center that you can go to at the dam.

Jake:
[36:44] I’ll have to put that on my springtime to-do list.

Residents’ Decisions

Jake:
[36:48] As we got into the 30s and the construction on the dam starts in earnest, valley residents really have to make some decisions. They have to decide whether they’re going to immediately sell their property and move away. If they do sell it, whether to make that move immediately or lease their own land back from the state and stay in the valley until the very bitter end.

Elena:
[37:10] Yeah, it sounds like it was a difficult decision for some. But younger people who maybe were ready to sort of move on knowing that the valley would be slowly destroyed, you know, didn’t have an interest in watching that. They did leave. And many went in the local area, folks who lived in the North Valley, many of them went to places like Athol and Orange. others moved to places like Ware and Belchertown and Springfield. And that might have been an easier choice for them to just go. I think for people who didn’t have an obvious place to go or whose history was very closely tied with the valley, who had relatives buried in valley cemeteries, it must have been a much more difficult choice because to stay to the end meant watching all of this destruction.

Elena:
[38:04] As I said, having the engineers everywhere in the valley, hearing the noise of the dam and dike being built and the work that was sort of, you know, happening all the time for a period of years on that, knowing that the cemeteries were being dug up. And then later in the project, all of the trees and the brush being cut down to stay must have been pretty difficult, I think, especially if you were really, you know, loved your community very much. And it would be pretty heartbreaking to watch this over a period of about 10 years. That’s a long time.

Managing Exhumations

Jake:
[38:41] I want to talk about two things you just mentioned. The first being the graves that had to be moved, which we touched on briefly at the top of the show as one of the few things that Bostonians might know about the work that went into creating the Quabbin. How was that managed? Who managed the exhumations? Who decided where bodies were going to get reinterred? Who made the call if no living relative could be contacted? How did that process work?

Elena:
[39:12] The state actually commissioned a local man to be the one overseeing all of the activity. I don’t know if it was all local men or if there were others who were part of the project from outside of the valley who helped. But it was not only the difficult work of exhuming graves, and of course, there were a lot of rumors circulating about what that was like and the state of the remains. And there were even rumors that the workers doing this had to be vaccinated because of what they were exposed to when they opened, you know, so much that wasn’t actually true. True. So there was that part of the work, which was not insignificant. And then there was the more bureaucratic part of the work, which was, you know, identifying the next of kin, finding out where they lived, sending them a letter, and then asking people to make the decision of where they wanted to move their relatives.

Jake:
[40:11] Marion Smith had to make that decision for several of her close relatives, is my understanding.

Elena:
[40:16] Yes. Her parents, her uncle, there was a family plot in one of the Enfield cemeteries. And the state did build a cemetery, the Quabbin Cemetery, which is still, you know, you can visit it. It’s on Route 9 across from Quabbin Park in Ware. And moved, disinterred remains there free of charge. So the state created this for residents who couldn’t afford any other option or just wanted to have their relatives all as close to where they were and who they were with before as possible. But there were some people, of course, who made other decisions, which in Marion Smith’s case was not an inexpensive choice to make. She had the money to do so and she chose a historic cemetery in Springfield to have her family moved to and this was because she was so rich. Unhappy with having to make this decision. What was said was that people who were so unhappy with what the state was doing, they wanted nothing to do with a state-sponsored cemetery, so they were going to choose other places. And all three of the individuals in my book chose that. Marion in Springfield, Edwin Howe moved his family to a cemetery in Belchertown, and Doc Seeger was ultimately himself buried in Ware.

Jake:
[41:37] The other preparatory work that you just mentioned that I wanted to come back

Clearing the Valley

Jake:
[41:41] to was clearing the forest. So you have a chapter that’s titled The Woodpecker’s Descend, which is about the nickname of the crews who were hired to clear all these forests. I guess my first question around that is, why was it so important to remove all the structures and all the vegetation from the land that was eventually going to be below the waterline of the Quabbin?

Elena:
[42:03] I think one of the rumors that persists is that if you go over one certain area, you can still see the church steeple beneath the water.

Jake:
[42:10] I’ve heard that.

Elena:
[42:11] Yeah, and there are cases in which reservoirs were built and things were not moved. But I believe it’s just for water quality. All of the structures were removed, all of the trees and brush were cut down, and the organic matter was removed. So when the valley began to fill with water, it was completely empty. There was a documentary made called Underquabin in the early 2000s, I think, and they had divers go down and they saw a gravestone that may have been left or like some stone walls and things that you might expect to see. But by and large, the vast majority was completely cleared out.

Jake:
[42:49] So, how is that work getting done with all the land that has to be cleared?

Elena:
[42:55] These young men who have been hired, it’s during the Depression, and they’re hired to come into the valley. Most of them are from the Boston area. They come in and they’re asked to just cut all of this, mostly brush, not, I mean, some trees too, but to cut the brush below what will be the eventual water line. And this is getting very close to the end of the project. This is in 1936 into 37 that they’re doing this. And the locals end up naming these young men the woodpeckers. And it’s obviously a joke at their expense because they are apparently pretty inexperienced with the job they’re meant to do.

The Woodpecker Crews

Elena:
[43:34] They’re from the city, so they’re not used to being out chopping wood. And supposedly they’re taking a very long time to do simple jobs, things like that.

Jake:
[43:43] So with these inexperienced city guys coming out to do all the forestry work, how long did it take to denude the Swift River Valley?

Elena:
[43:52] A lot of the work took place in the summer of 1936 and then into the fall and wrapped up. And then, of course, there was still more clearing to do as the project neared completion. But by 1937, the valley looked very, very different. There were a few structures left. A lot of houses had already been demolished. And the work completed in 1938, once everybody was gone, and all of the homes and structures were destroyed and then burned.

Jake:
[44:27] Yeah, it sounds like there was maybe about a three-year period where things went quickly. Starting with the Rabbit Run, the Soapstone Limited, I think in 1935. And you described there were sort of two last hurrahs for the railroad through the valley. I wonder if maybe you can talk about the final runs of the Soapstone Limited.

Elena:
[44:46] There were two runs in the summer of 1935. The first was in May,

The Final Runs of the Railroad

Elena:
[44:51] and it was the last passenger run. And anybody could come. There were more than 200 people from all over the state. And as they went through the valley, they could see the work being done on the dam because the railroad passed that site. And then a few days later on June 1st, there was the truly final excursion. And that was meant for the people of the valley who wanted to join. That was a more emotional trip as everyone knew it was the last time the train would pass through the valley.

Jake:
[45:21] You have a quote in the book that really made me reflect on what a lifeline the railroad had been for the valley, and that even though it had been such a lifeline and so transformative in the valley, it was so short-lived that there were still residents who were waving goodbye to the train who had been present for the first run of the train in 1870, which was kind of remarkable.

Institutions Falling in the Valley

Jake:
[45:47] We talked about sort of this three-year period where it seemed like the dominoes started to fall pretty quickly, where first the railroad went, and then you have a section in the book on the institutions in the four valley towns falling one by one. We have the Congregational Church, the Swift River Hotel, which had been a huge local landmark, the Grange Chapters. The Grange is essentially – it’s almost like a grown-up 4-H in a lot of ways. It’s like a mutual aid for agriculture, basically. And so we have these all sort of one after another, falling 1936, 37, 38. We have the different civic organizations closing their doors around the same time. And then there’s a Reverend Merrill who gives a sermon at the 150th anniversary of the Congregational Church in town. And I think the actual building had already burned at that point. And he gave, I thought, really touching comments about the church not dying, but living on through its congregants. And I don’t know how close at hand you have Reverend Merrill’s sentiments or words. I found that really affecting.

Elena:
[46:53] It’s actually, I think, such a sad moment in these many sad moments as the valley changed. The congregational church was preparing to celebrate its 150th anniversary in August of 1936. And just one week before that anniversary service, the church burned to the ground. They never were able to know for certain who had done it, but many believed it was arson. And the rumor in the Valley was that it was one of those workers, the woodpeckers who had done it.

Elena:
[47:26] They went ahead and celebrated this anniversary, despite the loss. And they did this at the Masonic Lodge. Yeah, so this minister, I mean, one of the parts of what he said that affects me the most is, since the building has gone up in flames, and since it was doomed soon to end its career in this place, may we not take some slight satisfaction in the thought that it’s safe from possible desecration. So, just the idea that maybe it going up in flames is somehow better than it being dismantled and later destroyed as everything else in the valley was. He talks about the last members being scattered to other places and that through them, the church and the congregation will live on. It’s very moving. There are a few objects that were saved from that building

Artifacts of the Past

Elena:
[48:13] that are still around and at places like the Swift River Valley Historical Society up in New Salem. They have the communion table and there are some things that do still remain from that church.

Jake:
[48:26] And there are other remnants or artifacts, notably in the next home that Marion Smith built after she was forced to leave the valley. It sounds like she took as much of her infield house with her as she could. Could you get a sense of what parts of her original home she was able to incorporate into the new house she had to build?

Elena:
[48:46] This is my intersection with this story is that I moved into this house in Ware and started to do a little research because I heard from folks in my neighborhood that it was from the Quabbin. Originally, we were told it had been moved from the Quabbin, but it wasn’t moved in full, but pieces did come from Marion’s Victorian home in Enfield. And so she had taken all of the floors, the doors, the trim, and also the grand staircase from that Victorian home. And she had them moved and then built into her new house, which is a colonial revival in Ware. So it’s really interesting. And we noticed it as soon as we were walking through the house. It’s a colonial that has these Victorian doors with this really ornate hardware. And it’s an interesting mix of styles. And then, of course, we were so excited by the explanation.

The Farewell Ball

Jake:
[49:42] So excited that you started down this research project that resulted in a book. And the book both opens and closes at the infield farewell ball. Am I right in saying that that ball is held on the last day that the sort of corporate entity of Enfield is going to exist?

Elena:
[50:01] That’s right. Yeah.

Jake:
[50:02] How do you celebrate that? Like, what does that party look like?

Elena:
[50:06] Yeah. A lot of people came, more than they expected. Thousands of people came, and many were residents of the towns who either, you know, who had stayed and some who had left but came back for this night. But there were also just a lot of really curious people and press who came that night. There was meant to be a parade, but apparently there were too few people to participate. So there was one lone fire engine towed by a horse and it’s sort of like a funeral down the main street to the town hall. And then there was dinner and dancing. And the way it was described is that there were plenty of young people having a good time and dancing the night away. But there were lots of the older folks sitting around the sides of the hall with neighbors that would no longer be neighbors anymore, feeling the weight of the evening. And at midnight, this moment when the towns officially ceased to exist, there was a moment of silence and then the band played Auld Lang Syne. And it was reported pretty widely in papers just how emotional this moment was and grown men were weeping and the enormous sadness that the people who had lived in these towns felt.

The Emotional Goodbye

Jake:
[51:27] I’m going to ask a question that you probably don’t have an answer to. And the reason I know that is because this is the first question I wrote down on my blank sheet of paper when I was starting my notes for this before I opened your book. Totally excused if you don’t know the answer to this one. I got really sort of hung up on the idea of this disincorporation, as far as I can tell, without the explicit consent of the residents. The reason that I got so hung up on that is, so Boston went through a series of annexations from 1868, Roxbury through my neighborhood in Hyde Park was annexed, ceased to be an independent town in 1912. And for each of those annexations, there had to be a majority vote of the residents of Boston, a majority vote of the residents of the town to be annexed, and an act of the legislature authorizing the annexation before these independent towns could cease to exist. Do you know how these towns got disincorporated without a vote?

Elena:
[52:23] My guess is eminent domain. All of the land was taken. It was offered that the state would buy it. And even still, some residents like

Disincorporation and Eminent Domain

Elena:
[52:32] Marion Smith remained never willingly sold. And then at this moment of the disincorporation, their homes and lands were taken. And eventually they were compensated. Marion got a check for what they were offering to pay her anyway. But she made a choice not to sell willingly.

Jake:
[52:49] I have to imagine it was easier for somebody with means like Marion Smith to make that choice to hold out to the last minute, not being certain what kind of compensation you were going to get after your land is condemned versus somebody who was living a little more paycheck to paycheck would probably have been more tempted to take an early buyout just to have the certainty of this is the value I’ll get from my property.

Elena:
[53:10] Absolutely. And I think the three individuals I focus on in my book had more means than the vast majority of people in the valley. These three got to make different choices from holding out on selling to choosing a different cemetery for their loved ones.

Jake:
[53:25] Eventually, all is said and done. The last house falls, the last resident moves away.

Filling the Quabbin Reservoir

Jake:
[53:32] How long does it take for – how many billion gallons did you say are going to fill this reservoir?

Elena:
[53:37] 412, yeah.

Jake:
[53:38] So, how long does it take to fill a reservoir with 412 billion gallons of water?

Elena:
[53:43] It started to fill in 1939, and it took, I think, nearly seven years for it to finish filling. So, it reached the spillway in, I believe, 1946.

Jake:
[53:55] After basically a century of repeated promises of we’re finally going to solve this water problem for Boston, we’re finally going to have a permanent solution and that permanent solution being outstripped by demand within just a few years every time. Now we are coming up on a century after the decision to dam the Swift River

Remembering the Sacrifices

Jake:
[54:14] and still well within the capacity of the Quabbin. So I’m grateful for that, even as the system is expanded to town after town to 60-some current towns tapping into it. So, we appreciate their sacrifice.

Elena:
[54:27] Yes, I think we all do. And I think even they, many of them understood what their sacrifice meant. What I have come to believe or feel, especially after living in this woman’s house for this period of time, is that they just wouldn’t want it to be forgotten. I think that I just think knowing where your water comes from is so important anyway. And then this really interesting, complicated history for people who the many, many people who drink Boston’s water, having gone to college in Boston and living in Framingham, I know that so many people don’t know the history or they might know, you know, my water comes from Quabbin, but they don’t quite know what that means. And so, remembering and recognizing that some people did have to give up things that were very important to them so that we could have this amazing resource, I think that’s really important.

Jake:
[55:21] Elena paladino i just want to say one more time thank you for joining us today if folks are listening and they want to find out more about your book which once again is lost towns of the swift river valley drowned by the quabbin or follow you online or find out more about what you do where should they look for that.

Elena:
[55:40] I have a website elena paladino.com and you can get in touch with me there and i’m also on social media on facebook and instagram elena paladino and if you

Closing Thoughts and Resources

Elena:
[55:52] also search quabbin i think both would come up pretty easily.

Jake:
[55:55] Well again thanks for joining us today thanks for carving out the time i know we’ve kind of gone a little longer than i told you we would so i appreciate that and i really appreciate the conversation today i, That just about wraps it up for this week. To learn more about Elena Palladino and the lost towns of the Swift River Valley, check out this week’s show notes at hubhistory.com slash 322. I’ll link to quabbinhouse.com, where you can see historic pictures of the valley towns, read additional stories about the valley that didn’t make it into the book, and find out about Elena’s book events in social media. And of course, I’ll have a link that you can use to purchase a copy of Elena’s book while supporting the show and independent bookstores. Plus, like I said at the top of the show, I have a link to register for my March 18th talk about the first streetlights in Boston.

Jake:
[56:49] If you’d like to get in touch with us, you can email podcast at hubhistory.com. I still have profiles for Hub History on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, but lately I’ve mostly been posting and interacting with listeners on Blue Sky, where you can find me by searching for hubhistory.com. I’m never as active on Mastodon as I mean to be, but you can find me there as at hubhistoryatbetter.boston. If you’re one of the lucky people that’s managed to kick the social media habit, just go to hubhistory.com and click on the Contact Us link. While you’re on the site, hit the subscribe link and be sure that you never miss an episode. If you subscribe on Apple Podcasts, please consider writing us a brief review. If you do, drop me a line. I’ll send you a Hub History sticker as a token of appreciation. That’s all for now. Stay safe out there, listeners.