06/10/2026
๐ ๐ช๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ข๐ก๐ ๐๐ข๐ข๐๐ก๐ข๐จ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐
๐๐ป โ๐ ๐ฃ๐น๐ฎ๐ฐ๐ฒ ๐๐ฎ๐น๐น๐ฒ๐ฑ ๐ค๐๐ฎ๐ฏ๐ฏ๐ถ๐ปโ
June 2 was the spark that kindled warm days to come, the second day of meteorological summer. The otherwise cloudless sky was filled with billowing pillows of yellow pine pollen as we headed west to Quabbin Park to enjoy a taste of summer.
Our destination was Goodnough D**e, also called Quabbin D**e. It is the smaller of two large dams that impound the waters of Quabbin Reservoir. Winsor Dam blocks most of the flow of the Swift River, while Goodnough D**e was built to stem the flow of Beaver Brook. Beaver Brook Valley formed a low spot in the southeastern basin rim of the manmade Quabbin Reservoir. When construction of Goodnough D**e started, the land was in the Town of Enfield, one of the four towns that were disincorporated and depopulated to make room for the massive reservoir. The land has since been reallocated to the Town of Ware.
Since the 1730s, however, this land was called Quabbin (or Quabin). An advertisement in the โBoston News-Letterโ dated April 1, 1737, referred to tracts of land โat a Place called Quabin,โ which were part of a grant to Narraganset soldiers. In 1739, this land was established as the Plantation of Quabbin; then in 1754, it was incorporated as Quabbin Parish. Later that same year, it was renamed the Town of Greenwich. In 1816, the south parish of Greenwich broke off to become the Town of Enfield. Both Greenwich and Enfield referred to themselves at times as โQuabbinโ up to the time of their disincorporation in 1938. Roads carried that name, as did clubs and associations. In 1932, as a nod to the Nipmuc term for the area, Quabbin, which means the place of many waters, the state named the emerging reservoir โQuabbin.โ For almost two centuries, the land beneath the southern end of the reservoir had borne the name of Quabbin; the town was nestled at the base of Great Quabbin Mountain, and Little Quabbin hill guarded its eastern flank. This is definitely โA Place Called Quabbin.โ
During our walk across the 2,140-foot-long D**e, I had time to think of the political, economic, and social currents that flow through the history of Quabbin Reservoir. These include the perceived arrogance of โBostonโ to the rural towns to its west; the feeling that the towns of that Valley had no inkling that their land would be taken for this massive project; and that the residents of the Swift River Valley had an adversarial relationship with the people who were hired to clear the land, take down the buildings, and build the reservoir.
Each of these oversimplifications has some truth in it, but generalizations are always risky. They are the surface currents that prevent us from probing the depth of the issues or the people surrounding them.
The words of Francis Henry Underwood (1825 โ 1894) in his book โQuabbin, the Story of a Small Town With Outlooks Upon Puritan Lifeโ (published in Boston in 1893) are significant:
โThe life of any community is made up of infinite details. One can hardly say that the smallest point in town management, church polity, or domestic economy is absolutely unimportantโฆ.Furthermore, generalizers are commonly falsifiersโฆEven truth lies, if she is taken too literally, and without consideration of the milieu.โ This statement from more than 130 years ago reminds us that each person, each town, each entity impacted by the building of Quabbin Reservoir and its ancillary systems had its own story. Creating one story to cover the entire history, even though well-intended to relate what happened, cheats the various parties of the rich details of their existence.
Underwoodโs memoir of growing up in Enfield, which he calls Quabbin, is invaluable in understanding the changes that building the reservoir brought. Underwoodโs book was copyrighted in 1892 and published in 1893. The first formal proposal to use the water of the Swift River to slake the thirst of Bostonians came in 1895, although other sources tell us that rumors of the possibility had circulated since the 1880s. Underwoodโs portrayal of the โlivingโ town stands in stark contrast to books written about the town after its demise.
Francis H. Underwood was supremely qualified to write this memoir of growing up in Quabbin/Enfield. Born there in 1825, he experienced the changes that occurred as Massachusetts moved into the Industrial Age. He was also a keen observer of old traditions. His writing is descriptive, warm, and finely tuned to the vibrations of his hometown, Quabbin. That is, perhaps, because he was one of the founders of the โAtlantic Monthlyโ (now called simply โAtlanticโ) in 1857, a literary magazine. He was also the Associate Editor. His companions in this venture included Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Harriet Beecher Stowe, John Greenleaf Whittier, and James Russell Lowell. How fortunate we are that Underwood chose to share his memories and philosophy with us! It was published in the year before his death, which happened in 1894 in Glasgow, where he served as U.S. Consul.
His sister, Mrs. Susan J. (Underwood) Crane, provided a different type of input. Despite her advanced years, in a large spread in โThe Sunday Heraldโ (Boston) on Nov. 14, 1920, she strongly advocated for saving Enfield from destruction. This was two years before the Massachusetts Legislature officially endorsed a 1922 study that proposed the Swift River Valley as the next major water extension for Greater Boston. It was not until 1927 (Swift River Act) that the legislature passed the law that authorized the impoundment of the Swift River and the flooding of the valley.
The headline of the 1920 article reads: โNeeds of the Metropolis Bring Grief to Ancient Towns: Increasing Bostonโs Water Supply Will Cause the Annihilation of Enfield, the Ancient Quabbin, the Sweeping Away of Many Cherished Traditions, of Wonderful Memories and Historic Associations.โ
Written in the article are these words:
โThe threatened inundation of Enfield has hung like a veritable sword of Damocles over the little village for 40 years. According to the people themselves, it was 40 years ago that the plan was first talked of and it was 20 years ago when it was brought up again. But the recent summer that has brought from seven to fifteen surveyors to the little town to make surveys to find the best location for this โbig d**eโ and that โmain damโ has shattered the peace of the little town.โ
Another article ran in the โBoston Heraldโ on July 11, 1927. The Sword of Damocles was moving ever closer. Mrs. Susan J. (Underwood) Crane, now 89 years old, made one last push for saving her beloved home and the ancient town of โQuabbin.โ As we know, she was unsuccessful. However, she was able to die in her beloved home in her native town, in 1929 at the age of 91 years.
Goodnough D**e works in tandem with the larger Winsor Dam to its west to prevent water from flowing through the lower, southern side of the massive reservoir, although some outflow of the Swift River and Beaver Brook is required. Quabbin Reservoir was built specifically to provide water to metropolitan Boston in the 1930s. It is the major component of the water supply, but it is supplemented with waters that are brought in from the Ware River in Barre via the Quabbin Aqueduct during flood months. Another link in the chain is Wachusett Reservoir, finished in 1908, which was created by damming the Nashua River in Clinton.
The creation of Quabbin Reservoir almost 100 years ago caused great disruption to the approximately 2,500 residents of the four towns that were stripped of homes, schools, farms, shops, mills, henhouses, summer camps, hotels, railroads, highways, and peopleโalive and buried. An additional displacement of about 350 people occurred in the Ware River Watershed, and life changed forever for many people. Unlike the Quabbin and Wachusett Reservoir components, the Ware River Watershed does not feature a reservoir, but the depopulation was required to ensure the water quality of the Ware River since its waters could be diverted to either the Quabbin or the Wachusett Reservoirs. Likewise, between 1,000 and 1,700 people were cast from their homes and villages to make way for Wachusett Reservoir a quarter century earlier. Balancing these feelings is the appreciation most people feel for the unintentional and beautiful โwildernessโ that now exists where the four disincorporated towns once stood. And Enfield, the โAncient Quabbin,โ is the very foundation of the reservoir. At the center is Great Quabbin, the hill from which we can view the former village of Enfield from the Enfield Look Out. The hill was central to life in Enfield. Its earliest settlers gathered sandstone from its flanks to use as whetstones. The grandfather of Francis Henry and Susan J. Underwood dammed the Swift River to harness water power for his trip hammers (he was a blacksmith). Few Native Americans remained when European settlers came in the 1730s, but Francis Underwood wrote of finding flint arrowheads, stone bowls, pestles and hatchets in the area. The only โholesโ that needed to be filled to make a watertight basin for Quabbin Reservoir were the valleys of the Swift River and Beaver Brook. Great Quabbin hill, between them, was a natural โdam.โ
Few people walked on Goodnough D**e on the sunny but windy afternoon of June 2. We stopped to admire a tablet near the d**e that honors X. Henry Goodnough (1860 โ 1935). At the west end of the d**e, a boulder similarly commemorates the Goodnough. The โXโ stands for Xanthus, the same first name as his father. Xanthus senior was a farmer in Brookline, as were most of his neighbors. Xanthus Henry, the son, joined the family in November 1860. After attending Brookline High, X. Henry Goodnough attended Harvard University from 1878 to 1882, earning an A. B. Degree. At the time of his death, he was considered one of the leading consulting engineers in the Eastern part of the United States.
X. Henry Goodnough was described as the โfatherโ of the โentire $60,000,000 Swift River Reservoir plan, which is still being put into operation by the Stateโ (โBoston Evening Globe,โ August 12, 1935). As the โfather,โ he conceived the multi-component water supply and delivery system that would serve metropolitan Boston, one that is still in operation almost a century later. Frank E. Winsor (1870 โ 1939) was the Chief Engineer, the one who took Goodnoughโs concepts and translated them into reality. Neither man lived to see water from Quabbin Reservoir reach its intended destination: water started flowing from Quabbin Reservoir to Wachusett Reservoir in 1941, although Quabbin was not actually filled to capacity until 1946. The larger dam was named in memory of Frank E. Winsor.
X. Henry Goodnough saw far beyond the need for a large quantity of water. When the State Board of Health was developed with an engineering department, Goodnough was hired to advise the board on water supply, drainage and sewerage. The issue was not just the amount of water that Boston needed, it was an issue of water quality. Sewage was often dumped into rivers upstream of cities like Boston. Drinking water was then drawn from the polluted river. Indoor plumbing became more common; people simply turned a tap and water sprang forth. But what about the quality of this drinking water? In the 1870s, scientists discovered that germs caused diseases. They understood that some diseases, like the dreaded cholera and typhoid, were carried in polluted water and could infect large segments of the population. Public health became an important field of study. Although water filtration was possible, it left odors and tastes that made people unwilling to drink the water. The goal of X. Henry Goodnough was to bring good quality water to Boston, water that would not cause the annual epidemics of cholera and typhoid that killed so many small children, water that was naturally filtered in watersheds as we now have surrounding Ware River, and Quabbin and Wachusett Reservoirs. An article in the โBoston Heraldโ after Goodnoughโs death in 1935 called him โA Rare Public Servant.โ The article detailed how Goodnough went to work for the first board of health established by any state (Massachusetts) in the country when it was organized in 1886. His entire life work was devoted to acquiring intimate knowledge of how water supplies and sewerage systems interacted, and how engineering could bring pure drinking water to the public. While his plan had a very unfortunate impact on several thousand people who lived in central-western Massachusetts, it would save the lives of many more thousands in the following century who would have fallen victim to deadly water-borne diseases.
Wildflowers lined the paved top of Goodnough D**e on that glorious June afternoon; I admired their many colors and shapes. Waters lapped against the riprap on the โreservoirโ side of the d**e. Each tiny wave carried a current of history of this ancient place. I listened to the tales of the waves. I could โhearโ the story of an elderly Nipmuc woman of centuries ago, a story we have forgotten today. Hovering above us to the west was Great Quabbin, the big hill that rose to the south of the main village of Enfield. Straight ahead lay Mount Lizzie, which belonged to the neighboring Town of Greenwich. On these hills lived and worked families who were described so well by Francis H. Underwood in his book, โQuabbin.โ I could see their farms and smell the apple sauce flavored with quince simmering on the wood stove.
We reached the east end of Goodnough D**e, where yet another stone memorializes X. Henry Goodnough. Below us on the โdownhillโ side of the d**e stretched acres of lush green grass. A walking trail loop led through this luxurious swath of green; a cluster of mothers and young children were enjoying a hike. The strong breeze off Great Quabbin hill brought to my imagination the cheering of a baseball game between the โEnfield Engineersโ and the โBarre Athletic Associationโ in 1932. The Enfield Engineers team was comprised principally of men working to build the dams that would cause the end of the Town of Enfield. These engineers lived in the town, sometimes purchasing properties that would soon be demolished, others renting from Enfield people. While they may have encountered resentment from some Enfield residents, other Enfield folks welcomed the engineers. Engineers became baseball players, Sunday School teachers, and Boy Scout leaders. Weddings and baptisms were celebrated together with the same Enfield residents who would soon lose their homes to the Reservoir. Currents of life intermingle, waters move on, evaporate, and come down in some other place.
The prediction of the 1927 article on Enfield was bittersweet but also positive:
โSuch people as those of Enfield, Greenwich and Prescott will enrich other towns for they will take with them the character and rigorous virtues of their forebears, leaving behind only the beauty of the quiet places, at best a fleeting thing in these times.โ
On June 2, that beauty included Bald Eagles flying overhead, a sight that those former residents never enjoyed.
Lucy Allen
June 10, 2026
