USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Clinton > History of the origin of the town of Clinton, Massachusetts, 1653-1865 > Part 2
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PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY.
fifth miles. It will be seen from this relation of perimeter to area that the shore has few irregularities of outline.
From many soundings, the average depth after going five rods from the shore was found to be a little less than forty feet. The greatest depth found was forty-three feet. This was in the southwestern part of the pond at a distance of about ten rods from the shore. Thus the basin is shaped somewhat like a milk pan with flaring sides. These sides slope most gradually in the northeastern portion and most rapidly in the southwestern, where, in one spot, a depth of forty-two feet was found only three rods from the shore. The water of the pond is cold, pure and sparkling. Few plants grow in it and fish are scarce. The steeply sloping, but not lofty hills, upon the shores are, for the most part, covered with' oaks, but chestnut, maples and birches are abundant and there is a de- lightful grove of hemlocks and pines upon the southern shore.
To the southwest of Sandy Pond, we find four small bodies of water. Three of these are only from two to three acres in extent, while the fourth is a little larger. It is said, that the waters of these ponds rise and fall with Sandy Pond, always agreeing with it in level, thus showing a common source or some underground connection. There is no doubt that this is true of the one nearest to it. All these smaller ponds are surrounded by steep slopes resembling those of the large pond. Like it none of them have any visible inlets or outlets, but they differ from it in having very muddy bottoms. Jewett's Pond is only half a dozen rods distant from Sandy. It has an island in the center made of moss and intertwining roots. Holes can be made through this island so as to fish in the water beneath. This island occupies a large part of the pond. The water is alive with horn-pouts, turtles and watersnakes. The three other ponds are near to each other and only a short distance from Mine Swamp Brook. They are much more attractive than Jewett's, being set like gems in the midst of the green hills.
II
THE SANDY POND REGION.
One of these, lying farthest to the southwest, is sometimes called Howe's Duck Pond. It is twice as large as any one of the other three. Its beauty is increased by a picturesque tongue of land jutting into it from the south. These ponds, as well as Sandy, may be considered as belonging by nature to the system of Mine Swamp and Spring Brooks, since there is little doubt that their leakage naturally finds its way into the river through these channels.
Granite ledges crop out near the spot where the brooks enter the river, but most of the watershed, within Clinton limits, is covered to a considerable depth with sand de- posited upon a slate foundation. There are several depres- sions among these sand hills that look as if they might formerly have been filled with water like the pond basins of which we have already spoken. Two of these near the river are especially interesting. This same sand formation pre- vails to the west and northwest of Sandy Pond .*
As there are no other tributaries of the Nashua in the southern part of the town, we can best understand the general nature of its surface by passing at once to the tribu- taries in the northern section. A stream known as Dean's, Goodrich or Gutteridge Brook, after having flowed for nearly a mile through Clinton territory, enters the river from the west, just beyond the boundary line within the limits of Lancaster. This stream rises in the Sterling hills and passes through the Deer's Horns district in Lancaster. In this dis- trict are the Four Ponds and two mill privileges. There was formerly another mill half a mile or more down the stream. Soon after leaving Four Ponds, the valley of the brook is bounded on the south by the high sand terrace upon which the Driving Park is situated. Further on, a similar terrace
* The physical features of this district have been presented more minutely, as it will soon be submerged by the waters of the Metropolitan Reservoir and thus pass from the memory of man.
12
PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY.
appears upon the northern side of the stream. Standing upon the point of the southern terrace which projects to the northeast, we can look back through the valley. The plain of the terrace, half a mile away to the north, is nearly at a level with that on which we are standing. The brook, flow- ing a hundred feet below, is hidden by the alders and maples that grow along its banks, between the evergreen pines and hemlocks that fill the slopes and crowd down toward the stream. Turning toward the east, we see the lower valley, which lies within Clinton territory, spread out before us. To the southeast lies Sylvan Grove, separated from us by a de- pression, through which, in the wet season, a little branch joins the main brook. To the northeast are the gently slop- ing hills of South Lancaster, while between are the meadows and a shallow pond of some four acres in extent. From this, the stream passes under the Boston & Maine Railroad. Then there is another pond with an area of about an acre. These ponds form the reservoir for Fuller's Saw Mill. The fall of the stream at this point is sixteen feet, which gives a water privilege of some ten horse power during nine months in a year. The brook now enters the intervale of the Nashua and soon after empties its waters into the river.
The terrace plain on which the Driving Park is situated forms the crest of the watershed between Goodrich Brook on the northwest and South Meadow and Rigby Brooks on the southeast. It is more than a mile in length, and in some places above half a mile in breadth. Only the eastern part of it is in Clinton. In general, the surface is remarkably level, but there are numerous gullies along the edges. Fine views of the valley of Rigby Brook, with the town of Clinton in the background, can be obtained from the hospital grounds near the southeastern edge of the terrace.
Rigby Brook is for the most part formed from springs which originate in the underground leakage of Mossy Pond. This pond, like Clamshell and Sandy with its little com-
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MOSSY POND AND RIGBY BROOK.
panions, is natural, while all the other Clinton ponds have been made by damining the streams. The area of Mossy Pond, as it is today, is thirty-three and four hundred and thirty-seven thousandths acres. In its natural state, how- ever, it was considerably less. It is very irregular in outline. The shores in general rise abruptly from the waters to a height of twenty feet or more. Not far from the opposite side of the pond, there is a long narrow island. Another, formerly known as the "Floating Island," from its change of position, was in 1888 in part attached to the mainland south- east of the coffer dam, while the other section was many rods further to the south. Both parts were composed of moss and roots which made a mat of varying thickness. This yielded beneath the feet and a pole could be thrust through it into the water below. Bushes and even trees grew upon these islands, and they were the chosen home of the pitcher plant and Labrador tea. These islands are now more broken up and lie along the southern shore of the pond. The name of this pond is derived from the thick moss with which the bottom is covered.
The pond, before it was joined to the Clinton Company's reservoir, had no permanent inlet, but, like all our other natural ponds, was fed by springs. Its leakage into Rigby Brook now passes underground through springs which bubble up a few rods below the dam. The water of the brook is strongly impregnated with iron, which covers its surface with irridescent hues and appears as a thick ochrey deposit on the bottom. Previous to the freshet of 1876, this stream furnished water for a tannery on Sterling Street and gave power for three small comb shops near North Main Street where several little artificial ponds were strung along its rapidly descending course. Less than a mile from its source, it joins South Meadow Brook, and the united waters of the two fill the five-acre reservoir of Fuller's Pond, and furnish a water privilege of ten horse power for Rodger's Mill. The waters of the brook below Rodger's Mill pass through Currier's Flat and then enter into the river.
14
PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY.
Originally there was a loose, natural dam at the northern end of Mossy Pond. This had been strengthened a little by the Clinton Company, when the ponds were connected and their level raised. But in the spring of 1876, this dam broke away and Mossy Pond, together with the whole reser- voir with which it had been joined, was precipitated, an irresistible flood into the valley of Rigby Brook. It swept away all the dams and manufacturing buildings along its course. The rebuilding of the dam restored the former con- dition of Mossy Pond, but the smaller dams, except the one at Fuller's Pond, have never been replaced.
Returning to Mossy Pond, we find between it and Sandy Pond, which lies more than half a mile away to the south, an irregularly shaped, low lying tract of land now filled with water, but formerly a swamp and meadow. That section which is to the southwest of Mossy Pond was known as South Meadow. Through it flowed a stream which was known as South Meadow Brook. A boy could easily jump across it. This stream was formed in the meadow near the present Lancaster line by the union of two water courses which drained the Sterling and Lancaster hills west of the present Clinton boundary. Doubtless, this brook received some additions from the leakage of Mossy Pond, and as it turned northward around the ledges of slate which underlie the southern spur of Cemetery Hill, it also drained the swamp west of Burditt Hill, into which some water probably oozed from Sandy Pond. To the east of Cemetery Hill, there was a considerable descent in the stream, and here a dam was built and a little pond formed in very early times. After various changes, early in the nineteenth century Poignand & Plant raised the dam and enlarged the pond. They also dug a canal, or enlarged one previously made through the swamp to Sandy Pond, that they might use its waters. It was nearly the middle of the century before the Clinton Company constructed a dam which flowed the whole
15
SOUTH MEADOW BROOK.
swamp and meadow and made Sandy and Mossy Ponds a part of its great united reservoir.
The body of water which filled the swamp to the west of Burditt Hill was called "Coachlace," or "Clinton Mill" Pond. It is a mile in length and of varying breadth. Its depth is so small at the southern end that in the dry season a boat can hardly find its way among the decaying stumps which mark the position of the trees that grew in the swamp, but near the dam at the northern end, where the Factory Pond used to be, the depth in some places exceeds twenty feet. There is another little pond known as Duck Harbor Pond which is separated from Coachlace by the Boston & Maine Railroad. The area of these two ponds together is sixty-five and four hundred and one thousandths acres. This railroad also forms the division line between Coachlace and South Meadow Ponds. The latter pond is divided into two parts by the South Meadow Road. The section to the east of the road has an acreage of forty and seven hundred and twenty- nine thousandths. This section of South Meadow Pond is for the most part separated from Mossy Pond by a large, well-wooded peninsular from which the coffer dam before mentioned runs to the mainland.
The section of South Meadow Pond west of the road has an extent of forty-five and three hundred and twenty-one thousandths acres. The two streams from the western hills which we have spoken of as formerly joining to form South Meadow Brook, now pour into this western division of the The larger of these pond within the limits of Lancaster.
drains the hills to the southwest and the smaller comes from the northwest. The whole storage basin includes two hun- dred and thirty-two and six hundred and seventy-six thou- sandths acres, and drains a watershed of over three thousand. The flow line of the Bigelow Carpet Company is three hundred and twenty-six and seven hundred and eighty-one thousandths feet above sea level. The fall at the water wheel of the Company is forty-three feet from the full pond.
16
PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY.
The brook flows on for nearly half a mile below Coachlace Pond, between Cemetery Hill on the west and Burditt and Harris Hills upon the east, until another descent offers another opportunity for a water privilege. Here a dam was constructed and a mill built in 1653, and for over a century and a half this mill and its successor formed the business centre of the town. The pond made by the dam at this point was known in more recent years as Counterpane Pond. This pond became a nuisance as the town became thickly settled, because the sewerage was poured into it from the higher land around. The Bigelow Carpet Company gained control of the water privileges and gradually contracted the area of the pond. In 1890, the dam was destroyed and the pond disappeared altogether. The fall from this pond was sixty-two feet and the water privilege was estimated to give forty horse power. The stream flows on for another half mile from the point where this dam formerly stood before it receives the waters of Rigby Brook.
The elevation which forms the water-shed between Rigby and South Meadow Brooks reaches its highest point in Cem- etery Hill. The eastern part of this elevation has in a large measure been leveled, and thus Chapel and Liberty Hills, which stood on either side of Main Street, just south of its junction with Water, have disappeared. To the north, this elevation sinks to the terrace plain of North Main Street, but is still considerably above the valley of South Meadow Brook.
It remains to speak of the tract between South Meadow Brook and its reservoirs on the west and the Nashua on the cast. Beginning at the north, we find, near the mouth of South Meadow Brook above the intervale already men- tioned as Currier's Flats, a tongue of land known as the Plain. This is about half a mile in length and in the southern part more than half as much in breadth. The elevation of this plain is three hundred and eleven feet above sea level at the
17
FROM THE PLAIN TO BURDITT HILL.
junction of High and Water Streets. It slopes gradually toward the north until it sinks suddenly to the intervale two hundred and thirty-five feet above sea level. The sand formation prevails here, as in all the terrace plains of which we have before spoken, and from either side, we can look down from steep bluffs on the water course below.
As we reach the old basin of Counterpane Pond on the west and the northward bend in the river on the east, the plain ends and we have a hill with a general rise from the pond to Swinscoe's Bluff, which overlooks the river to the north and east.
Going southward from Swinscoe's Bluff along the crest of the elevation, after a slight depression, we rise towards the summit of Harris Hill. The river is here flowing half a mile to the east of our course. The western slopes toward South Meadow Brook of about the same length are now thickly settled, but they were in carlier times covered with a densely wooded swamp. A clayey soil is found upon this slope to a considerable depth, except at one point a few rods northwest of the corner of Church and Walnut streets where the slate ledge crops out. The summit of the hill is composed of quartzite, which is divided from the granite by a clearly marked line, which extends southwesterly from the river along the ledge of Harris Hill to Rattlesnake Ledge of Burditt Hill. The ledge at Harris Hill has, at one part known as the Lover's Leap, an almost perpendicular descent of con- siderably over a hundred feet .*
* The following table of elevations above a sea level is taken from the road commissioners' map of the town :
Union Boston and Main Railroad and Sterling Street 307
Church and Main. 293.1
- High. 332.9
Chestnut. 371.5
Cedar. 439.8
Chestnut and Mechanic. 354
Franklin and School
404.3
Park and Winter 500
3
18
PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY.
To the north, from this hill-top, stretches the broad far- reaching expanse of the valley of the Nashua. To the east, lie the Bolton hills with the river near at hand. To the south, the Lancaster Mills' Pond reposing between the lofty hills adds a most unique and picturesque feature to the land- scape. To the west, the calm majesty of Wachusett crowns the prospect and the setting sun bathes the mountain and the whole intervening valley in matchless beauty.
Pursuing our course along the crest of the elevation, we pass through a depression between Harris and Burditt Hills. To our right lies a narrow valley formerly known as Slab Meadow, now occupied by the Bigelow Carpet mill. We ascend the steep side of Burditt Hill with an ever widening prospect opening below us. Now, we have reached Point Lookout, the northeasterly elevation of the hill. Passing over or around the little peat meadow which lies to the south- west, we reach the highest crest of the hill about five hun- dred and twenty feet above sea level. The prospect to the north and west is impeded by the trees and the breadth of the hill-top, but to the east, the Lancaster Mills' Pond lies at the foot of Rattlesnake Ledge. To the south, the eye trav- erses a mile of oak and chestnut forest to the valley of Mine Swamp Brook, from which, it rises to the hills of Boylston.
Moving a few rods northward from the highest point, we come to the northern brow of the hill which is now occupied by the reservoir of the Clinton water supply. The surface of the water is five hundred and eight feet above sea level. Here, although the breadth of the hill-top obstructs the view of everything that is situated near the base, yet the distant panorama lies spread out in charming variety. To the east, we see Wilder and Wilson Hills with their lower prolonga- tion to the northward, beyond rises Snake Hill in Berlin and the spires of Marlboro can be seen above the forests. Fur- ther to the north lies the highest point between Wachusett and the ocean, Wataquadock Hill in Bolton. Then the eye pauses for a moment on the village of Still River, resting so
WESTERN VIEW FROM RESERVOIR ON BURDITT HILL. Mt. Wachusett in the Distance.
19
SUMMARY.
peacefully on the southern slopes of the hills of Harvard. If we turn to the west, we can catch glimpses of the ponds. Beyond are the hills of Boylston, Lancaster and Sterling, with those of Holden, Rutland and Princeton in the back- ground. Turning still further northward, we come to Little Wachusett, and finally to the grand old mountain itself. Following on to the north come the many elevations of Lan- caster, Leominster, Fitchburg and Lunenburg, and in the distance, one can scarcely distinguish the dim blue of Monad- nock from the sky, with which it seems to mingle. We bring our eyes downward through the valley until we rest them upon the borders of our own town.
The physical characteristics of Clinton, which we have been considering in detail, we are now able to view more comprehensively. We can see the position of the town in relation to its surroundings, a position, which makes it a nat- ural center of trade for the farming regions round about and at the same time gives to its inhabitants opportunities for a remarkable variety of beautiful drives and walks. We can see the ever changing surface of hill and plain and valley, a continual source of delight to those who enjoy the charms of nature and a means of health to those who would live in the purer air above the fogs of pond and river. We can see how these hills, in and about the town, make it easy to ob- tain, store and distribute water and carry away the drainage and sewerage. We can see how the river and its tributaries passing through these hills must naturally furnish abundant water power, a water power which was the incentive to the first settlement and earlier development of the town, and is still an important factor in its industrial prosperity.
CHAPTER II.
SCIENTIFIC NOTES.
THE student of nature, unsatisfied with the outline of the physical geography of the town, may wish to inquire more closely into the work of natural forces in the past.
Such a student can find in the surface rocks of Clinton no record of any time earlier than the Carboniferous Age, save in the hornblende-schist in the southeast corner of the town. Near the beginning of this age, untold centuries ago, the quartzite rock which appears in the eastern ledges of Harris and Burditt Hills, was deposited by a vast body of water, reaching from New Hampshire through Massachu- setts, towards Connecticut and Rhode Island. Here, the water must have been at least several miles in breadth, as this same bed of quartzite appears again far to the west of Clinton limits. This quartzite, which often shows the structure of conglomerate, was deposited in the form of sand, with occasional layers of small pebbles, but as the movement of the water became retarded, the sediment was deposited in the finer form of clay. Layer by layer through long periods of geologic time, this clay grew to a great thickness.
In certain places, like the present top of Burditt Hill, the water sank, or the land rose, so that portions of the clay bed appeared as morasses, or swamps, which supported the vegetation characteristic of the age. The remains of this vegetation are still found in the mixture of anthracite and graphite which occurs in the slate, made from the clay.
21
GEOLOGY OF THE ROCKS.
While the structure of these rocks and their composition show that they are formed of sand and clay deposited from water, while their position in their relations to other rocks gives evidence of the time of their deposit, while the shape of the bed proves much regarding the shape and size of the body of water which dropped one by one the grains of sand and clay of which the quartzite and slate are composed, yet the rocks in themselves have not been found to contain any fossils to reveal the life of the time. In Worcester, how- ever, in the same deposits, certain fossils have been found. The coal beds of various regions, which were a product of the same age, enable us to know many of the growths, of which our formless graphite and anthracite are the only relics left to us here. There were the cone-bearing trees, dis- tantly allied to those of the present; the lycopodium, similar to our ground pines, but woody in structure and growing to a great height ; ferns, some low and herbaceous, like those which grow here today, others like the tree fern in size, with fronds six feet or more in length ; calamites, resembling our jointed rushes, but growing many times as tall; above all, the sigillaria with their branchless trunks, rising sixty feet in the air and covered with long, narrow leaves. These were some of the characteristic growths of the Carboniferous Age. From this luxuriant vegetation, were stored up the coal and oil for the future use of man. Such were the growths from which our graphite was made. The fact that the amount of graphite is small in this locality does not prove a meagreness of vegetation, but simply shows that the conditions were not favorable for its preser- vation, in other words, that the vegetable matter decayed because it was not kept from the oxygen of the air. Just when the clay and sand were hardened into slate and quartzite is unknown, but the change must have occurred before the close of the Carboniferous Period, and was due to forces which affected the whole of New England.
Sometime between the close of the Carboniferous Period
22
SCIENTIFIC NOTES.
and the beginning of the Triassic, the molten interior of the earth gave birth to forces too strong to be resisted by the rocks above. An equilibrium was restored by the molten mass intruding into the crust and melting, or metarmorphos- ing all that came in contact with it. As it cooled, it formed the granite rock, which appears as an oval of a mile or more in width to the east of Harris and Burditt Hills, and in various other places in this vicinity. That this rock is igneous in its nature is proved by the fact that it has no stratification except such as came from banding caused by pressure. Indeed, the rock on the hill to the west of Clam- shell Pond is so evidently igneous in its origin, that the farmers of the region were accustomed to call it volcanic before it had been examined by a scientist. The ineta- morphism which occurred when the molten mass came in contact with the schist, quartzite and argillite, made many changes in the rocks, which vary from entire melting and re- cooling with crystallization, to scarcely noticeable modi- fications.
An examination of the map will show that the bed of slate, or argillite, underlies all that part of the town north- west of Burditt and Harris Hills. This bed of slate reaches to the Sterling hills. It grows more narrow to the south in Boylston, and broadens to the north in Lancaster. This slate is bounded on the east and west by quartzite. This quartzite, as it appears on the crest of Harris Hill, is only a few rods in width. There is a geologic fault to the cast of Burditt Hill, at the Oxbow. The slate and the quartzite cach appear to the east of their natural position. To the east of this fault, there is a small area of hornblende-schist. This schist divides the granite to the north and south into two great arcas lying to the cast of the quartzite. The line of contact between the granite and quartzite can be traced with this single interruption from northeastward of Clinton limits along the crests of Harris and Burditt Hills, far to the southward. Beyond this granite, in Bolton, Berlin and
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