Trashpaddler: Cochituate Connections

This past week found me out on the Sudbury River where the USGS gauge reading of 5.5 feet at Saxonville had me expecting more water depth than I ultimately found. Launched from Little Farms Road where the Carol Getchell Nature Trail was undergoing construction/renovation work. Due to the construction project the access upstream of the short rocky section was fenced-off so I went downriver passing through Stone's Bridge along the way...

Less than a mile downriver I turned around where a fallen tree blocked my passage. There I came across this swamped metal boat with swivel seating...

Once back at Little Farms it was either tow my boat through the short rapids and continue upriver, or go home. I towed my boat...

...and paddled upriver alongside the aforementioned Carol Getchell Nature Trail up to and under the non-vehicular Danforth Street Bridge...

Ventured just a tad into Cochituate Brook...

...and gave some thought to the meaning of the Native American word "cochituate". Josiah Temple in his History of Framingham published in 1887 attributes the word being applied by Thomas Mayhew, Peter Noyes, and Edmund Rice in their record of the laying out of Mrs Glover's Farm in 1644: "The southwest bounds are the little river that issueth out of the Great Pond at Cochituate". Temple writes that "the term Cochituate was applied by the early white settlers, as it was by the natives, not to the water, but to the site of the large Indian village on the borders and near the outlet of the pond. Cochituate...the word signifies, "place of the rushing torrent", or "wild, dashing brook," referring to the outlet in time of high water.

Reaching the pond's outlet via the brook would not be practical, but it did remind me of how long it's been since I last visited the "Great Pond at Cochituate".

I returned to the river and paddled further upstream to where the bridge abutment of the abandoned Saxonville Branch of the Boston and Albany Railroad can be seen...

On the opposite side of the river and close to the Concord Street Bridge this old stone stairway leads down to the river...

...leaving me to wonder if, perhaps, baptisms were performed here.

This pair of mallards seemed unaware that duck hunting season is open...

...or perhaps they know that hunting isn't allowed in Massachusetts on Sundays.

Made it around Otter Neck as far as the Saxonville gauge station...

...where I got a closer look at the gauge noting it showed the level to be about a foot less than what the website indicated...

On Tuesday I returned to the Cochituate area with plans to launch at the North Lake Cochituate but the gate was closed. As I drove a little further west on Route 30 an adult bald eagle circled twice above my car with its legs and talons lowered. A good omen?

Launched instead at Cochituate State Park where a great boat launch provides easy access for both trailered and hand-launched boats...

This facility also has a porta-potty and trash containers...a five star rating from me.

Once on the water I paddled under the Mass Pike and Route 30 to Cochituate's north pond...

...hoping to see the eagle again. Instead I ran into this osprey with his catch...

On the pond's west side a northeast wind nudged my boat and me towards the outlet dam where exiting water falls into Cochituate Brook...

...and where the Indian village mentioned by Josiah Temple may have been located. Temple in his History of Framingham provided this account by a Mr. James Brown, who was born near by, and was often on the spot. Brown recalled "I have been in the old Indian fort which stood on the highest point of the hill south of the outlet of Long Pond, a great many times. It used to include about an acre and a half of land. A circular bank of earth with ditch outside, the whole about four feet high, enclosed it; and there was a raised mound in the centre, made I suppose for a lookout. There were several cellar holes-'granaries'-inside the bank. It was woods all around; but this place was always bare. It was first plowed up by Col. James Brown, who levelled the bank, filled up the holes, sowed rye, and made it into a pasture. There was an Indian weir in the brook, at the foot of the bluff, a little way down from the outlet." Temple added that "the number of large granaries shows that immense quantities of shad and salmon were caught, dried and stored here in the spring, for use in time of need."

With Tuesday's building northeast wind funneling fetch towards the outlet, I wasn't able to get close enough for a photo. This photo I took of the 2-stage outlet back in June 2010...

Was the fish weir down there beyond the lower dam? Today, the area to the south of the pond's outlet is used by vehicles leaving or entering the Mass Pike to or from Route 30. A cluster of solar panels stands within the traffic loop.

Prior to 1846 this body of water was known as Long Pond as this 1831 map of Framingham by Jonas Clayes and Warren Nixon (found on the Leventhal Map and Education Center website) shows...

Note the map is oriented with east at the top. Cochituate Brook can be seen winding its way from the pond's outlet to the Sudbury River in Saxonville near the oxbow once known as Otter Neck. According to information found on the Massachusetts Water Resource Authority's (MWRA) website the City of Boston, in the 1840s, was in need of an additional source of drinking water. Subsequently in the mid-1840s a dam was built at Long Pond's outlet raising the water level some 9 feet or so thus creating the Lake Cochituate Reservoir. Long Pond became known from that day to this as Lake Cochituate.

The 14-mile long Cochituate Aqueduct was also built to convey the water to Boston. The intake, or gatehouse, for the aqueduct still stands on the pond's east shore. It was built in 1848 as part of the project and was capable of sending up to 10 million gallons of water per day to Boston up until 1951 when the reservoir was relegated to back-up status...

Also in the mid-1840s the Saxonville Branch of the Boston and Worcester Railroad was built alongside the newly created Lake Cochituate. A triangular-shaped culvert beneath the old right of way allows boat passage from Cochituate's middle pond into the south pake...