December 2001 Vol. 16 No. 4

We must hear and listen to all of Quabbin’s many Voices; Voices of the Past, as well as Voices of the Present and of the Future; Voices of the Trees, the Sky, the Rain that falls, and all the Wild Things; Voices of the People who depend on this valuable resource for their daily needs of clean water, and Voices of those who draw upon it for deeper needs of the Soul. a Farewell to Former FOQ Founder/President Shaun Bresnahan Since our last newletter FOQ during his presidency was the continu- has lost one of its original founding ing protection of the Quabbin water- members, former president, Quabbin shed as a pristine, although well-man- historian and environmentalist, Shaun aged wilderness and refuge for wild- Bresnahan. Shaun died in September life. He supported funding of wildlife at the age of 54 after a long illness. studies and the establishment of the A local high school history teacher, Coit Memorial Research Fund, which Shaun often used Quabbin history and made possible the Gull Population environment as a teaching tool in his Study and the Coyote Studies under- social studies classes. His students re- taken by Friends. Always supportive member him as an inspiring and inno- and enthusiastic about our Oral History vative teacher. It is not Project, his ready surprising that he be- Fellow board members help and expertise came one of the first as a local historian miss his quick wit and advocates for a visitors was much appreci- Shaun speaks on the Costa center at Quabbin. enthusiasm. . . ated in the produc- Rican Rain Forest, a subject Shaun helped or- tion of our very dear to his heart, at the FOQ’s ganize the Friends of Quabbin and its popular "Here Was Home" tape. 9th Annual Meeting first open house at the Visitors Center Shaun's interest in the environ- in 1985. He was elected to the board as ment, wilderness, and forest protection sity, chosen MCSS "Teacher of the a founding member that year and each reached far beyond Quabbin, taking Year" and "National Social Studies year following, becoming President in him and his high school students on Teacher of the Year" in 1992. Receiv- 1989. annual trips to the rain forests of Costa ing honorable mention as a "National One of the main focuses of Friends Rica. Earth Teacher" he was recognized by Citing his increasingly heavy the Alliance For Environmental Educa- workload in teaching and environmen- tion. tal concerns he resigned his presidency He wrote for numerous publica- in 1999 but remained an active mem- tions and was active in humanitarian ber until his illness. During his 30-year programs spanning the globe. He was teaching career, Shaun taught not only president at various times of both the at the high school level but also at BTA and the MCSS as well as of FOQ. Holyoke Community College, UMass We were fortunate indeed to have Amherst and Clark University in this busy educator and environmental- Worcester, as well as numerous pro- ist serve as president for almost ten grams and workshops throughout the years. Fellow board members continue Northeast. Rewarded for his dedica- to miss his quick wit, enthusiasm and Shaun speaks with author Tom tion, he was named "Social Studies (sometimes outrageous!) program sug- Conuel at an FOQ Meet the Teacher of the Year" at Clark Univer- gestions. r Writers and Artists event December 2001 Quabbin Voices Page QUABBIN VOICES is the periodic newsletter of the PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE Friends of Quabbin, Inc. Edited by Lois Barnes S haun Bresnahan, friend, board by Design & production by Lisa Yeisley member, and President of Friends of Bob Clark Quabbin for ten years, from 1989 to The views and opinions expressed in this 1999, died in September. He took newsletter do not necessarily reflect the time from a very busy schedule to A Pine at Dawn views of Friends of Quabbin, Inc. represent the Friends, to arrange for our Annual Meetings and many other O, how softly you move, Check Our Website for functions. His years of dedication, Your form a clear array Current News of Quabbin expertise, coordination of activities Against silver and gray. www.friendsofquabbin.org and events, and seeing that projects Your whisper, like the dew, Quabbin Reservation, which has were properly carried out were in- Settles gently to the ground, been closed in the aftermath of the ter- valuable to the Friends. Shaun was a Where sparkling drops abound. rible events of September 11, will now true friend of Quabbin and is greatly be open to limited public access. For- missed. Sunset tunately Friends’ web site is now on This year's theme for the Holiday line so you can check for a current up- Party on December 2, "Poetry of Golden Swatches on blue date if you cannot reach the Visitor Quabbin", will hopefully inspire Turning an orange hue Center by phone. some of our members and former In ever darkening shades - Board members at the recent residents to share any poems with a Still - until black on black meeting enthusiastically endorsed the Quabbin connection. Poetry can ex- And breath of night pervades. web site. Lisa Yeisley, the board mem- press subtlety, depth of feeling, or ber in charge of getting the site up and images in a powerful and universal Perhaps these simple poems will running, welcomes your comments way. Although I arrived too late to inspire you to send any poems you and suggestions. Contact her through witness the former Swift River Val- may have with a Quabbin connec- the webmaster link on the website, or ley towns, I have many special tion. I hope many of you will be at use her email address: memories of Quabbin. In the follow- the Holiday Party. [email protected]. ing poems, written years ago, I have tried to depict a scene, mood, and re- MAY YOU HAVE A VERY u lationship experienced in Quabbin. HAPPY HOLIDAY SEASON. New Editions of JR Greene Favorites Now Available Welcome New Members! from the Visitor Center Kathleen A. Aldrich, West Springfield Interest: History 2002 Quabbin History Calendar Rafael Cruz, Springfield Interest: Photography This is the 17th consecutive edition Ann H. Frank, Somerset Interest: History of this annual tribute to the valley Margaret Hunt, Amherst Interest: Birds towns, and contains 12 new black Richard & Carolyn Matthews, Amherst Interest: History and white photos, including the Anita Richard, Ware Enfield Congregational chapel, an Dave Stanley, Wheelwright Interest: History auction in Prescott, and Hager's last Catherine E. Werd, Sturbridge Interest: History store in No. Dana. $10.50. Albert Zielinski, Otter River Interest: History “The Creation of Quabbin Reser- Patricia & Joseph Zinkowsky, Southbridge Interest: History voir”, the classic 1981 history of the valley and the coming of the reser- We’d love to add more names to this list. Membership makes a great voir, is being reissued. The new Christmas gift! Please see our form on page 7. edition features a larger typeface and a new introduction, which updates Correction: The photo on page 5 of our last issue was miscaptioned. It Quabbin events in the twenty years since the book first appeared. should read “Former site of Greenwich Plains.” Greenwich Village $15.75. would have been farther up beyond Mount Liz.

December 2001 Quabbin Voices Page 2 INTERPRETIVE SERVICES REPORT National Guard has increased the sur- core topics of aquatics, forestry, soils by veillance of the watershed and reser- and wildlife, along with a current en- voir. And increased water testing has vironmental issue. The winning teams Clif Read also been incorporated into the pro- from each state and province advance gram to provide early detection of to the North American Competition any possible contaminants. However known as the Canon Envirothon. The Quabbin's greatest security is its well- five-member teams attend the week- It is certainly an understatement protected watershed and the reser- long event, which is held in a differ- to say that life has changed following voir's immense size that provides tre- ent state or province each year. Next the attacks on September 11th. mendous dilution for any possible summer will be ' turn Those horrific events have signifi- contamination. to step up to the plate. More than 500 cantly altered our daily routines, Initial plans called for re-opening people from all over North America, sense of vulnerability and assump- portions of the Reservation and Park including students, coaches and tions about the simplest of things. on November 1st, however the FBI Canon Envirothon Committee mem- This has certainly been in evidence Alert issued several days before the bers, will be gathering in Amherst for here at , which, planned opening delayed this date by this event. It will require a tremen- until recently, has been closed to all a week. As of 6:30AM November dous amount of planning to coordi- public access. The sight of National 8th, portions of the watershed were nate activities for the entire week. Guard troops patrolling the water- re-opened to the public, consistent Many volunteers will also be needed, shed lands in full combat fatigue has with the Public Access Plan. This in- to help with the events throughout the altered the sense of tranquility of the cluded the area from Gate 6 to 16A week. If you are interested in serving Reservation. A loss of innocence, a and Gate 22 to 40, and the eastern as a volunteer, please contact me by stark reality, a symbol of the times, it portion of the Quabbin Park, with the phone at (413) 323-6921 Ext. 401 or is clear that life has changed. exception of the Goodnough Dike email [email protected] and I will Following the initial shutdown and the area immediately below that send your information along to other on September 11th, the Quabbin Res- impoundment structure. Plans to ease Steering Committee members coordi- ervation reopened to the general pub- access restrictions on the remaining nating volunteers.r lic three days later. Several incidents portions of land normally open to the of low flying planes over the reser- public are on track for mid-Decem- voir on September 15th prompted the ber. The likely exceptions to this Just For Fun. . .Guess Who? State Police to shut down the entire opening will be the area in the imme- reservation later that day. Although diate vicinity of the power station at the planes were most likely ignorant and the area around sightseers who chose a terrible time Shaft 12. Vehicle traffic on the to break the law, the incident trig- Winsor Dam and Goodnough Dike gered an even closer examination of will be prohibited, although pedes- the entire MDC/MWRA water sys- trian and bicycle access on these tem. Since September 16th the reser- structures will likely be permitted. vation has remained closed, the fish- Updates on public access are avail- ing season cancelled and all public able on the Visitor Center phone mes- access temporarily prohibited. The sage (413-323-7221). MDC has been working closely with On a very different note, Massa- the Massachusetts Water Resources chusetts will be hosting the 2002 Authority, State Police, National Canon Envirothon at Hampshire Col- Guard and Environmental Police Of- lege in Amherst next summer. The ficer unit to develop and implement Envirothon is a natural resource- an increased security plan. For based education program for high Quabbin this includes placement of school students that emphasizes a barriers to prevent large vehicles hands-on, problem solving approach from accessing the Winsor Dam and to environmental issues. At the state Goodnough Dike and other protec- or provincial (Canada also partici- tive measures to protect the water pates in the program) level, the year- system's infrastructure. The number round program culminates in an envi- of patrols by law enforcement per- ronmental competition in the spring, sonnel, Watershed Rangers and the which tests team's knowledge of the

December 2001 Quabbin Voices Page 3 The tip of the blade, teeth and all, is Cutting the Ice, Part 2 about three inches wide, with the back end being up to eight inches in width. (Continued From “Voices” May, 2001) At the top of the back end is riveted a gracefully curving gooseneck of iron by Norman “Pete” Tandy rod which terminates in a transverse wooden handle. This added length al- In the little village where I grew straight furrows would hitch his horse lows the full blade to be used without up, there wasn’t any doubt as to to a handmade "scorer" (sometimes the necessity of stooping fully over where ice came from. It came from simply called the plow) which was a with every stroke. the west branch of Fever Brook, and timber frame with parallel steel Once the groove was started you spent most of the remainder of its blades projecting downward to scour raised the handle up over your head dwindling life in a rude and roofless four-inch-deep grooves in the ice. At and a little in front of you, with bent crib of slabs, filled with layers of saw- the end of the first line the horse wrists, until the tip of the blade was dust and the great cakes of winter’s would be turned around and the barely in the groove; then you cooling bounty. frame adjusted so that, on the return whipped your arms down, with a fin- Sawdust carries little cachet in trip, the "inside" ishing bend to back and shoulders. The our current world of high-tech insula- blade would ride in “An ice saw looks like a one- tors, but it remains a remarkably ef- the "outside" groove actual cutting, the fective block to heat transfer. I'm writ- just finished. In this man crosscut made by a power stroke, was ing in the first week of May; although way each trip back deranged blacksmith.” this downward the snow is long gone from even the and forth across the thrust, but most of shady parts of the woods, down by cutting area made perfectly spaced the agony seemed to collect on the my log splitter a great bank of it re- parallel grooves. The next step, of upstroke. That raising of the burdened mains. It persists because it is pro- course, was to lay down a pattern at arms up in front and over your head tected by a few inches of chainsaw right angles to the first set, laying out soon drained the muscles of the tops chips thrown up by my snowplow. a great checkerboard. Then the hard of the shoulders and the upper back. Wood itself is a fairly good insulator, work started. There was no other task that used the abetted in this case by the thousands An ice saw looks like a one-man same combination of muscles and by of tiny pockets of dead air trapped be- crosscut made by a deranged black- bedtime household supplies of tween the chips. smith. The teeth are huge, and made Sloane's Liniment and "Absorbine Jr." Gleason's Mill Pond spread Fever up of all cutters, no rakers. The blade would be severely depleted. Brook back over a few acres of im- is thicker and more rigid than a cross- In a small harvest of ice the indi- poundment and, in the depths of win- cut, since the work is done on the vidual cakes were separated and poled ter, its ice was harvested. One morn- "push" instead of the"pull" stroke. directly to a partially-submerged plank ing in later January or early February a horse-drawn "boat" plow and gangs of shovelers would clear away the snow. The preferred thickness of the ice was fourteen or fifteen inches. If the winter had been warm, or too much insulating snow was laid down early, keeping the ice too thin, the patch to be harvested would be cleared of snow weeks before the har- vest. This allowed the cold to pen- etrate, thickening the ice. Much less thickness than that meant handling too many cakes per hundredweight of ice - too much pro- cess and not enough product. Much more thickness meant the blocks would be uncomfortably heavy for the human muscles that would provide most of their handling. Winter in Greenwich, 2/11/31 Some man noted for plowing Clara B. Barlow’s property - Barlow’s Goldmine was located here.

December 2001 Quabbin Voices Page 4 Tuesday Tea Picnic August 2001 at Hanks Picnic Area, Quabbin Reservation

Dorothy Russell and Lois Barnes

Helen and Don Towne

MDC Superintendent Bill Pula pilots a boat carrying Lois Barnes, Ruth Jazab and her Billings family relatives over Greenwich home sites Chester Hanks

“Cutting the Ice,” continued to keep ice. "Crib" or "pen" would fit ing it. As the layers grew higher, ramp. Pike poles varied in length up better, but "ice houses" they were. To planks were laid across the doorway, to a dozen or more feet, with all sizes make an ice house you erected a series held in place by the ice and sawdust terminating in a metal spike for push- of poles in a rectangular pattern, then inside. After the first couple of layers ing the ice, and with a recurved point nailed planks to both the inside and a gin pole pulley and rope was used to for pulling. In larger operations the outside of the poles. The resulting haul the blocks up to the working ice was cut into large rafts; a group of double wall was filled with sawdust. level. men standing on the iceraft would use None of the country ice houses I've For all its primitive nature the ice their pike poles to move it up close to seen ever had roofs on them, and all house served remarkably well. With a the ramp where it would be sawed were innocent of paint. There was no little foresight and planning, the ice into separate blocks. door as such, just a four- or five-foot would last until the cold days of late At the ramp a large set of tongs gap in the wall. A foot or so of saw- autumn, when the householders could would be jabbed into the cake to drag dust was laid down on the interior replenish the icebox in the kitchen by it up the ramp to the side of the wait- ground, and the ice house was ready making their own ice in a basin on the ing sled. Sometimes a single horse for loading. back porch. would be used to drag a string of The cakes of ice were dragged in Were those simpler, more direct single-file cakes up the ramp; more by muscle power and tongs, and connections between demand and sup- often a couple of men would drag up packed tightly in layers. A couple of ply "better?" You could make a case single cakes by means of a rope. Then feet of space was left on all sides, and either way. But I fancy that, back then, the team would haul the ice-laden filled in with sawdust. Each layer of we were more aware of our sources sled to the nearby ice house. ice was covered with six or so inches and dependencies. We are all a part of “House" seems too grand a name of sawdust, and the top layer had as nature, not apart from it. We forget for most of the simple structures used much as three feet of sawdust cover- that at our peril. r

December 2001 Quabbin Voices Page 5 Local School Children Learn About Quabbin As Part of The Visitor Center Outreach to Area Schools “We are the 4th grade A-TEAM from Ware Middle School. We are learning about the Quabbin Reservoir. We are studying the 4 towns that were flooded Trends in Quabbin which were Greenwich, Dana, Prescott, and Enfield in this magazine. We will by Lilly Clem and Brittany Sinclair be including fun things to do and read about. (from page 9 of the magazine) We are making this magazine because we want to share why Quabbin is important. One reason Quabbin is important is because it gives water to . Some types of trends that were We want people to see how important it is and visit to see the trees, animals and popular in the Quabbin before it was flooded were collecting stamps. Some reservoir.” stamps had things on them like President Franklin D. Roosevelt or the Empire State Building. It rises 1,250 feet, 102 stories, and for more than 40 years it was the tallest building in the world. It was built in 1931. Another thing that was popular was Olympic Athlete, Jesse Owens, who set 6 world records. On the afternoon of May 25, 1935, Ohio State University track star Jesse Owens set 5 world records and tied another world record. The next year, he earned 4 gold medals at the Summer Olympic Games in Berlin. Also, the Golden Gate Bridge was built in 1937. The Monopoly Game was very popular too. Life, the magazine, was also popular, it was established in November, 1936. It opened a new era of photojournalism. Household conveniences like: electric mixers, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, irons and pop-up toasters were also popular. The 1930's also saw the spread of sliced bread and packaged frozen foods. Superman arrived in 1938. Created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, The man of steel was the world's first comic book super man hero. His sensational powers and dynamic deeds changed forever the content and style of the comic book. First lady Eleanor Roosevelt was an extremely vocal, active and influential First Lady. r Another Former Quabbin House Documented We continue to get reports of houses moved from the Quabbin area during the 1930s and‘40s. We welcome this information and documentation, if possible. Joann Deans Prescott took the photo at left. She says her father, David McNab Deans, purchased the New Salem home for a nominal sum prior to the flooding of the valley. He moved it to its current home in Williamstown, MA. A general contractor, he numbered each piece before he moved it, so the structure is essentially the same as it was in New Salem.

December 2001 Quabbin Voices Page 6 “Here Was Home” A History of the Swift River Valley and Quabbin Reservoir To purchase this 55-minute audiotape, please complete and mail this form to the address below.

“Here Was Home” - tape only $ 11.55 shipping & handling $ 2.00 TOTAL $ 13.55

“Here Was Home” education packet - includes $ 19.95 tape, historic map, Quabbin Park map & “Quabbin Facts & Figures” booklet shipping & handling $ 4.00 TOTAL $ 23.95

Name Tapes @ $13.55 = $

Address Packets @ $23.95 = $

TOTAL ENCLOSED $

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December 2001 Quabbin Voices Page 7