The Lost Village of Dana

Happy last day of August!  Lizzie and I were going to go to the beach today, but when we woke up, it was raining, and the weather was going to be showers off and on all day, so we decided to go on an adventure instead.  Even though we've lived in MA our whole life, we'd never been to the Quabbin reservoir, so we decided to head down Route 2 and check it out.

The Quabbin reservoir is an impressive feat of engineering, especially so for Massachusetts which seems to be full of engineering disasters (*cough* big dig *cough*).  In the 19th century, Boston and surrounding communities were booming, and the demand for water was easily outstripping the supply. Exercising foresight not common to our state, the government began to explore options for a large supply of clean water.  They began to create reservoirs and aqueducts, the biggest project being the Quabbin. In the 1930s, after creating a series of tunnels and well placed dams and dikes, the Swift River valley was inundated, and the river diverted.  The Swift River valley was not uninhabited, and the flooding called for the disincorporation of four towns, Dana, Prescott, Greenwich, and Enfield.  (David Foster Wallace sets parts of Infinite Jest in a town named Enfield).  The people who lived in these towns were not pleased, obviously, nor was the state of Connecticut which thought the diverted water belonged to them, but Massachusetts was like "Ha ha we do what we want" and Eminent Domained all over the place, forcing the land/homeowners to move and then dismantled the houses, hotels, CEMETERIES, etc.  (If you scuba dived in the Quabbin, you could see old cellars and the like in the flooded towns).

Lizzie and I went to where Dana used to be, which is the only part of these four towns still above water.  Unfortunately my camera died halfway through our walk, but the above video pretty much sums it up.

Dana was incorporated in 1801, and disincorporated in 1938.  Now it's part of Petersham, so we drove out to Hardwick road to Gate 40, and walked the 3 miles to the old town commons.  It was eerie, and there was a loud humming of bugs as we trundled down the choppily paved road.  Halfway through the walk we realized we had to hit the bathroom, and were contemplating which tree to grace with our urine when we exited the thick woods to the commons, and found a delightful portajohn.  Hooray for the department of conservation and recreation!  (side note:  I always think of worst case scenarios, and was like "What if you had to spend the rest of your life living in a portajohn which is under the hot beating sun?"  Noooo....)  After that excitement, we walked through a pretty meadow, down a treacherous hill to the edge of the reservoir.  It was vast and beautiful, and I did not spit in the Boston and metro west water supply.  We climbed back up the treacherous hill, panting, and then walked around the common, which had pictures of what the once vibrant town looked like before.

I had read about Dana, and it said this particular part of the walk was poignant, and I'm super cynical, but moving around the field and looking at the big, beautiful houses, hotels, churches, schools and stores which were torn down to leave this ghost town was really sad.  I understand that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, but all those lives, all that history...so many feels, especially since the land is still there to memorialize its former glory.  Dammit I felt so poignantized. We would have explored more, but thunder was rumbling, and we had to walk back to the car, so we said goodbye to the ghosts and left it to the pinging grasshoppers and crickets.