Title: Lost Towns of the Quabbin Reservoir - New England Today
Headings: Lost Towns of the Quabbin Reservoir
New England History
Lost Towns of the Quabbin Reservoir
The lost towns of the Quabbin Reservoir aren't your typical ghost towns. Read about why they were abandoned, and how they came to be under water.
Lost Towns of the Quabbin Reservoir
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Content: But there had been talk of the area’s demise for years — since at least 1922. The eastern part of the state needed drinking water, and the government needed a place to put it. The Metropolitan District Water Supply Commission had its eye on the Swift River Valley, and there wasn’t much that the residents felt they could do to divert its gaze. Initially, the residents thought they would be safe. The scope of the project — relocating all those people and the homes, schools, churches, and shops that they and their ancestors had worked for so long to develop — would surely cause the government to look elsewhere. As if that weren’t enough, they would also have to exhume and relocate 7,613 bodies from local cemeteries. Surely there was a better solution. The roads of the lost towns of the Quabbin Reservoir remain paved, just as they were in 1938. Many of them now lead straight into the water. Bethany Bourgault
The Swift River Act legalized the impossible, though, and after its passage in 1927, residents of the valley faced a hard deadline.