The Cochituate Aqueduct was an aqueduct in Massachusetts that brought water to Boston from 1848 to 1951.
The Cochituate Aqueduct was an aqueduct in Massachusetts that brought water to Boston from 1848 to 1951.
The aqueduct formed a key link in Boston's first major water supply system. Its genesis dates to 1845, when a Sudbury River tributary was impounded to form Lake Cochituate in Natick. The artificial lake, with 17 square miles (44 square kilometres) of watershed, 2 billion US gallons (7,600,000 m3) of storage, and yield of 10 million US gallons (38,000 m3) of water per day, became the cornerstone of Boston's public water system.
The aqueduct was built in 1846 to 1848 to convey water from Lake Cochituate to the Brookline Reservoir. Its route was 14 miles (23 km) long and passed through Natick, Wayland, Wellesley, Newton, and Brookline. From there, pipelines ran to small distribution reservoirs throughout Boston, including Beacon Hill Reservoir atop Beacon Hill. In 1848 Lake Cochituate's water first flowed into Frog Pond on Boston Common in a ceremony that drew 100,000 people.
By 1951, four major aqueducts were delivering water to Boston. The Cochituate system was unnecessary with its water declining in quality and requiring treatment. It was thus abandoned, and portions were purchased in 1952 by the City of Newton for sewer lines. It is now part of a trail system, with granite bridges and gatehouses still intact along its route.
In 2010, the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority issued a Use Permit to the Natick Conservation Commission for 16 acres (65,000 m2) of the Natick section for future conservation and recreation purposes.
Portions of the aqueduct route have been overbuilt by roads and other construction, but it is in many areas still discernible.
The Cochituate Aqueduct begins at a gatehouse on the east side of Lake Cochituate, north of Massachusetts Route 30. It passes roughly eastward, eventually running along the town line between Wayland and Natick. It eventually turns southeasterly, skirting around the east side of Morses Pond in Wellesley shortly after passing under Massachusetts Route 9. It again turns east, passing north of Wellesley Town Hall before turning northeasterly through the Hunnewell Field athletic complex and toward Indian Spring Park, where it again turns east. It passes under Walnut and Cedar Streets in eastern Wellesley before descending to cross the Charles River into Newton on a stone bridge. There is a commemorative plaque in a small open park facing Cedar Street. The aqueduct crossing of the river is via an iron siphon tube, whose original control houses on both sides have been demolished. [1]
In Newton, the aqueduct is located in the median dividing the lanes of Waban Avenue, and passes near the Waban MBTA station, before snaking through residential parts of Waban to skirt the southern edge of Cold Spring Park. It proceeds northeasterly to skirt the northern edge of the Newton Centre Playground, where the Sudbury Aqueduct runs along the playground's south side. It then loops northward around Prospect Hill before turning southeast, passing through the Boston College campus, where its route has been obliterated by St. Thomas More Road. It skirts the west side of Chestnut Hill Reservoir (whose construction it predates), before heading mainly southeast, paralleling Reservoir Road, to the western end of the Brookline Reservoir, where its end gatehouse is located. [1]
Newton is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is roughly 8 miles (13 km) west of downtown Boston, and comprises a patchwork of thirteen villages. The city borders Boston to the northeast and southeast, Brookline to the east, Watertown and Waltham to the north, and Weston, Wellesley, and Needham to the west. At the 2020 U.S. census, the population of Newton was 88,923.
Cochituate is a census-designated place (CDP) in the town of Wayland in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 6,927 at the 2020 census, out of 13,943 in the entire town of Wayland.
The Quabbin Reservoir is the largest inland body of water in Massachusetts, United States, and was built between 1930 and 1939. Along with the Wachusett Reservoir, it is the primary water supply for Boston, 65 miles (105 km) to the east, and 40 other cities and towns in Greater Boston. The Quabbin also supplies water to three towns west of the reservoir and acts as backup supply for three others. By 1989, it supplied water for 2.5 million people, about 40% of the state's population at the time. It has an aggregate capacity of 412 billion US gallons (1,560 GL) and an area of 38.6 square miles (99.9 km2).
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Cochituate State Park is a Massachusetts day-use state park located on Lake Cochituate in the town of Natick. The park is managed by the Department of Conservation and Recreation.
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While there are many historic spaces in Framingham, the Centre Common is the focal point for the town's past. Three of the town's most historic buildings on the Centre Common face "demolition by neglect." The Village Hall, the Edgell Memorial Library, and the Old Academy building not only house over 10,000 artifacts spanning four centuries of the town's history, but they are symbols of Framingham's commitment to educational excellence, civic engagement, and community pride.
Tab Communications Inc., based first in Newton, Massachusetts, United States, then in nearby Needham, was a weekly newspaper publisher in Greater Boston before being bought by Fidelity Investments in 1992 and dissolved into Community Newspaper Company in 1996.
The Old Connecticut Path was the Native American trail that led westward from the area of Massachusetts Bay to the Connecticut River Valley, the first of the North American trails that led west from the settlements close to the Atlantic seacoast, towards the interior. The earliest colonists of Massachusetts Bay Colony used it, and rendered it wider by driving cattle along it. The old route is still followed, for part of its length, by Massachusetts Route 9 and Massachusetts Route 126.
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Lake Cochituate is a body of water in Natick, Wayland, and Framingham, Massachusetts, United States. Originally a reservoir serving Boston, it no longer serves that function, and is now a local recreational resource and home to Cochituate State Park.
The Framingham Reservoir No. 3 Dam and Gatehouse is a historic waterworks facility in Framingham, Massachusetts. The dam and gatehouse are located at the southeastern end of Framingham Reservoir No. 3, off Massachusetts Route 9. They were built 1876–78 as part of an expansion of the public water supply of the city of Boston. The dam is 2,280 feet (690 m) long, and impounds an area of 253 acres (102 ha) in the Sudbury River watershed. The reservoir is the largest of the three Framingham reservoirs that were built at that time. The dam's core is constructed of granite rubble laid in cement. There is a granite-lined overfall area 100 feet (30 m) long, which was originally topped by flashboards. At the end of the overfall area nearest Route 9 stands the gatehouse, a granite structure with a rectangular main block and a smaller wing. Both sections have a steeply pitched slate roof. The door is in a round-arch recess, and the building is capped by a cupola. It houses controls for two 4-foot (1.2 m) mains connected to the Sudbury Aqueduct via the gatehouse at Reservoir No. 1. The water is directed either directly beyond the dam into reservoir 1 or through the 4-foot mains to the Sudbury Aqueduct gatehouse.
The Sudbury Aqueduct is an aqueduct in Massachusetts. It runs for 16 miles (26 km) from Farm Pond at Waverly Street in Framingham to Chestnut Hill Reservoir in Boston’s Chestnut Hill neighborhood. A later built extension main runs from the Farm Pond gatehouse to the gatehouse at the Stearns Reservoir where additional mains connect to the Brackett and Foss Reservoirs Going east from Framingham, it runs through Sherborn before entering Natick. From Natick it runs east through Wellesley and Needham to the Charles River, which it crosses on the Echo Bridge into Newton. It ends at the Chestnut Hill Reservoir on the Newton side of the Newton-Boston line. The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA) operates the aqueduct.
The Fisher Hill Reservoir and Gatehouse are historic elements of the public water supply for the Greater Boston area.
Reservoir Park is a historic park on Boylston Street in Brookline, Massachusetts. Its principal feature is Brookline Reservoir, formerly an element of the public water supply for neighboring Boston.
The Sudbury Reservoir is an emergency backup Boston metropolitan water reservoir in Massachusetts, located predominantly in Southborough and Marlborough, with small sections in Westborough and Framingham. It was created when the Sudbury Dam was constructed to impound the Stony Brook branch of the Sudbury River; no part of the reservoir lies in the town of Sudbury. Nearly 5,000 acres (2,000 ha) in the Sudbury Reservoir watershed are administered by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation as a limited-access public recreation area.
