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Change affects Webster lake,
in everything except its name
WEBSTER - Let's
agree that we'll refer to it herein as Lake C. After all, Lake
Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg is a tad cumbersome.
The locals,
when they're not showing off, call it Webster Lake. Or simply The
Lake. They have celebrated it in song, in poem, and, of course, in
souvenir T-shirt. They have emblazoned its name, three lanes wide,
over the entrance to the public beach.
Ah, Lake C:
once the home of Nipmuck fishermen, today the home of countless
pontoon boats. And whereas most residents used to abandon its
shores for the winter, four of five now stay year-round.
Still, this
1,270-acre lake in south-central Massachusetts, though the
eighth-largest body of fresh water in the Commonwealth, often
doesn't get its due. Mapmakers are forever knocking off some of
its 49 letters for purposes of fit, for one thing. For another,
what about the Guinness Book of World Records? A telephone call to
the publication's London office reveals that it deems another Lake
C. - Lake Cadibarrawirricanna in Australia - to own the longest
place name on Earth. (Only 23 letters? Please.) This despite the
fact that in 1995 National Geographic magazine declared the Bay
State's Lake C. to be the longest place name in the United States.
Being able to
pronounce the full version of Lake C. is something of an
initiation rite in this former industrial town of 17,000 folks.
''We say it when we want to awe people,'' says 77-year-old Conrad
Redlitz, who was born and raised in Webster and has been lakeside,
initially in a summer cottage, since the 1920s. But over in the
town library, the assistant director, Rose Foley, also a native,
says that spelling the lake is more difficult than saying it.
''Sometimes I leave out a `g' or two,'' Foley confesses. About 50
years ago, when the state proposed to do that very thing and
thereby shorten Lake C.'s name, a local woman by the name of
Bertha Joslin responded with a six-verse poetic fusillade: ''Touch
not a `g' of our big lake!'' she wailed. The name stood.
Steve Willey, a
local musician, was schooled in the proper pronunciation of Lake
C. by his father. ''And his dad taught him,'' says Willey, who,
when it came time to pass the skill along to his young daughter,
did it by writing a rock 'n' roll song titled merely, for reasons
of mercy, ''Webster Lake.'' The song has become something of a
local hit, as well as a contemporary follow-up to a 1930s
sheet-music ditty called ''The Lake Song.''
The history of
the lake's name is fittingly confusing. The most widely accepted
theory is that it was called Great Pond by 17th-century white
settlers and Chaubunakongkomuk by local Nipmucks. The Native
American name has been growing in length ever since, and most
folks agree that it has something to do with who is allowed to
fish where.
''Englishmen at
Manchaug at the Boundary Fishing Place'' is an especially popular
translation. Consigned to myth, meanwhile, is ''You Fish on Your
Side, I Fish on My Side, Nobody Fish in the Middle,'' conceded to
be the figment of a local newspaper editor's imagination more than
80 years ago.
But wait. Bert
Heath, a tribal council member of the Nipmuck Council of
Chaubunagungamaugg, says he was taught the latter translation as a
child. And he can cite two other translations. ''Each of the
tribe's elders says it a little bit differently,'' Heath says. In
any case, Nitmucks in the Webster area today number 357, none of
whom, according to Heath, lives on the shores of Lake C.
The lake -
which consists of three ponds connected by narrows, and which has
17 miles of shoreline - was a late 19th- and early 20th-century
resort area. It later consisted of a gaggle of summer cottage
colonies. But its steamships, its dance halls, and even the
trolley line that connected it to downtown Webster, are long gone.
Today Lake C. is suburbia-on-the-water, a cheek-by-jowl mix of
converted cottages, modest bungalows, occasional large manses, and
two major condominium developments. Jules Lusignan, a local real
estate broker, estimates that there are 500 homes and 173
condominiums on the lake, not to mention ''an average of two boats
per house.''
He also
estimates that 75 percent to 80 percent of the lakeside population
now resides here 12 months a year, with many of the others heading
south for the winter. Want to live here yourself? Most houses are
selling for $300,000 to $500,000, a fact that - along with
increasing traffic - sets many longtime residents to muttering.
''Oh yeah, it's
changed,'' says 83-year-old Mary Dow, also known as Waterfront
Mary, who owns a bar along the lake. ''It's all year-round people
now, doctors and stuff. It used to be that people would come for a
couple of weeks, and then they'd leave and you'd get another
crowd. It's not as active now. People don't want it active.''
But, hey,
there's still the annual South Pond Ball, and let's not overlook
the yearly picnic of the Killdeer Island Club. Last year, the
Webster Lake Association was formed out of frustration with local
bylaws requiring dock registration, and the organization has
expanded its goals to include environmental and educational
issues. There's no shortage of boating, bass fishing tournaments,
dock parties, and - starting this frigid month - ice fishing and
snowmobiling.
And even if
Lake C. isn't what it used to be, its name remains the same:
shrouded in historical uncertainty, generally unappreciated beyond
its shores, and pronounceable only by some of its quick-tongued
natives.
''Discoveries''
appears on alternate Saturdays. Ideas for subject matter - unusual
people, places, events, etc. - are welcome. Nathan Cobb can be
reached at cobb@globe.com or 617-929-7266.
This story ran
on page D1 of the Boston Globe on 12/7/2002. |
