In her book,” Mattapoisett and Old Rochester,” Mary Hall Leonard cites a description of Rochester written by an anonymous author in 1815. Among the more detailed aspects of degrees of latitude and longitude, he writes about the town’s rivers, brooks and ponds. One of these is Merry’s Pond and he describes it as,” a round pond, a mile in diameter, of shallow waters in an open space near to the main road, has an entire margin of remarkably white sand which contrasted with the adjacent verdure, the rural hamlets and a smooth hill beyond in the distance, will detain the traveler a few moments”. The Merry’s Pond he describes is of course, today’s Mary’s Pond. One explanation of the earlier spelling is that a Mr. Merry at one time lived near the pond.
The nearby road, prior to the mid -1800’s, would most likely be Bates Road which ran along the Sippican River and was the original route to Plymouth. Where today’s Mary’s Pond Road crosses the river was a major Native American trail that went from Sandwich to Rhode Island and was known as “the wading place.” The area where the road is today was swamp until Charles Leonard of Eastover paid to have wagonloads of fill dumped into the swamp in order to create a road leading directly to Rochester Center.
Abraham Holmes in 1821 wrote his own descriptions of the town. Of Mary’s Pond, he wrote,” a most beautiful sheet of water and is nearly as round as a circle”. He explains that the pond had no inlet or outlet; contained a few minor species of fish and was 3/4 of a mile across. He also added that in mid-1800’s, the town spent $100 to cut a canal from the pond to the adjacent river in an attempt to encourage alewives to enter the pond. However, Holmes reports that the attempt was a failure.
Mary’s Pond also played a role in the early settlers’ production of linen cloth. Flax was grown and its fibers were used to create the cloth. Flax fibers, however, were too tough to use until they were softened. This was accomplished by submerging the flax in water, weighing it down with rocks and leaving it there until it rotted. Mary’s Pond provided a perfect spot for this because it had a clear bottom.
The pond we see today is still,” a beautiful sheet of water” (A. Holmes) and provides recreational opportunities: fishing, kayaking, canoeing, and during a cold enough winter, skating and hockey.
By Connie Eshbach