"A Fresh Hold of Life": Skating on Great Quitticus

On January 15, 1860, Daniel Ricketson of New Bedford wrote his good friend Henry David Thoreau at Concord describing the skating he enjoyed on the day following Christmas, 1859, in the company of his sons Arthur and Walton Ricketson. The trio made a long but pleasurable circuit of the Middleborough ponds.

We've been having a good deal of wintry weather for our section of late, and skating by both sexes is a great fashion. On the 26th of last month, Arthur, Walton, and I skated about fifteen miles. We rode out to the south end of Long pond (Aponoquet), and leaving our horse at a farmer's barn, put on our skates, and went nearly in a straight line to the north end of said pond, up to the old herring weir of King Philip, where we were obliged to take off our skates, as the passage to Assawamset was not frozen. We stopped about an hour at the old [Sampson] tavern and had a good solid anti-slavery, and John Brown talk with some travellers....

After this scene we again assumed our skates from the Assawamset shore, near by, and skated down to the end of the East Quitticus pond, the extreme southern end of the ponds; thence crossing to West Quitticus, we skated around it, which with the return from the south end of the former pond to our crossing place, we estimated at something over 15 miles. Taking off our skates we took a path through the woods, and walking about a mile came out in some old fields near our starting point. We put on our skates at 10.30 o'clock A. M., and at 3 P. M. were eating dinner at the old farm-house of William A. Morton, near the south shore of Long Pond.

I, as well as my boys, enjoyed the excursion very much. We saw our favorite pond under entirely new aspects, and visited many nooks that we had never before seen - sometimes under the boughs of the old cedars, draped in long clusters of moss, like bearded veterans, and anon farther out on the bosom of the lake, with broad and refreshing views of wild nature, taking the imagination back to the times of the Indians and early settlers of these parts - shooting by little islands and rocky islets, among them the one called "Lewis Island." which you thought would do for a residence. I got a fresh hold of life that day, and hope to repeat the pleasure before winter closes his reign. I found myself not only not exhausted, as I had expected, but unusually fresh and cheerful on my arrival home about 5 P. M. The boys stood it equally well. So my friend we shall not allow you all the glory of the skating field, but must place our Aponoquet, Assawamset and Quitticas-et, in the skating account with your own beloved Musketaquid [Concord River] exploits....

I expect to be in Boston at the annual meeting of the Mass. A. S. Society, near at hand, and hope to see you there, and if agreeable should like to have you return home with me, when, D. V., we may try our skates on the Middleborough ponds.

We all spoke of you and wished you were with us on our late excursion there.

Illustrations:

Currier & Ives, "Early Winter", lithograph, mid-19th century

Daniel Ricketson (1813-98), frontispiece from Daniel Ricketson and His Friends: Letters, Poems, Sketches, Etc. (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1902).

Source:
Ricketson, Anna and Walter Ricketson, eds. Daniel Ricketson and His Friends: Letters, Poems, Sketches, Etc. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1902, pp. 101-03

Lakeville's Trolley-Riding Cows

In 1901, cows and people were finding their way into Great and Little Quitticus Ponds in Lakeville, much to the dismay of the City of New Bedford which since 1899 had used the two bodies of water as a municipal water supply. The chief engineer at the city's pumping station on Negus Way in Rochester kept a vigilant eye out for violators of the prohibition which barred from the pond and surrounding lands trespassers (many of whom came by the trolley which ran along Lakeside Avenue to picnic by the side of the pond). The apparently poorly-worded reporting of one New Bedford correspondent, however, seems to have implied that the local cows were due for watching, as well.

Lakeville's cows are advancing in the scale of evolution if the New Bedford Mercury is right in this clipping taken from a report concerning the pumping station at Quittacus Pond:

"It seems only fair to warn the said cows and people that go out on the trolley cars that their actions along the shores of Quittacus can no longer be kept hidden from the eye of the engineer, now that he has got a telescope to look through."

Probably the cows don't pay fares, but hook their rides.

The telescope mentioned in the report had been purchased at a cost of $60 and installed in the pumping station in March, 1901, "so that wandering cows and picnickers [sic] on the shore of the pond can be observed."

Illustration:
View of Lake Pocksha, Middleboro, Mass., John H. Frank, Middleborough, publisher, postcard, c. 1910.
Apparently the cows seen grazing the shores of Pocksha Pond in Middleborough in this postcard were better behaved than their counterparts in Lakeville. The City of Taunton seemed less concerned than New Bedford that local cattle might find their way into the neighboring pond.

Source:
Old Colony Memorial, "News Notes", March 16, 1901, page 3, and April 6, 1901, page 3.