Beaver Pond was a pond located in the

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...

section of

Queens Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...

, New York. Water flowed out of the pond through Baisley Creek towards Baisley Pond. From there, it flowed through Cornell Creek into Jamaica Bay. The stream was formed by

beavers Beavers are large, semiaquatic rodents in the genus ''Castor'' native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere. There are two extant species: the North American beaver (''Castor canadensis'') and the Eurasian beaver (''C. fiber''). Beavers a ...

prior to human settlement. The local Lenape native word for beaver, ''Jameco'', became the namesake of the English settlement to the north of the pond, which became known as Jamaica. Beaver Pond's namesake animal was a vital component in the colonial economy. Beaver fur attracted Dutch colonists to the region and the animal appears on the seal of New York City. English settlers arrived in the area in 1656, with permission from the

New Netherlands New Netherland ( nl, Nieuw Nederland; la, Novum Belgium or ) was a 17th-century colonial province of the Dutch Republic that was located on the east coast of what is now the United States. The claimed territories extended from the Delmarva P ...

government to build Rustdorp. Following the English takeover of the colony in 1664, the popular name Jamaica became official and the town became the seat of Queens County in 1683. The pond's oldest neighbor is

Prospect Cemetery Glasnevin Cemetery ( ga, Reilig Ghlas Naíon) is a large cemetery in Glasnevin, Dublin, Ireland which opened in 1832. It holds the graves and memorials of several notable figures, and has a museum. Location The cemetery is located in Glasne ...

, which accepted its first interment in 1668 and continued to perform burials until 1988.Worth, Robert F. "At a Legendary Cemetery, a Rare Look Behind the Gates" ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' May 22, 2004 Later, the Long Island Rail Road's Main Line and

Atlantic Branch The Atlantic Branch is an electrified rail line owned and operated by the Long Island Rail Road in the U.S. state of New York. It is the only LIRR line with revenue passenger service in the borough of Brooklyn. The line consists of two sectio ...

were built in Jamaica. By 1834, when the railroad was constructed, the pond was considered the town's center.Kadinsky, Serge
"BEAVER ROAD, Jamaica"
''

Forgotten NY Forgotten New York is a website created by Kevin Walsh in 1999, chronicling the unnoticed and unchronicled aspects of New York City such as painted building ads, decades-old castiron lampposts, 18th-century houses, abandoned subway stations, trolley ...

'' July 15, 2014 In the last decade of the 19th century, the pond was used by the American Ice Company as an ice harvesting site. City authorities considered the industrial use of Beaver Pond a health hazard as its outflow contributed to the Brooklyn Water Works. In April 1906, a grand jury in Queens recommended that the city fill in this "menace to the community and a drawback to the material progress of that section of Jamaica." Although Beaver Pond was filled, land atop the site remained undeveloped for another couple of decades. It is zoned for manufacturing with auto repair shops, slaughterhouses and undeveloped lots used to store car parts. Beaver Road, which follows the former pond's northern shore is the only physical reminder of this body of water.

References

Lakes of Queens, New York Former lakes of the United States Jamaica, Queens {{QueensNY-geo-stub