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Crystal Lake is a natural great pond located in
Newton, Massachusetts Newton is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is located roughly west of Downtown Boston, and comprises a patchwork of thirteen villages. The city borders Boston to the northeast and southeast (via the neighborhoods of ...
. Its shores, mostly lined with private homes, also host two small parks and a designated swimming area with a bathhouse. The public is not allowed to swim outside of the small swimming area.


Description

Crystal Lake sits at above sea level. Its maximum depth is , and its total volume is about . It measures about from north to south and from east to west, and has a circumference of about one mile. A spring with subterranean sources, Crystal Lake drains into the South Meadow Brook, which joins the
Charles River The Charles River (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ), sometimes called the River Charles or simply the Charles, is an river in eastern Massachusetts. It flows northeast from Hopkinton, Massachusetts, Hopkinton to Boston along a highly me ...
in
Newton Upper Falls Newton Upper Falls is one of the thirteen villages within the city of Newton in Massachusetts, United States. The village is listed as the Newton Upper Falls Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places. Geography The area ...
, from which it flows into the
Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...
at
Boston Harbor Boston Harbor is a natural harbor and estuary of Massachusetts Bay, located adjacent to Boston, Massachusetts. It is home to the Port of Boston, a major shipping facility in the Northeastern United States. History 17th century Since its dis ...
.


History

Thomas Wiswall built a house in 1654 on the southwestern shore of the pond, beside what was then known as the Dedham Trail (now known as Centre Street). From that time until sometime after 1855, the pond became known as "Wiswall's Pond". Wiswall's great-grandson,
Noah Wiswall Noah (; , also Noach) appears as the last of the Antediluvian patriarchs in the traditions of Abrahamic religions. His story appears in the Hebrew Bible (Book of Genesis, chapters 5–9), the Quran and Baha'i writings, and extracanonically. ...
, dismantled the original house and replaced it with a more modern structure in 1744. In 1780, Noah Wiswall donated a piece of land to a group of people who constructed a Baptist church at the southern shore of the pond, near the modern-day intersection of Old Rogers Street and Centre Street. The pond was sometimes called "Baptist Pond" during the first half of the nineteenth century because it was used for baptisms by the First Baptist Church in Newton. Around 1804, the Wiswall property passed into the possession of the Paul family. The Paul family began to use the lake for commercial ice harvesting, and they built an ice house there in the 1850s. The ice house sat at the western edge of the lake, near the intersection of present-day Centre Street and Norwood Avenue. Sometime between 1855 and 1875, the name of the pond was changed from "Wiswall's Pond" to "Crystal Lake" for marketing purposes. George Henry Ellis (1848–1934) owned the Crystal Lake Ice Company from the late 1800s until at least 1915. The Crystal Lake Ice House was used until it was destroyed in a fire in 1915. A new facility was constructed near the intersection of Walnut and Beacon Street. The company was eventually taken over by Metropolitan Ice Company, and was finally closed and dismantled in 1933. In 2007, the City of Newton used Community Preservation Act funds to acquire by
eminent domain Eminent domain, also known as land acquisition, compulsory purchase, resumption, resumption/compulsory acquisition, or expropriation, is the compulsory acquisition of private property for public use. It does not include the power to take and t ...
a one-acre parcel at 20 Rogers Street, a property next to the swimming beach and bath house. The following year, the city purchased an
easement An easement is a Nonpossessory interest in land, nonpossessory right to use or enter onto the real property of another without possessing it. It is "best typified in the right of way which one landowner, A, may enjoy over the land of another, B" ...
on an adjacent property, 230 Lake Avenue, and built a lakeside path connecting the swimming beach park to the nearby park at Levingston Cove.


Image gallery

File:Crystal Lake P1020758.jpg, Swimming beach File:Crystal Lake IMG 0688.jpg, Boaters on the lake File:Crystal Lake P1070164.jpg, Cronin's Cove park File:Crystal Lake IMG 0709.jpg, The unofficial swimming area at Cronin's Cove File:Crystal Lake P1160328.jpg, Lakeshore path through the easement acquired in 2008 File:Crystal Lake IMG 0149.jpg, Swimmers and the bath house File:Crystal Lake IMG 0880.jpg, Fishing at Cronin's Cove


References


External links

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Crystal Lake ConservancyCity of NewtonNewton ConservatorsLakelubbers
{{authority control Geography of Newton, Massachusetts Lakes of Middlesex County, Massachusetts Lakes of Massachusetts