Flints Pond
| Flints Pond | |
|---|---|
| Sandy Pond | |
 A view of the pond from the roof of the DeCordova Museum | |
  Flints Pond  Flints Pond | |
| Location | Middlesex County, Massachusetts |
| Coordinates | 42°26′07″N 71°18′53″W / 42.43532925°N 71.3147677°W |
| Primary outflows | Mill Brook, Stony Brook |
| Basin countries | United States |
| Settlements | Lincoln, Massachusetts |
Flints Pond (or Flint's Pond; also known as Sandy Pond)[1][2] is a body of water in Lincoln, Massachusetts, United States. Named for Flint House, on the land of which it was situated, it is the town's major water supply,[3] with Tower Road Well being the supplemental source.[1]
The pond is located around 1.15 miles (1.85 km) north-northwest of Lincoln's town centre. The DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, built on the former estate of Julian de Cordova, sits on the southern shores of the pond.[3] The pond is passed by State Route 2 around 0.5 miles (0.80 km) to the north.
One of its outflows is Mill Brook, noted for its connection to the battles of Lexington and Concord.
History
[edit]The land around the pond was used by European settlers for their source of food.[3]
After Thoreau's time at Walden Pond, a mile to the west, Sandy Pond was renamed back to Flints Pond at the request of the Flint family. Henry David Thoreau's college classmate Charles Stearns Wheeler built a hut at Flints Pond in 1836. He lived there during his vacations over the following six years,[4] with Thoreau being a guest during the first year.[5] Thoreau asked for permission to build a cabin on the pond, but the Flint family denied his request due to his accidentally having caused a fire near Fairhaven Bay.[3][6]
Local residents purchased a parcel of land beside the pond in 1958 to prevent development on it occurring. The Lincoln Land Conservation Trust was thus formed.[3] There is now a water-supply protection zone surrounding the pond.[7] Its watershed consists of 445 acres (180 ha), of which the Town of Lincoln owns around 92 percent, as of 2023.[1]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c "Water Sources & Protection | Lincoln, MA - Official Website". www.lincolntown.org. Retrieved 2023-05-06.
- ^ Library of Congress Subject Headings. Library of Congress. 2011. p. 2920.
- ^ a b c d e "Flint's Pond". Lincoln Land Conservation Trust and Rural Land Foundation. Retrieved 2023-05-06.
- ^ Thoreau, Henry David (1995). Walden: An Annotated Edition. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 978-0-395-72042-4.
- ^ Landrigan, Leslie (2021-10-22). "Charles Stearns Wheeler, the Transcendentalist Pioneer Who Inspired Walden". New England Historical Society. Retrieved 2023-05-06.
- ^ Meltzer, Milton (2006). Henry David Thoreau: A Biography. Twenty-First Century Books. p. 23. ISBN 9780822558934.
- ^ Flint's Pond Surface Water Supply Protection Map - Town of Lincoln, 2021