Tucked in the hills, a blue jewel
On a recent lazy summer Saturday morning, dozens of amateur anglers ringed Houghton's Pond in Milton, participants in the annual Fish Festival hosted by the state Department of Conservation and Recreation, which oversees the pond.
On a steamy Friday night, with temperatures in the mid-90s, swimmers frolicked until dusk set in. Nearby, others were picnicking, or playing catch.
It's not unusual for the conversations that drift across the pond to be in a rich variety of languages -- from the Caribbean, India, and other far-flung places, blending together in a way that often gives the pond a United Nations flavor.
Houghton's Pond on Hillside Street in Milton is where the city meets the suburbs, a first-class swimming hole easily accessible from Boston via Route 138 (Blue Hill Avenue), Route 28, or nearby towns via Interstate 93.
The pond is part of the state-owned 6,500-acre Blue Hills Reservation, most of which is in Milton. The reservation is one reason that Money Magazine recently ranked Milton as No. 7 on the "America's Best Places to Live" list. And within the sprawling reservation, Houghton's Pond is a jewel.
"No question it's an amazing resource; it's like having New Hampshire at our doorstep," said Marion V. McEttrick, chairwoman of the Milton Board of Selectmen, who says she's been known to take a lunchtime dip on occasion.
I like my noontime dips there, too, and we agree on this: The water stays warm enough to swim in almost to Columbus Day.
Twenty-four acres in size and up to 42 feet in depth, Houghton's Pond is a spring-fed kettle hole pond formed by receding glaciers approximately 10,000 years ago. The Massachuseck Indians fished it and hunted the surrounding lands. From the Colonial period through the late 1800s, several generations of the Houghton family farmed the area.
Today, the Houghton's Pond Recreation Area offers a supervised swimming beach, stocked fishing, three reservable picnic sites, three softball fields, four tennis courts, and a playground. The concession pavilion and the visitors center are open seasonally.
Growing up in Randolph, it was easy to jump on our bikes and head up to Houghton's, stopping along the way to get our fill from an underground spring that bubbled to the surface near the pond -- the kind of water you pay big bucks for now.
There were the hikes on the trails off Chickatawbut Road with the Cub Scouts, my first real exposure to the trails.
Many area families have their own traditions when it comes to visiting the Blue Hills.
Ours was our annual Columbus Day weekend hike to the top of Big Blue, stopping to have lunch at the Stone Tower and looking down from the tower for miles around onto the red and gold pastiche below.
For many years, the reservation was considered a bit of an economic drag to Milton; state aid, for instance, has been based on a complicated formula that penalized towns with a great amount of open space.
Finally, a few years ago, efforts to get the state to make a payment in lieu of taxes to Milton for hosting such a large public open space began to bear fruit.
Now McEttrick estimates the annual payment to the town to be around $500,000 a year; finally, there's gold in them thar hills.
Rich Fahey can be reached at faheywrite@yahoo.com.
