THE MEANING OF
"COCHITUATE"
by A. Richard Miller
visits
since 070120; last
updated 070216.
What's in a name? The Cochituate Rail Trail
and Cochituate State Park commemorate an ancient name upon our
land -- the name of Lake
Cochituate (which the rail trail skirts) and, more recently, of
a
nearby village in south Wayland. Each of these commemorates a
once-well-known Indian settlement at the outfall of our lake. It
has
its stories.
According to a
modern USGS
study
report, "Pond-Aquifer Interaction at South Pond of Lake
Cochituate, Natick, Massachusetts", by Frieze and Church, "Cochituate means swift river
in the Algonquin language (Wilbur, 1978) and refers to
Cochituate Brook
(Schaller and Prescott, 1998), which connects the lake to the
Sudbury
River."
That's close, but it's incorrect. Cochituate means, "the
torrent", or "the place of rushing water". But Cochituate Brook is
not
that, and certainly wasn't when Indian canoes plied its waters,
deepened by the dams of beavers. And no lake, including Lake
Cochituate, is or was a place of rushing water.
When I moved to Lake Cochituate in 1968, I wondered
about its name. Answers did not come easily. When I found the
Natick
Dictionary, Eliot's great collaboration with the Natick Praying
Indians, even it came up short. The answer finally came from an
old
history of Framingham and Middlesex County, "Middlesex County and
Its
People; A History", by Edwin P. Conklin, 1927 (?).
The "torrent" was the lake's outfall,
between two hills at a western corner of Lake Cochituate's North
Pond.
At least four dams have been built there over the centuries.
Even before the first dam was built, water rushed over the natural
lip;
that was the "torrent" in question. Above it, on the higher of the
two
hills it flowed between, was an Indian village which, as late as
1800,
was still visible as a raised earthern berm encircling about an
acre
and a half. This was the remains of the fortified village of
Cochituate, last inhabited by some of the Natick Praying Indians
who
had survived their awful
winter internment on Deer Island in Boston Harbor. They were
still weak and recuperating when, in 1677, marauding Mohawk
Indians attacked and marched off sixteen young men. A Mohawk
chieftain
later apologized "for this unauthorized action of his headstrong
young
braves" and sent wampum belts as a settlement. But the young
Natick
Praying Indians, just as educated as their white neighbors, were
never
heard of again.
Cochituate (the fortified village) might have
remained one of our most cherished archaeological sites. But it
suffered another tragedy when, in the mid-1950s, the Massachusetts
Turnpike was constructed just south of the site. About 35' of
elevation
was bulldozed and removed from Cochituate's high hill. And with
it,
even the underground remains were removed - without a trace left,
except its history, and those who know it.
The name
of Cochituate lives on in the lovely Lake Cochituate, in the
Wayland
village of Cochituate, and in Cochituate State Park. Now it also
lives on in the Cochituate Rail
Trail.
More local history:
Kettleponds: Walden Pond and Lake
Cochituate
Natick Praying Indians
Saxonville