The Lost Village of Ponaganset Traditional Cache
ZeLonewolf: I visited the site today, and this location just will not work permanently.
The Lost Village of Ponaganset
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An orange matchstick container (in a black Otterbox); cache is NOT in the stone wall!
Before the rise of the Scituate Reservoir, there stood a village by the name Ponaganset. The village sat on the shores of the Barden reservoir, which is still in existence today. The Barden Reservoir flows into the Ponaganset River, where it flows another 1/2 mile downstream into the Scituate Reservoir. In the 1910s, the Ponaganset would have flowed approximately 5 miles further southeast as the crow flies, past the (lost) village of Richmond to meet the Moswaniscut River at the (lost) village of South Scituate.
Due to the village's location in the reservoir's near watershed, it was condemned along with the other lost villages of Scituate. Today, the Barden Reservoir holds 853 million gallons of water, and is used to regulate the Scituate Reservoir, by way of the Ponaganset River. in the 1910's, the Barden Reservoir Company operated the Barden, regulating the water supply to several mills in the village. The Reservoir was eventually acquired by the City of Providence for the sum of $110,290.28.
The RI Historical Cemeteries Database has this to say about this cemetery:
"Location: 3500 ft west of PONAGANSETT RD
50 burials with 22 inscriptions from 1823 to 1904
100 ft x 100 ft in fair condition enclosed with a stone wall; sign in poor condition
NOTE: 3500 ft from southerly end of road. Arnold records by Howard B Smith 26 Aug 1936. He describes location as 'close by the road leading north from [old] Ponagansett by the east side of Barden Reservoir, about 200 yds north of the point where the road leaves the shore."
Today, the village's memory lives on in the name of Ponaganset Middle and High School, built in 1960. For more information on this and other lost villages of Scituate, you may want to read "The Lost Villages of Scituate" by Raymond A. Wolf.
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