Part of my wife's family is from Enfield, MA, a town, along with Dana, Prescott, and Greenwich, are now underneath Quabbin Reservoir in central Massachusetts. The towns were abandoned in the 1930's to build a large reservoir to serve Boston and the cities of eastern Mass. Former residents of the villages are entitled to be buried in the Quabbin Cemetery in Belchertown, and there are several family members buried there.
On a recent visit to the reservoir Visitor's Center I saw a photograph of the Enfield post office and the center was offering a cachet commemorating the 75th anniversary of the closing of the Enfield PO with a reproduction of the final day postmark on Jan 14, 1939, and a current day Jan 14, 2014 postmark for Ware, MA.
BTW, if anyone is near the reservoir and has not visited you are missing a gorgeous place.
I'm traveling and not able to scan, but as soon as I get home later this week I will do so and post.
A quick search on Google brought up only one set of postcards from the four towns formerly on sale on eBay, and little mention elsewhere. Is anyone in this group familiar with the towns? I can't believe their postal history has been ignored.
I must confess I am surprised that there has not been a response from this group! I can't believe I have found something that obscure. Anyway, as promised, here is the commemorative cover they sell at the reservoir gift shop - allegedly only 200 available!
Nothing to write home about, I suppose, and a period stamp would be more fun.
I saw your post and immediately thought of this parallel story. The above cover is from St Thomas, Nevada which was another town that got buried under a reservoir.
Here's the few items that were tucked inside the cover.
And Lake Mead has been receding under drought conditions so St Thomas has reappeared. People are hiking to the town today. Pretty interesting!
Interesting postal history....The villages that disappeared...In Canada , esp Nova Scotia we have lumbering communities that had post offices and cancels and are buried in moss and debris...Crossburn is an example in my collection
An acquaintance of mine used to dig for old bottles around the Quabbin Reservoir back in the 1970s, including some that were underwater in shallower waters there. I could never join her on the hunt because she was much more fanatical than I was: She would dig down 6 to 8 feet and unearth some real prizes from the late 1600s and 1700s.
I recently went back to Amherst and Western Mass to visit UMASS and some of the spots where I did dig old bottles. Also stopped at the Chesterfield Gorge, another beautiful spot out there.
Bruce
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