From Surf Wiki (app.surf) — the open knowledge base

Jamaica Pond

Lake in the United States of America

Summary

Lake in the United States of America

Field	Value
name	Jamaica Pond
other_name
image	Jamaica-pond-3.jpg
caption	Jamaica Pond, boathouse in distance, 2005
caption_bathymetry
location	Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts
coordinates
type	kettle pond
outflow	Muddy River
catchment
date-built
date-flooded
length
width
area	68 acres
depth
max-depth	51 ft
volume
shore
elevation
temperature_high
temperature_low
cities
pushpin_map	Massachusetts
pushpin_map_caption

| date-built = | date-flooded = | max-depth = 51 ft

Jamaica Pond is a kettle lake, part of the Emerald Necklace of parks in Boston designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. The pond and park are in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston, close to the border of Brookline. It is the source of the Muddy River, which drains into the lower Charles River.USGS 2005

The pond has an area of about 68 acres, and is 51 ft deep at its center (MassWildlife map), making it the largest body of fresh water in Boston, and the largest natural freshwater body in the lower Charles River watershed. It is ringed by a 1.5 mi walking path, and is an extremely popular destination for Bostonians for walking, fishing, rowing, and sailing. Around Halloween each year, the pond serves as the site for The Lantern Parade. Participants dress in their Halloween costumes and walk around the pond.

The pond once served as a reservoir for the City of Boston and the Town of West Roxbury, and it supplied ice in the winter to Boston and beyond.

According to the USGS, the name Jamaica derives from an Indian name meaning "abundance of beavers".

The pond's setting, Jamaica Park, was included in the Olmsted Park landscape complex that was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 8, 1971.

History

The Jamaica Plain Ice Company employed 350 men in 1874, and harvested as much 5,000 tons of ice a day from Jamaica Pond.{{Cite web |access-date = June 4, 2010 |url-status = dead |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20101022020836/http://www.jphs.org/locales/2004/6/2/harvesting-ice-on-jamaica-pond.html |archive-date = October 22, 2010

Swimming in the pond has been prohibited since the mid-1970s following two drownings. Although it appears shallow near the shoreline, the pond—formed as a glacial kettle hole—drops off steeply, creating potentially hazardous conditions for swimmers.

The pond was once the site of a popular annual winter skating carnival. In 1929, this carnival was cancelled by Mayor Curley when cracks appeared on the ice, and 50,000 skaters had to be evacuated. In recent years, ice skating is no longer permitted on the pond.

Overlooking Jamaica Pond until its 2007 demolition was Pinebank Mansion, the summer home of Edward Newton Perkins.

Gallery

File:Jamaica Pond, Wext Roxbury, MA - skating scene (1859).jpg|Skating on the pond, 1859 File:Iceman and helper with Jamaica Pond Ice Co. wagon, Boston, Massachusetts LCCN2016649587.jpg|Ice delivery van, 1890 File:Jamaica Pond IMG 0347.jpg|Swans, 2010 File:Jamaica Pond 1.jpg|Sailboat on pond, 2013 File:Jamaica Pond P1030840a.jpg|Bicyclists, 2021 File:Jamaica Pond P1030853b.jpg|Walking path, 2021 File:Jamaica Pond P1030860c.jpg|Fishing, 2021 File:Jamaica Pond P1030864b.jpg|Rowboat, 2021 File:Jamaica Pond P1030873b.jpg|Renting a sailboat, 2021

References

Water resources and the urban environment, lower Charles River Watershed;

References

"Harvesting Ice on Jamaica Pond".
{{GNIS. 612944. Jamaica Pond
{{NRISref. 2007a
Yannone, Tessa. (2020-07-13). "Why Is There No Swimming Allowed In Jamaica Pond?".
[http://rememberjamaicaplain.blogspot.com/2010/01/fifty-thousand-on-jamaica-pond-ice-wow.html Remember Jamaica Plain? Fifty Thousand on Jamaica Pond Ice? Wow!]

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

jamaica-plain,-boston parks-in-boston emerald-necklace ice-trade

Want to explore this topic further?

Ask Mako anything about Jamaica Pond — get instant answers, deeper analysis, and related topics.

Research with Mako

Free with your Surf account

Content sourced from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This content may have been generated or modified by AI. CloudSurf Software LLC is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of AI-generated content. Always verify important information from primary sources.

Report