A young beaver in Seven Mile Stream, Vassalboro, Maine. Photo by Tim Watts.Few have ever considered the profound effect the beaver had on shaping the early development patterns of Easton. Due to intense trapping for its fur in the 1600s, beaver have been extinct in Easton for 200 years and have yet to recolonize the town.
Chaffin, in his History of Easton, confirms this:
"There were several places known in early descriptions as Beaver Dam. One was just west of Stone-House Hill ; another was in the extreme northwest part of the town. Numerous small streams and swampy places made the town a congenial home for the beaver. Remains of a beaver dam were seen by Alonzo Marshall near the stream northeast of his former home, and beavers were known to have made their dams at Cranberry Meadow, and west of the old Nathaniel Perry place near the Mansfield line. The dam the remains of which were found by Mr. Marshall is referred to in the North Purchase records as early as 1709. There was also a Beaver Pond, so-called, as late as 1752, on Whitman's Brook, near the old Joseph Drake place."
Chaffin further states of Cranberry Meadow, the area which is now occupied by the Morse Bros. cranberry bogs on the north side of Foundry Street near the Southeastern Regional School:
"Cranberry Meadow extends quite a distance westward from the railroad crossing at the old Dean saw-mill on Prospect Street. Lots from it were in great demand when the land was first divided. Much of it was overflowed in the winter. It was originally a beaver pond. In the action of Dean vs. Brett, elsewhere noticed, the following statements were offered in the evidence : 'It appears that said Meadow was formerly flowed by the beavers, or natives, or antediluvians, and in that condition was found by [Timothy] Cooper.' Reference is made to " the time the natives had it for a fishing pond, after they had destroyed the beavers which made the dams below. ... It was a natural pond or bog when Cooper found it in 1706."
Further evidence of the beaver's imprint on Easton is found in the use of the word "meadow" in the name of many of Easton's brooks, from Dorchester Meadow Brook near the Stoughton line to Mulberry Meadow Brook in Furnace Village. Most of the freshwater meadows for which these brooks are named resulted from the long-term damming activities of beaver. These dams would have kept trees from growing along the banks of the brooks and maintained a field-like meadow with a single sharp drop at the dam outlet. This meadow effect would have been further maintained by the beaver continually cropping and removing young trees growing at the water's edge. The effect would be a stair-step of shallow, sinuous ponds dominated by annual aquatic vegetation with a shoreline of mature trees many yards away.
A typical meadow created and maintained by beavers. This one is on Worromontogus Stream, Randolph, Maine.
It is not a coincidence that many of the oldest ponds in Easton were created by dams located just upstream of some of the oldest roads in town. Monte's Pond and Knapp's Pond are created by dams just upstream of West Elm Street and Union Street, respectively. New Pond and Old Pond in Furnace Village are created by dams just above Foundry Street. Morse's Pond is created by a dam just upstream of Central Street. Langwater Pond is created by a dam just upstream of Main Street. Historic documents show these dam sites are some of the oldest in town, dating back to the early or mid 1700s. These roads most likely take their present routes because they were aligned to cross shallow wading places in the streams directly below very old beaver dam sites. These road crossings, in turn, became convenient places for colonial mill builders to construct rough stone dams on top of the dam foundations built by countless generations of beaver. The earliest development pattern in much of Easton was most likely: ancient beaver dam > wading place > Indian foot path > fur trapping site > colonial foot path > mill dam at wading place > improved road with mill dam just upstream.
Because southeastern Massachusetts has lost its native beaver for so long, most Easton residents are only vaguely aware of how beaver build their dams. Having lived in Maine since 1982, where beaver are common, I have examined countless beaver dams in various stages of construction and destruction. One of the things that most surprised me was that beaver incorporate large numbers of fist to melon-sized stones in their dams, especially at the early stages of construction. Basically, the beaver build a lattice of cut saplings and brush as a first layer and then use their front paws to lift and place stones from the stream on top of the branches. This has the effect of solidifying the dam structure by keeping the first layer of saplings from floating away in the current. As the dam grows in height and width, the beaver use fewer stones and more saplings and branches.
But like any dam, even the best-built beaver dam will wash out eventually in a flood. When this happens, the saplings and branches are swept downstream but the stones layered into the dam tend to fall straight back into the river channel, creating a natural berm and riffle that the beaver use as the foundation for their new dam. In this way, over decades and centuries, the beaver create a shallow, stony wading place just below a flat, winding and open meadow. If there is no beaver dam present, these wading places look completely natural. But they aren't. They were made by beaver.
A beaver dam under construction on Worromontogus Stream, Randolph, Maine. Note the softball sized stones placed by the beavers on the first layer of sticks. It is likely the stones help to keep the first course of sticks from floating away in the current and create a more flood-resistant base to the dam. Beaver can erect a foot high dam in a single evening.
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