Fabrication leaves us gasping - Old twist to
name of lake comes to light
Worcester Telegram & Gazette
June 28, 2001
By Ed Patenaude
Anyone who has ever examined the history of
Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg knows that the lake's popular
meaning -- ``You fish on your side, I fish on my side, and nobody fish in the
middle'' -- is a hoax. The late Laurence J. Daly, a correspondent for a
Worcester newspaper and longtime editor of the Webster Times, concocted the
story around 1916, laying its genesis to a treaty between American Indians
living at opposite ends of the lake, which is actually made up of three
interconnecting ponds.
According to the Daly legend, fishing was best
in middle pond, and both groups claimed angling rights; so they settled the
issue by making it a non-fishing zone.
The real meaning of the lake's long name is
believed to be ``Fishing Place at the Boundaries -- Neutral Meeting Grounds.''
Now comes longtime friend Anthony Polletta, a
former Webster police officer and a one-time state Highway Department employee,
who recently returned from Florida with word of another hoax -- the genesis of
the name itself.
Mr. Polletta brought an old quarter-sheet
booklet to my attention. Without a dateline, the publication, ``Nature's Gift to
New England,'' has to be more than 60 years old.
This follows because there's a photograph in
the booklet naming John P. Ivascyn, Edward H. Wagner and George A. Sellig as
Webster selectmen. Selectmen were elected annually at the time. They served on
the same panel in 1937, 1938 and 1939, according to municipal records. Charles
H. Sczepanski, who went on to establish an all-time 28-year service record,
replaced Mr. Wagner in 1940. He's now known as chairman of the board at Webster
First Federal Credit Union.
The booklet, commenting on Mr. Daly's fishing
story, says: ``There's another story of how the lake received its name, and has
to do with the first white man who ever came to the shores of the lake. It
appears that just before the white man emerged from the woods to the shore of
the lake, an Indian had upset his canoe far off in the middle of the lake. He
swam to shore, almost exhausted and emerged at the feet of the white man.
``The paleface, entranced with the beauty of
the scene, asked the Indian the name of the body of water and the luckless
brave, gasping for breath and almost dead from his long swim, emitted a series
of `goggs' and `mauggs' which the white man wrote down and from which he evolved
the name from the gasps of the near drowned Indian.''
The supposition seems incredible.
I worked with Larry Daly for several years and
knew him well. He was a talented writer and not insensitive. He discussed the
treaty hoax at different times over the years, always calling it a fanciful tale
and expressing amazement at its acceptance.
But I can't recall any mention of a nearly
drowned Indian, which leads me to conclude that it was authored by someone else.
Mr. Polletta's copy of ``Nature's Gift To New
England'' was published by Times Publishing Co. I've read subsequent editions,
distributed at times through the 1950s by the Webster Lions Club. The Lions cut
the content, eliminating the ``goggs'' and ``mauggs'' and other stories, sizing
their booklets to fit a No. 10 envelope.
The story about the exhausted, nearly dead
Indian may have been a one-time effort, contrived to give Mr. Daly's treaty hoax
a run for notoriety.
I don't think it worked.
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