Quabbin Gate 40

In the late 1930s the powers that be decided to build a nice big reservoir to help supply Boston with fresh water.  And, as you do when building a nice big reservoir, they had to destroy a few small towns: Dana, Enfield, Greenwich, and Prescott.  When the residents had moved elsewhere, mostly into surrounding towns like New Salem and Pelham, their former homes were razed, leaving only stone walls, foundations, root cellars, and wells.  (A few buildings were moved rather than destroyed; the Joseph Allen Skinner Museum in South Hadley is housed in the erstwhile First Congregational Church of Prescott.)  Then lo and behold, as the waters of the Quabbin Reservoir rose, they fell far short of the abandoned streets of Dana.  Because of that, one can visit empty Dana today.

From the parking area at Quabbin Gate 40 on Route 32A visitors walk a bit on asphalt to reach Dana Common.  I say "a bit" because various websites I consulted said either a mile and a half or two miles, and once again the idea of using my phone's pedometer function to track the distance did not occur to me until I was more than halfway back to the car.  It took me just under an hour to get there, so I'd estimate it closer to two miles; but I did stop to take photos along the way.  The road is mostly level, and easy to walk.  As a further practical tip, please note that the port-a-potties one website talks about are apparently seasonal, and as such were entirely absent on this visit.

The town was named after a legislator, Francis Dana.  Mom asked if he was related to Richard Henry Dana, of Two Years Before the Mast and Dana Point fame, and while I scoffed, she was right to suggest it, as Francis was Richard Henry's grandfather.

Walking to and through the old town was eerier than I expected.  This was a site not destroyed by war, or depopulated because of epidemic or massacre; it was just bureaucratically "disincorporated."  If any of the former causes had led to its abandonment, one might expect to find the atmosphere sad.  While I wouldn't call Dana sad, it was quiet, and felt a little empty.  I don't think the place is haunted, but I would be entirely unsurprised to hear that someone else thought it was.

The common.  The school and town hall were to the left and the hotel to the right;
across the green would have been the church, stores, and a few homes. 
In the middle stood the World War I memorial.

I did wonder if the atmosphere would be even creepier for someone who didn't know the history of the area, and decided that it probably would be.  The ignorant visitor (who in this case would not notice the informative signboard inside the gate) would first likely remark on the drystone walls that line the road.  Nae problemo, though; those are typical New England.  But then he might observe that some of those walls run up the hill on one side of the road, dividing nothing but trees from other (possibly inimical) trees.  Before too long he could not help but observe the right angle of a pair of walls, and would conclude that they must have been part of a building. 

And looking into the brush he might pick out the dark entrance to a root cellar, now the perfect hiding spot for any number of critters.  He would see rusted metal, in the form of cables and wire fences and drums and other less easily-identifiable bits.  Upon reaching the common he would see sidewalks that led nowhere and doorsteps the crossing of which would lead to a fall of several feet and likely injury.  Of course, on the common our visitor would see more markers, with photos of the town's buildings, including the town hall, school, Congregational church, and a hotel, where now only their foundations remain.  He would read the marker erected in 1996 and learn that this had been the common from 1801 to 1938, but would not ascertain what exactly occurred to flatten all of the architecture.  There are lots of possibilities to choose from, most more titillating than the truth; and if he chose the theory that this place had been (and could easily be once again) Extreme Witchcraft Murder City, I can certainly understand that.  I visited on a bright, sunny day, knowing why the town had been left and knowing that witchcraft had nothing to do with it, and that's still a little bit of the vibe I got.

They want you to believe this was a cellar, but this is some kind of wolf pit or
something. Yes, there used to be wolves in Mass, and yes, I watched
"Ladyhawke" last night.

The foundation of the school.

Nature taking back a road.

Artist whose "Very Best of" album I got 80% of the way through on the drive there: Jethro Tull.
Artists to whose works I could have referred in this post and did not: U2, Shel Silverstein, Eddie Izzard.