Lake Massapoag

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Lake Massapoag
Location	Sharon, Massachusetts
Primary inflows	springs
Primary outflows	Canoe River
Basin countries	United States
Surface area	353 acres (143 ha)

Lake Massapoag is a 353 acre, natural, springfed lake located in Sharon, Massachusetts. The name Massapoag is Algonquin.

Massapoag is the headwater of the Canoe River, which flows south to join the Taunton River and empty into Narragansett Bay.

[edit] History

In the 1700s, workers deepened the outlet of the lake to draw the water down in order to extract bog iron for the smelting industry. (Diana Muir, Reflections in Bullough's Pond, University Presss of New England, 2000, p. 167)

Massapoag was the site of a large nineteenth-century ice business, with an enormous wooden icehouse at the eastern end of the lake.

Because of the lake and the fact that Sharon is at a slightly higher elevation than the surrounding towns, and because it is located on the main rail line going south form Bosotn, the shores of the lake developed into a minor summer resort with several large hotels, summer camps and cottage colonies. Temple Adath Sharon was built as a summer synagogue, and the houses around it, now occupied year-round, were once summer cottages.