Pond has unusual moniker

Thursday, January 19, 2012

The 1971 Mont Vernon town report notes the donation to town of 5 acres around Jew Pond, creating Carleton Park.

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Staff photo by Bob Hammerstrom
Facebook: Bob Hammerstrom at The Nashua Telegraph
The official sign at Carleton Park Recreation Area in Mont Vernon doesn't give the name Jew Pond. Photo taken July 1, 2011.

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The United State Geological Survey map shows that "Jew Pond" is the official name of a small body of water in the center of Mont Vernon. It appears on the map known as the New Boston Quadrangle.

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Staff photo by Dean Shalhoup Mont Vernon resident Katelyn Ann Dobbs researched and produced a documentary about the history of Jew Pond, which, along with its adjacent Carleton Park, is currently covered in snow.

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The 1971 Mont Vernon town report notes the donation to town of 5 acres around Jew Pond, creating Carleton Park.

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Documentary Details

Mont Vernon resident and UNH–Manchester graduate student Katelyn Ann Dobbs researched the history of Jew Pond and produced a documentary containing interviews with local residents, town officials and representatives of the Jewish Federation of New Hampshire. Following are links to online versions of the documentary, as well as separate interviews. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s99ooTs-j0U (entire documentary) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEbDMSYrlI4 (state place-names coordinator interview) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UP9j6B2pans (Selectman Jack Esposito interview) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYjJQjd5mgQ&context=C396fcecADOEgsToPDskKK4mt0DT-lnHhC8l_I-2Lg (Dr. David Stahl, Jewish Federation of NH, interview)

MONT VERNON – For a comparatively miniscule body of water, Jew Pond is certainly getting a lot of attention.

Thanks to an otherwise routine summertime algae bloom, the name, abrasive to some and preciously historic to others, has gradually found the spotlight over the last year and a half, prompting historians and curious townsfolk to start digging for clues not only to its origin, but just how such an unusual moniker has apparently escaped any serious scrutiny over its nearly 100-year existence.

The little pond, at most 5 or 6 feet deep and barely a quarter-acre in size, sits adjacent to Carleton Park, a small passive recreation spot at the dip in Grand Hill Road between the Post Office and the hilltop residential development once graced by the stately Grand Hotel.

It’s in the hotel itself, history tells us, that Jew Pond’s heritage is rooted. It’s one of many tidbits that convinced Mont Vernon’s Katelyn Ann Dobbs, a University of New Hampshire-Manchester graduate student and aspiring filmmaker, that Jew Pond is a story that needs to be told.

“We always came down here to fish or enjoy the park when I was little,” Dobbs said earlier this week, crunching through new snow at Carleton Park and Jew Pond with a visitor in tow. “I think we just knew it as “the pond,” or “Carleton Pond,” because of the sign,” she added, referring to the hand-crafted “Carleton Park Recreational Area” sign at the entrance.

Following up what she called “such a unique story,” Dobbs, who plans to graduate from UNH-Manchester in May, has just produced “The Story Behind Jew Pond,” a brief documentary featuring interviews with key town officials and historians and containing some of the results of her research into the name and its companion hotel.

Dobbs, currently an intern at Su-City Pictures East, a Stratham-based motion-picture and post-production consulting firm where she works with owner and award-winning screenwriter Susan Kouguell, said it was just a few years ago she realized how widely accepted the name Jew Pond is.

“It struck me as something that represents a history you wouldn’t find in many other places,” she said. “Studying filmmaking, I began thinking what a great project it would be.”

Donning the blinders of objectivity, Dobbs began in the fall, filming a number of interviews around town and at the site itself. “I mainly wanted to provoke questions like, ‘are people offended by the name?’ ‘Should we, as a society, pay more attention to historical names, and the meanings behind them?’”

Her research included the Daland Memorial, N.H. State and Boston libraries, and Milford Cabinet archives, among others. Some of her findings:

In the latter 19th and early 20th century, the pond was one of several amenities offered Grand Hotel patrons. Another was a nine-hole golf course, and the compound’s spacious, manicured grounds and fresh, clean air were something of a recreational haven all by themselves.

But here’s the fascinating, if not eyebrow-raising, part: Before spring, 1927, and after autumn, 1929, none of The Grand’s patrons were of the Jewish faith. And not by coincidence – proprietor George E. Bates, who owned it before 1927 and again after 1929, let it be known, in ads, posters and brochures, that “Hebrew patronage (was) not desired.”

More interesting yet is that two-and-a-half-year period when Bates didn’t own The Grand. Purchased in early 1927 by Boston-area brothers Nymen H. and Myer Z. Kolodny and Maine hotelier J. M. Levenson, the hotel opened around Memorial Day 1927 as the Mont Vernon Country Club Inn – and the vast majority, if not all, of its patrons were Jewish.

Prominent among Dobbs’ interviewees is Rich Masters, Mont Vernon’s public health officer and the man who brought the subject to light in the first place. Other locals interviewed include Historical Society member and longtime resident Roberta Wilkins, who’s related by marriage to the Bates family; selectmen’s chairman Jack Esposito; and journalist/historian David Brooks.

Masters said he saw the name for the first time several years ago on a geographical map of Mont Vernon, which he was reviewing ahead of moving to town. “I was pretty surprised to see that, in this day and age,” he says in the film. He didn’t give it much more thought until a year and a half ago, when the algae problem forced Jew Pond’s temporary closure – and put the name in the newspapers.

“It was the first time the name hit print in a long time,” Masters said. “A lot of people cringed when it was publicized. I didn’t think it was a very good name, and figured maybe I should go about trying to change it.”

So began a process of fact-finding, letter-writing and consultations not only around town, but at the state and federal levels as well. Masters wrote up a proposal for the N.H. Office of Energy and Planning’s division that deals with name changes, as well as the U.S. Geological Survey, whose maps bear the name Jew Pond.

Initially, the state accepted Masters’ suggestion to rename it Frog Pond, but members of the Carleton family objected, telling officials that if the name is changed, it should be “Carleton Pond” in honor of George C. Carleton, who 40 years ago donated to the town the property where the pond lies.

State name-changes coordinator Ken Gallager said his office has since stepped aside, deferring the decision to the town and residents.

Besides Carleton and Frog, other names floated in discussion include “Jewish Pond” (though dismissed as seemingly too politically-correct); “Yew Pond,” a Nashua resident’s suggestion because “it would be easy to change a J to a Y on a map”; “Lake Serene,” which was suggested during the brief Kolodny–Levenson era; “Spring Pond”; and, simply, “The Pond.”

Next, town residents get to weigh in on the issue – an article asking whether the name should be changed will appear on this year’s town warrant. The exact wording has yet to be finalized, but should be in the near future, officials said. Dobbs also made a few out-of-town visits, among them to the N.H. Jewish Federation in Manchester, where she interviewed David Stahl and federation director Jeff Fladen.

Most offensive to Fladen, he said, is the fact “Jew” is used as an adjective, similar to obviously derogatory inferences like “Jew lawyer” or “Jew politician.” “If the name was “Jewish Pond,” we wouldn’t be having this discussion,” Fladen said. He also said he received a call several months ago from a reporter in Israel, asking about Jew Pond, apparently after seeing local stories on the internet.

Dean Shalhoup can be reached at 673-3100, ext. 31, or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com.