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"Daily Graphic" newspaper illustration- 'Birdseye View of the Williamsburgh Reservior with the Ruined Dam'

(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
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Situated in the hills above Williamsburg, Massachusetts, the Williamsburg reservoir dam, nearly 600 feet long and 43 feet high, spanned pasture-covered hills. Made of a masonry core wall (a remnant of the west wall appears on the left) supported by earthen embankments, the dam blocked up a mountain stream and created a 100-acre lake. Like other New England reservoirs, it had been built by mill owners downstream to collect water that could be released in a regular flow to their factories to turn waterwheels and turbines. Reservoirs such as these made the industrial revolution possible.

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