Wolcott History – Swimming in Wolcott

Having covered roads in biking and trails in hiking, it’s only fitting that I finish this series of my blog with swimming. While most of the bodies of water in town have been created by dams across streams of various sizes, we still are blessed with several of them. I’d like to recount all the places that I swam during my growing up years – both the official swimming places and a few not so official.

The place that I swam most often, and which was the closest to us, was Playland on the southern end of Cedar Lake. It was only a half mile from our house and just across the dam on North Street. That was where most of us in that part of town learned how to swim. Entrance was about $.15 or so for as long as you wanted to stay. They had a little snack shack, but I seldom got anything there as that was beyond my usual budget. There was a raft anchored partway across that narrow section of lake just behind the dam itself.

There was one memorable occasion while I was taking my Red Cross lifesaving badge. The instructor had a bunch of gold-painted rocks which she would drop off the raft and we had to do a surface dive, get to the bottom and retrieve the rock. She had done so several times off the side of the raft toward the shore where it was perhaps 8-10’ deep and sandy bottom, then she decided to try it off the back side of the raft once. However, she didn’t realize that the sand ended where the raft was and that it was several feet deeper off the back side of the raft. Everyone else who tried to get down and retrieve it came up gasping for air as it was too deep, so I decided to give it a try. I’m not sure how deep it was, but it was certainly the deepest I’d ever gone and my ears were popping. However, as I usually swim with my eyes open I was able to locate the rock and push off of the mucky bottom to get myself back to the surface.

When I was a bit older a new beach opened up at the other end of Cedar Lake – known as Kory’s Beach. While that is technically over the line into Bristol, and slightly over a mile from our house, it was a much bigger and nicer beach. However we didn’t go there very often as it was also more expensive to get in. Both Playland and Kory’s Beach are now history and there are no swimming places left on the lake – it’s all privately owned.

The second lake to have a swimming beach was Chestnut Hill Reservoir. The beach was part of a private club that owned the property just across the causeway between the two sections of water. I only swam there once or twice as part of a large group that rented it for the day. A memorable event there was as I was making my way up the path toward the changing rooms someone in front of me screamed. Sunning himself on the path between the beach and the changing rooms was a coiled up copperhead! That was not a safe situation! I stayed to keep my eye on it in case it decided to slither off, and an older kid went around it and secured a cinder block from near the changing rooms. Staying a safe distance away, he proceeded to hurl the block at it several times until it was obviously dead. Then we picked it up with a long stick (just in case) and disposed of it. That beach is also now gone!

The third lake was Scovill Reservoir which had a large swimming area and picnic table next to the lower part between the two dams. At the time it was owned by the Scovill Employees Recreation Association, but as Scovill’s no longer exists it’s now owned by the Town of Wolcott. We went here a few times, especially after Playland closed. At the time it had two rafts (so you could swim from one to the other), and two tall metal slides.

The final swimming place was on Hitchcock Lake where the official “town beach” was located at the bottom of Mattatuck Avenue. It was only 50’ wide, but the bottom was sandy and there were a couple of large rocks in the lake that were below water level. If you knew where they were located, you could swim out to them and stand on them even though the water was over your head that far out. There was no place to park, so we’d park on Fairview Ave. and walk down Mattatuck Ave. to the beach. Google Maps shows that there is still a beach here, but I’m not sure if it’s open or not.

I’d like to finish by noting a couple of other non-official places where I went swimming once or twice:

·         The Jacklin Club on Durham Mill Pond straddles the Wolcott-Bristol line. Although it’s a private club and more a fishing place than one for swimming, I did go in once when I was in a group that rented the club for a picnic.

·         I swam at two friends homes who had property on Cedar Lake – one on Cedar Point Road and one on Averyll Ave.

·         When with a group of Boy Scouts we hiked down to the bottom of Coe’s property on Coe Road and swam in the upper part of Scovill Reservoir.

·         My aunt and uncle had a half-lot on the upper part of Hitchcock Lake where he had a dock suitable for putting his rowboat on the lake for fishing. Besides the dock there was an area suitable for a picnic. While it wasn’t designed for swimming at that part of the lake, I did get in the water once.

I swam at lakes in other parts of Connecticut from time to time – Bantam Lake where the Appalachian Mountain Club had a cabin, Candlewood Lake, Lake Compounce, Lake Quassapaug, Long Meadow Pond in Bethlehem, and Black Rock Pond in Thomaston. But the lakes of Wolcott were the most significant and I enjoyed all my swimming – both at the official beaches and the unofficial ones.