The origin of that pond is perhaps less glamorous than other similar ponds which themselves emerged from under the grinding burden of glacier movement some 12,000-14,000 years ago, creating hollows where runoff waters could accumulate.
In fact, less than 100 years ago where the Demars Boulevard pond is now located was a rather large knoll or gravel bank. The road to uptown from downtown Demars Boulevard, which passed in front of that knoll, was only a gravel lane under water much of the time, and residents, rather than walk it, would rent a railroad handcar and would pump their way over the railroad’s track to the uptown railroad station (located in back of the present day library off Cliff Avenue).

So how did a gravel knoll turn into a lovely pond where a generation of youngsters would fish bullhead in the summer? Where in winter they would clear the snow from its frozen surface to play hotly contested hockey games? Or follow secret trails along the pond’s wooded shores to Little Wolf Outlet where mountainous piles of sawdust could be climbed and the remains of the Santa Clara pulp rossing mill (1898-1913) could be explored?

Okay! You guessed it. When the Oval Wood Dish Corporation was locating its huge warehouse to accompany their production facilities, which, incidentally, was the largest plant ever erected in Franklin County (1916), they needed to fill in that swampy location alongside Demars Boulevard. This was the only location where fill was needed in the entire project, but early photos of the warehouse construction indicate that the fill around the foundation piers was almost 8 feet deep.

The knoll behind the house of 173-175 Demars Blvd. became the source for this fill! In 1967 the late Gerald P. Hull, who was closely identified with the Tupper Lake operation of O.W.D. from the outset, gave Louie Simmons historical notes of the O.W.D. operation, which included a description of how that fill was obtained and transported. Excerpts from those notes follow:
“The only piece of equipment which could be called even relatively modern by today’s standard was a Raymond gasoline combined log loader and shovel which was mounted on some very crude caterpillars. The Raymond log loader, utilizing a drag line, loaded this into bottom dumping wagons.

“The machine kept about 10 teams of horses busy hauling gravel from the knoll to the warehouse site!”
The huge depression that resulted from the removal of the gravel subsequently filled with water and, supplemented by inflow from Racquette Pond, resulted in the ponds thus created.

Fifty-eight years ago, when I knew the pond best (my grandmother Simmons’ home where I played and visited regularly was located next to the Presbyterian Church), the pond was much larger than it is today. Floating vegetation has encroached further and further until what was once one body of water is now several smaller containments. The large flower gardens with long rows of roses lovingly tended to by Mrs. W.C. Hull and her gardening staff are no more. The secret wooded paths are now fields cut regularly for their hay. A stark, impersonal modern sewage treatment plant has replaced the pioneer sawmill tailings and the easy access to the Racquette Pond shoreline and its sandy swimming spot. Only the pines along the shore remain. These pines weren’t present during the fill removal in 1916. Perhaps that explains why they all appear to be the same height and age. Such stands start during a single season when conditions are just right for large numbers of seedlings to become established in a place free from overhead shade. The sandy soil that made such good fill has kept out the more rampant hardwoods. Thus today you can walk though an uncluttered understory towered over by 100-foot pines. Here and there are stone steps leading down to crumbling fire places. A stone bench marks a place of meditation and spirituality which Mrs. W.C. Hull would walk to from her lovely home on Water Street.
Those ponds so close to busy Demars Boulevard are an anomaly and, like most anomalies, are transient. A few eons will see their end. In the meantime enjoy them when you drive past.

Here in the spring as the first life of the awakened year appears, the Golden Eyes still land as one of the earliest ducks to return. In the fall, look for the geese that seek rest there on their long migration flight. you may want to reflect, too, of a proud past when over 600 hardy workers, earning $1.75 for a 10-hour day and employing only the crudest equipment, erected the sprawling Oval Wood Dish factory in an amazing two years.

A financially successful operation, the O.W.D. (named for an early product, an oval wooden dish) was to become the largest lumbering firm in the region. It was to also provide the biggest industrial impetus since the arrival of the railroads and sawmills.
In 1940, a peak year in the demand for the company’s product line (clothes, pins, hardwood flooring, an innovative bowl-shaped wooden spoon called Ritespoon, etc.), employment reached almost 600 people and the valuation of plant and equipment was set at $2,500,000. They owned over 80,000 acres of forest land.

History will record that the Oval Wood Dish Corporation provided this village with a new lease to its survival at a time when its population was already beginning to go downhill. Indeed, it may well have been the main reason this community didn’t share the fate of other sawmill towns like Brandon and Derrick.

It would be a nice gesture and be historically significant if the Demars Boulevard ponds could be named after the Hull family. It was, after all, their genius and entrepreneurial energies that sparked an operation that can only be described as remarkable.