In honor of National Library Week, come hear Prof. Owen Sholes speak about the Worcester landscape on Thursday, April 16 from 7-8PM. The lecture will be held on the first floor of the Assumption College Library. Refreshments will be served.
From Ice Age to Duck Pond: The History of the Worcester Landscape
Assumption College’s Duck Pond has not always been as we see it now. Twenty thousand years ago, all of New England was covered by a huge sheet of ice. After the ice melted, Worcester changed from tundra vegetation to conifer forest to deciduous forest, and the last species of tree to arrive was chestnut (which was wiped out by a blight in the 20th century). Native Americans populated New England shortly after the ice was gone, and were here to greet (and fight) people from Europe. Settlers cleared up to 90% of the trees by 1850, then abandoned most of the land over the next hundred years, allowing trees to grow back where their farms had been. In the 1950s, the old farmland at 500 Salisbury Street was converted to Assumption College, and the stream was dammed near the street to form the Duck Pond. Fifty years seems like a long time, but it is just the latest change to this little piece of central Massachusetts.
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