Lake Marguerite and surroundings

Lake Marguerite lies completely within the state of Massachusetts, with the southern shore being separated by only a very few yards from the Colebrook boundary. It is a natural body of water, one of those gifts left by the retreating glacier 15,000 years or so in the past. Colebrook doesn’t have such a water body; every one within our boundaries is the result of some man-made endeavor. In the old days, ponds were created to supply water to power the waterwheels that ran the mills, forges and shops.

The outflow from Lake Marguerite was harnessed long ago by means of a flume that supplied water to a sawmill just east of the old roadway. The lake entered the pages of history when the original settlers arrived long prior to the War of Independence and populated the area now known as the
Roberts Road and Beech Hill Road section. (The Massachusetts portion of this road carries this name; when it crosses into Connecticut, it becomes Simons Pond Road, which, in turn, runs into Colebrook’s Beech Hill Road.)

At the east end of this body of water there is a relatively flat terrace, some 200 feet above the surface of the water and 300 yards or thereabouts east of the shore on which the original settling family, by the name of Simonds, constructed the first dwelling in this section of virgin forest. What a beautiful site it was in the days when the land was all cleared and in agricultural use!

Since the forest has been allowed to return, some 70 years ago (the 1930s), the view is gone, to be vaguely hinted at during the time when the leaves have fallen. For my money, there wasn’t another house site within many miles of here that could hold a candle to it for sheer beauty.

The original name, because of the first owners, was Simons Pond. You will notice that I have used two spellings, one with a “d.� The family spelled it both ways in the 18th and 19th centuries, but one of the direct descendents, Edwin Simonds, was a personal friend of mine, and he spelled it with the “d,� as his gravestone in the Colebrook Center Cemetery also indicates.

The high hill immediately south of the lake in Colebrook (which happens to be Colebrook’s highest point at 1,552 feet) is named Pond Mountain. This did not raise questions in your mind in the old days as to why the hill was so named, but in 1903, the McClave family of New Jersey purchased all the land surrounding Simons Pond. Shortly thereafter they had the name officially changed to “Lake Marguerite� after their eldest daughter. Ever since, the old-time residents are apt to still refer to it as “Simons Pond� when talking among themselves. Now the upland is a “pond,� while the adjacent body of water is a “lake.�

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When I was young, there was something of a mystery concerning Simons Pond. Many men had attempted to determine how deep it was, but none had succeeded. Questioning various older fishermen seemed to confirm this, as I received that answer more than once.

One summer day when I was in high school, my friend Quint Williams and I decided it was time to put this to rest. We “borrowed� every clothesline, piece of rope, chain or anything having length to be found on Beech Hill. We put it in the rumble seat of my 1931 Chevy, along with a window sash weight we had found somewhere, and headed for the pond. In those days there used to be a rowboat tied up near the outflow (without the oars).

We felt that it was alright to borrow it as long as it was left exactly as it had been found. It worked fine when poled or rowed along with sections of black alder, which grew along the shore.

The two of us struggled with this bulky mass until we finally got it safely stowed in the bottom of the flat-bottomed rowboat, where it took up most of the room between the sides and the bow and stern. Two alders, diligently applied, eventually deposited us at what we deemed to be the center of the pond. The window weight was securely tied to the end of a section of clothesline, and it was lowered over the side.

As Quint began to tie on the second piece, the rope stopped! This was totally unexpected; we couldn’t imagine what was wrong. After talking it over, we decided that there must be an underwater peak in the center of the pond. Applying our poles as sweeps, we slowly worked our way halfway between the center and the nearest shore. Once more the weight and clothesline went over the side, and wonder of wonders, the same result! We tried all over that 39.87-acre pond, and the deepest anywhere was 38 feet! Talk about two thoroughly disgusted high school students! We decided upon one course of action, though, if anyone ever asked us how deep Simons Pond was: We would answer that the majority of experts agreed that nobody had ever reached the bottom, because technically, it wasn’t a lie.

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Overlooking Lake Marguerite to the northeast is Bull Mountain, on top of which is located the Iron House. Today it is possible to drive almost up to this structure, but prior to 1945 or ’46, very few people, mostly hunters who weren’t sure exactly where they were, had ever seen it.

This building had been started sometime early in the 20th century by a man who was mentally unbalanced (at least in the version that I was told). He apparently had been living with a married daughter, but stated that he was going to leave and live by himself. Supposedly a heated exchange between the two took place, and the statement was made that if he built a house for himself, it would be burned down.

He vowed that by golly he was going to build a house that couldn’t be burned down. He left, and for a while seemed to have dropped from sight. What he had done was to
contract with Beech Hill’s Orrin Oles to transport metal angle iron shaped like old iron bed frames, along with quantities of cement and small amounts of wooden building material to his property atop Bull Mountain.

Nearby he began to quarry rock with which he intended to construct the inner and outer walls. Not having any previous building experience,
he thought he also needed a framework such as would be employed in the construction of a wooden framed building, and he began doing so with the 2-inch-wide angle irons. He got as far as erecting the stone outer walls about one story high with the iron sticking up straight in the air for two stories when his location was discovered, and he was removed for his own safety.

During the thunderstorm season, the top of Bull Mountain is no place to hang out. I have camped out at Simons Pond (with permission, it’s private property) when I was young, and while an approaching storm was still miles to the west, long leaders of lightning sought out those upright iron rods. The direct hits increased in intensity and shortened in length as the storm got closer, then began to lengthen out as the storm receded to the east. The duration of active hits was amazing. It was interesting to contemplate what would have happened had anyone ever attempted to actually live in that building.

But that never happened, and the old site still sits atop the mountain, now a moldering heap of ruins. I still wouldn’t recommend going there when there is a thunderstorm anywhere in northwestern Connecticut or southwestern Massachusetts.

Bob Grigg is the town historian in Colebrook.