The Hockomock Swamp

Foggy Waters of The Bridgewater Triangle

By David X. Sheehan Jr.

In Massachusetts, there are three Bridgewater’s, East, West and Bridgewater; together, along with the City of Brockton, they were once an entity known as North Bridgewater.

I lived and grew up in West Bridgewater matriculating and graduating from the West Bridgewater High School in 1965.

In the late 1950’s, as a kid, my brother and I did lots of exploring in our town, often in the wet and swampy area known as the Hockomock Swamp. We never volunteered to Mama, where we had been. She morbidly feared one of us drowning, why, I don’t know. If she asked why we were wet, we’d say we were down at West Meadow, where there was a little brook. We would take our dog, Missy, and she’d be wet and filthy. Mama breathed easier, knowing it was just a meadow.

Actually, we had been a few miles from home and at the west end of the town, where it was swampy and at times, tough to navigate without a large stick, a hockey stick with the business end broken off, would have been perfect. The stick was good for pushing against something solid to pull up a wet sneaker, with your foot still in it. My brother lost a sneaker on one expedition, in the muckiest stuff we ever saw. It was a swamp, yet there were paths, and clearings where you could enjoy some dry turf to sit and feel the…