Late 1800s – Kimball’s Pond renamed Attitash
The name of Kimball’s Pond was changed to Lake Attitash, which means “blueberries all around.” The original name of the lake, Kimball’s Pond, is shown on colonial period maps and originated from the name of the family who owned the surrounding lands.
Writing in an 1885 issue of The Bay State Monthly, Frances Sparhawk seems to attribute the new name of the lake, Attitash, to local poet John Greenleaf Whittier and his poem, “The Maids of Attitash”:
At Pond Hills, between Amesbury and Merrimac, is lake Attitash, which, before Mr. Whittier took pity upon it, rejoiced in the name of Kimball’s Pond. … In the “Maids of Attitash” is described the lake where
“In sky and wave the white clouds swam,
And the blue hills of Nottingham
Through gaps of leafy green
Across the lake were seen.”
All these are still here, but one misses the maidens who ought to be sitting there
“In the shadow of the ash
That dreams its dream in Attitash.”