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Since our forefathers, Captain John Ayres, and his decendents, were among the first developers of the land at Quaboag, MA around 1660, I felt this article from a magazine in 1995 (was it Modern Maturity?) was very pertinent for our genealogical information.

Submitted by Harriet ZIMMER of NM

JUST GO PAST SHODDY'S, HEAD FOR THE SWAMP,
AND YOU'LL FIND PODUNK

by Norman Kotker

Podunk, I had always assumed, was a mythical town enshrined in our culture as a symbol of utter insignificance. When I learned that there were in fact a couple of real Podunks, and that one of them was in my home state of MA, I decided I had to visit it. But first I had to find exactly where Podunk is. It's somewhere near Sturbridge, I’d been told, but I couldn't find it in my road atlas or on my official state highway map. I checked a lot of old atlases I have around the house: one published by Colliers in 1914; another from 1911 and published by the Geographical Publishing Co.; a third, Tunison's dating back to 1889 and featuring maps so detailed that the one for Massachusetts showed the bounderies of every town in the state. But Podunk wasn't in any of them.

Many MA towns are named after places in England--Gloucester, Boston and my own town, Northampton. But there was no Podunk in the Old World. It had to be an Indian name. I checked a book called Indian Place Names of New England and hit pay dirt: "Podunk" means "a boggy place" or "at the place where the foot sinks in." The book also said it was a village and pond in Worcester Co., MA. Further research revealed that Podunk lay within the town of North Brookfield.

After finding all that out I enlisted a friend to join me, and it was off to North Brookfield we went. We headed east across the Ct. River, the Swift River, Muddy Brook, the Ware River and the Quaboag. The route took us through beautiful, sparsely settled countryside. We reached West Brookfield where there were signs advertising farm stands and an orchard where we could pick our own apples. Holsteins and Guernseys grazed in pastures. Wherever Podunk might be, it sure was set in the middle of a storybook New England.

After a while we spotted a road leading into North Brookfield, and soon we were almost in the center of the town. But no signs indicated where Podunk was. In situations like this, guidebooks sometimes say "inquire locally;" it seemed wise for us to do just that but there was nobody in sight of whom to inquire. North Brookfield is a very small town. Finally we came upon a tractor-and-lawn-mower repair shop that seemed to be open. Here we inquired.

"Podunk? It's not in North Brookfield," we were told. "It's somewhere around there in East Brookfield. What you do is go down there." The tractor repairman pointed. "And take the first left. Then take your second right and go for a while until you reach Shoddy's Tires. You can ask Shoddy. He'll know."

"Shoddy's Tires!" I exclaimed. "I'd hate to be riding on one of those."

It took me some time to figure out exactly what the repairman had been saying, and I was able to do that only because I'd grown up near Boston. Finally I realized: Shoddy's Tires was really Shorty's Tires! We followed the instructions, and soon we came upon an old wooden building with a few small stacks of used tires in front of it. There was no sign outside, but as soon as the proprietor came out to greet us, we knew we were there. He was very short.

Short or tall, he knew just how to get to Podunk, and he gave us directions in a very loud voice. Some rights and some lefts, past Parsons' Garage and over a railroad bridge. "There's nothing to see there," he warned us. "Only trees." We found Parsons' Garage, drove past it, crossed the railroad bridge and there it was: Podunk Road. This road was older and a little narrower than the one we'd just been on. We drove right along, glad to have found it. But we were still uncertain about something: Would Podunk road take us to Podunk?

After we'd gone a mile or so, we saw a swamp with clumps of marsh grass--the boggy place for which Podunk itself surely had been named. The Indians who had traveled this route long before the road was built couldn't have passed here without getting their feet muddy. This was it at last--Podunk.

But where was Podunk Pond? After I returned from Podunk itslf, I asked Northampton's reference librarian. She found the answer in a 1793 publication, Worcester County, America's First Frontier, on page 77 of which it says: "There is one large pond...called by the Indians Quaboag Pond; but now more generally denominated Podunk Pond, from a tract of meadow adjoining, which the Indians called Podunk." And as it now turns out, all my maps show Quaboag Pond, which is how Podunk Pond is denominated these days, and all show it adjoining East Brookfield.

The swampy stretch we had seen along Podunk Road had been unpopulated, but elsewhere beside the road, along with the trees that Shorty had promised we'd find, were many houses, a few of them much older than Shorty but most considerably younger, built only in the past decade or two. A great many houses displayed the American flag. It became clear that a new generation was rising for whom Podunk is the center of the Universe. There were children's play sets in some yards, and in front of one door a baby carriage was parked.

And then, a bit farther along Podunk Road, appeared evidence of Podunk's older or, rather, post-older inhabitants. There, in a graveyard, lay members of earlier generations. At its entrance was a great boulder with a bronze marker fixed to it, proclaiming it Podunk Cemetery. Every one of the graveyard's inhabitants was out of Podunk now, in spirit at least. Like the dead of even the most famous cities, they had gone to a place where the name of the town you come from SHODDY'S, HEAD FOR THE SWAMP, AND YOU'LL FIND PODUNK.