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Note: The following historical piece is an excerpt from the book "Wayland A-Z: A Dictionary of Then and Now" by Evelyn Wolfson and Dick Hoyt, published in 2004 by the Wayland Historical Society.

The map, "Plan of the Town of Wayland in 1775," prepared by James Sumner Draper, labels the body of water next to Lake Cochituate as Johnson’s Pond, not Dudley Pond. There were Johnson families living on the west side of the pond and a Dudley family living on the east side. The explanation for the name change is yet to be determined but today’s Dudley Pond has an interesting and varied history.
It was formed from a detached ice block left behind during the last glaciation of New England, sometimes referred to as a kettle hole. As it melted, the topographic depression filled with water. The pond is fed by rainfall and by an inlet on the southeastern shore. A slow flowing aquifer beneath ground level may be feeding water to the pond. Runoff from an outlet in the extreme northeast corner of the pond’s shoreline forms Dudley Brook which empties into the Sudbury River.
Any pond larger than 10 acres is designated a "great pond" by the commonwealth of Massachusetts which owns Dudley Pond’s 84 acres. Thus, all residents of the state have the right of free access to the pond. Management and administration of the pond, however, were transferred to the town of Wayland in 1916 under a long-term lease of 99 years.
Once connected to Lake Cochituate by an 18-inch underground pipe, Dudley Pond served as a standby drinking water supply for Boston. In 1926 the concrete pipe connecting the pond to the lake was disconnected because the pond had become more polluted than the lake and was no longer a desirable source of drinking water. The pipe was finally sealed off in 1935.
During 1882-83, two large homes were constructed in the Dudley Pond area. The first one to be built was owned by Michael Simpson, president of the nearby Roxbury Carpet Company and Saxonville Mills. It was situated at the southwest corner of the pond on the corner of Old Connecticut Path and West Plain Street. Simpson’s home later became a popular dining and dancing establishment.
The second house belonged to James Madison Bent who constructed what he called a "cottage" on a bluff on the south shore overlooking the pond. Mr. Bent moored his small steamer, the "Hannah Dexter," by a wharf that led up 100 steps to his cottage.
Between 1900 and 1915, Dudley Pond was a popular fishing campsite and summer resort. A group of sizable developments, financed and managed by outside speculators, were laid out in 1913 and reached a peak in 1918. D. Arthur Brown and John F. Stackpole, chief developers of the area, advertised in the newspapers of neighboring towns, but most sales were made to residents from the Boston area. Wayland Manor, one of the earliest developments, had 301 lots on the eastern shore of the pond. Some of the lots were as small as 1/20th of an acre. Woodland Park, laid out in 1914, was the largest development created by Brown and Stackpole. It had 969 lots, many as small as 1,200 square feet, or 1/30th of an acre. Lots were even sold through lotteries at Boston’s Orpheum movie theater.
The land along the north shore of the pond included a network of roads and paths around what is now Maiden Lane. Woodland Park was followed by Shore Acres, Lakewood, Castle Gate North and Castle Gate South. From 1913 to 1928, people continued to build cottages and purchase lots around the pond. The clean water and exceptional bass fishing remained an important attraction.
However, the period of Prohibition in the 1930s changed what had been a quiet, rural and pristine summer resort area. Gangsters began to use the cottages for illicit activities, posting signs in front of some camps indicating that rental could be had by the hour with women. On one occasion, gunfire erupted into a full-fledged riot which caused great consternation among local residents who then forbade their children from going near the area.
Many cottage owners did not foresee their summer houses becoming year-round residences until the Great Depression in 1929. Few cottages had heat and the roads were unsuitable for driving during icy, snowy and muddy conditions. There were no formalized health regulations around the pond and septic systems typically consisted of dry wells made by burying 55 gallon drums in the yard. These crude systems often overflowed.
Unfortunately, by the time residents became concerned about the growth of thickly settled and poorly planned developments in town, and began to formulate zoning ordinances in the 1930s, it was too late to re-zone the area around the pond.
In 1959, the Wayland Redevelopment Authority, in an attempt to improve congested areas of town, began to look for federal financial assistance. In 1960, selectmen applied for assistance from the Urban Renewal Authority and received a $410,000 grant for study and preliminary work. To secure the funds, 50 percent of the dwellings around Dudley Pond had to be declared unfit for human habitation. During the next three years, the committee inspected homes and access roads around Dudley Pond and recommended that 265 homes be removed to allow for larger lot sizes or road improvements. The idea was to combine all of the land and give it to a developer to build houses on regulation size lots. No provision was made to find new areas for the people living in the 265 houses who would be dispossessed. When the five-member Citizens Advisory Committee appointed by selectmen held the first formal hearing, 300 angry residents turned out to protest their homes being condemned.
Residents suggested they improve their properties themselves and collected signatures on a petition from more than one-half of the town’s residents stating that urban renewal was unnecessary and unfair. It was obvious the urban renewal activity was not wanted in town.
In 1963, the Wayland Redevelopment Authority issued a report asking that it be dissolved in a proper legal manner and that urban renewal activities be abandoned within in the town. The $410,000 granted to the town by the state was returned.
Town officials began to see that the people being impacted were real human beings, that their often ramshackle houses, once summer camps, were "homes" to them. After a very tumultuous time, with a lot of bruised personalities, the town vowed a slower, small-scale program of incremental improvements.
Pond water remained fairly clean and biologically balanced for a few years after it was opened to the public for recreational use in 1947. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, however, indications of a speeded-up eutrophication process became evident and pond water became choked with weeds and pond lilies. Freshwater jellyfish began to disappear, along with large bass and pickerel. Motorboats were prevalent and many boaters took sport in running over the many muskrats that swam in the pond. Soon the muskrat population diminished, and growth of pond lilies exploded.
After many years of complaining to town selectmen and the Police Department about boating abuses on the pond, neighbors took responsibility for pond activities and formed the Dudley Pond Association, which came from an earlier Dudley Pond Improvement Association. They organized an ongoing program to control litter, weeds, noise and to monitor safety, protect property, and improve water quality. Informal swimming continues at Mansion Inn Beach during the summer and skating during the winter. Today, the modernized neighborhoods of Dudley Pond are sought-after places to live.