Copied shamelessly from The Boston Globe, sometime in early October, 1997, from the Ask the Globe section.
Q. I have heard that there is a lake in Massachusetts with a long name which means "you fish on your side, I fish on mine, nobody fishes in the middle." True or false? If true, where is the lake?

P.B., Ipswich

A. True. Lake Chargoggagoggmanchoggagogg is a 17-mile-around lake in Webster. (Some sources offer this spelling: Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg). The original name of the lake as it appears in ancient deeds was Chabanakongkomom, with fewer letters and easier to pronounce. The Nipmuks gave the body of water this name because it was neutral territory and a favored site for powwows among their tribe and the Narraganssett, Pequot and Mohegan tribes. Residents of Webster have shortened the name, understandably, to Lake Manchaug.

I recieved the following email from Bill Tansi, who has spent a lot of time near The Lake, and offers the following correction: 


From: Bill Tansi 
Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2001 14:17:58 -0500
Subject: minor correction...

Dear Mr. Mahonkin(?)

(Sorry, I couldn't figure out from your Web site what part - if any - of
you name this might be...),

I am writing to correct a small error I discovered on one of your Web
pages.  I was doing a Web search for the lake with the longest name and
stumbled across this page:

http://www.mahonkin.com/~milktree/Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg.html

(It was the first reference Google brought me to.  I was actually
surprised to find so few.)

My family has had a house on this lake for many years and in all that
time I have never heard it referred to as "Lake Manchaug".  Local
residents generally refer to it as "THE Lake" or "Lake Webster".  Lake
Manchaug is, in fact, another lake located in the neighboring town of
Douglas.

I guess we can blame this on the Boston Globe.  However, it's probably
best not to propagate erroneous information...

For what it's worth,

-Bill Tansi


=====================================================================
"I believe in Moderation in all things.  ESPECIALLY Moderation."
D.L.D., circa 1974
All this got me curious, and google fed back this:

www.net1plus.com/users/websterpd/webster_lake.htm

which has a tad more information and a cool picture. It's by the Webster Police department.

In fact, here's some pictures that I found on the net, including the one from the Webster Police department.