Puffers Pond

🏊Swimming at Puffers Pond

Swimming takes place at two town-designated beach areas (North Beach and South Beach) with no lifeguard on duty, so visitors swim at their own risk. The town treats the two beaches as a single facility for closure purposes, contamination detected at either beach closes both. As of the most recent posted alert, the town had advised against swimming due to E. coli levels exceeding state safe-swimming standards, illustrating that swim conditions here are actively monitored and can vary week to week.

📍How to get to this swimming hole

Puffer's Pond is located roughly 3 miles north of the Amherst town center, within the Puffer's Pond Conservation Area near the Factory Hollow and North Amherst neighborhoods; the surrounding greenbelt runs from Route 63 north toward the Shutesbury/Leverett town line.

Parking: Parking is roadside/informal near the pond and subject to posted area restrictions; per town rules it may not block emergency access gates and is prohibited between 8:30 p.m. and 6 a.m.

📜Backstory

Originally known as Factory Hollow Pond, formed by dams built to power 19th-century mills: an early dam replaced in 1850 by the Cushman brothers for paper mills, then a stone masonry dam built in 1895 to serve sawmills, woolen mills, and grain operations. After the mill era declined (1870s-1940s), the Puffer family, who owned the dam and land, ran an ice-harvesting business from 1912 (ice elevator) and 1916 (icehouse) for nearly 50 years. The Amherst Conservation Commission began acquiring land along the Mill River in 1961; the Ruxton Company donated the pond and dam to the town in 1969, and nature trails were established in 1967, shifting the site to conservation and recreational use.