Lost Villages Scenic Byway · MA-122

The Lost Villages Scenic Byway, MA-122 along the east side of the Quabbin: from Paxton you pass Long Pond in Rutland, cross Oakham and the Barre common, go on to Petersham and finish in Orange on the Millers River. It's 33 miles of easy curves through woods, farms and towns with their white churches. The name remembers the four towns flooded to make the reservoir. Stop in Barre or Petersham, because there's little in between.

The Route 122 Scenic Byway, known as the Lost Villages Scenic Byway, runs about 40 miles between Paxton and Orange along the east side of the Quabbin, and its name remembers the four towns relocated in the 1930s to make way for the reservoir. This route covers 33 miles of it. In Rutland the road passes Long Pond, where the state has a boat ramp and a parking lot right off MA-122, and Moore State Park, where grist and saw mills ran from 1747 into the 20th century, is a short detour from Paxton.

Barre is the classic stop: its common is a National Register district with war memorials, fountains, an octagonal bandstand from 1931 and the Congregational church of 1849, and there's a café right on it. Petersham, further north, has a common laid out in 1733 and the country store a few minutes off the route. The byway ends in Orange, an old mill town on the Millers River, where the riverfront park has parking and a canoe launch. Fuel in Paxton, Barre or Orange.