Southwick v. Massachusetts Turnpike Authority

On January 27, 1955, and on July 12, 1956, by two takings, the respondent (the authority) took by eminent domain in the aggregate 1.37 acres of the petitioner’s large 1 tract of land in Sturbridge. There were on the land at the time of the takings a dam three hundred fifty feet long, made of earth reinforced with stones, and a spillway “in fair condition.”

The dam had formerly been used to hold back a pond, covering about twenty-five acres. The dam, however, had been broken “possibly twenty years ago” for a distance of “twenty-five to thirty feet wide,” and the bed of the old pond had grown up…