The mystery of the origin of the name Duck Village in Somerville

After researching Globe archives, it was discovered that the neighborhood name had already occurred decades before the temporary injunction began in 1920.

The article, published in 1885, begins, "A small part of quiet Somerville is popularly known as Utkin township. How it got its strange name remains a mystery." The sign, of course, could have been erroneous, but the question was an interesting one.

I reached out to David Guss, a retired professor of anthropology from Tufts University and a trustee of the Somerville Museum, who has also been a resident of Utkin Township for 30 years. In his home office, among the souvenirs from his ethnographic research in Latin America, I asked Guss where the name Utkin Township comes from.

Utkin Township native Frank Kresta looks at his backyard decorations. At the Globe "There is no specific agreement on where the name comes from," he said, but the name may have originated for a period when the area was wetlands and "huge flocks of ducks flew over it on their migrations to other places each year."

What is called the Miller River - today replaced by a creek under the I-93 viaduct - used to be the defined boundary between Cambridge and Somerville (then part of Charlestown) until it was artificially filled in with earth in the 19th century.

Even if the name Utkin Township is merely a reference to the local ecology, it still tells a story. "Once the trains came in 1835, industry came to Somerville. Before that time, it was very agricultural," said Evelyn Battinelli, executive director of the Somerville Museum Emeritus. Brick, glass and metal pipe factories sprang up along the railroad, replacing cattle ranches. Low-paying factory work attracted immigrants from Italy, Ireland, Germany and Greece to Utkin Township. "Those who lived there often worked in the neighborhood," said Brandon Wilson, events and education coordinator for the Somerville Historic Preservation Commission. "Most of the houses were built in the late 19th century, and they certainly look it. They're small, many of them, and not particularly luxurious."

Many of these houses still stand in Utkin Township, which is only about five blocks long. They create a fairy-tale atmosphere in the neighborhood, as if someone had waved a magic wand and changed the scale of Utkinsky Village by two-thirds of its original size.

Frank Kresta looks at a stone garden decorated with duck figures in his front yard. Suzanne Kreiter / Globe Staff

There are other remnants of the old days in Utkin Township that are hidden in plain sight. Across the street from Guss's house is the last factory in a neighborhood previously defined by such factories, metal stamping manufacturer Peter Forg, which has been in operation for five generations.

These days, the neighborhood is "modest in its architecture, but not in its price," Huss says. Its geographic location determines its high value. "We're right in the center of all these very active and interesting places," he says. "Union Square, Inman Square, Harvard Square, Porter Square - they all radiate around us like spokes."

Continued construction in surrounding neighborhoods has some residents concerned. "People really don't like the idea of our neighborhood disappearing.