The Oxoboxo River, shown on federal maps as Oxoboxo Brook, is a tributary of the Thames River in

New London County New London County is in the southeastern corner of Connecticut and comprises the Norwich-New London, Connecticut Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is also included in the Hartford-East Hartford, Connecticut Combined Statistical Area. There ...

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the ...

. It flows roughly in a southeasterly direction from its source at Oxoboxo Lake to its confluence with the Thames. It has a

watershed Watershed is a hydrological term, which has been adopted in other fields in a more or less figurative sense. It may refer to: Hydrology * Drainage divide, the line that separates neighbouring drainage basins * Drainage basin, called a "watershe ...

of , 87% of which is in the

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an o ...

of Montville.
Town of Montville Plan of Conservation and Development 2010
'', May 15, 2010 The Oxoboxo was an important source of

water power Hydropower (from el, ὕδωρ, "water"), also known as water power, is the use of falling or fast-running water to produce electricity or to power machines. This is achieved by converting the gravitational potential or kinetic energy of a ...

during English colonial settlement and 19th-century European-American industrial development in Montville. Colonists built the first

sawmill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logging, logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes ...

on the river in 1653. As of the 1880s, the river supplied power for 15 cotton, woolen, and paper mills, most of which had dams. The river's source, Oxoboxo Lake, is a natural lake whose size and elevation have been increased by damming. The earliest dam at Oxoboxo Lake was constructed in the 17th century; it has been rebuilt and increased in height several times since, reaching its current elevation in the 1880s. A dam adjacent to Connecticut Route 32 in

Uncasville Uncasville is an area in the town of Montville, Connecticut, United States. It is a village in southeastern Montville, at the mouth of the Oxoboxo River where it flows into the Thames River. The name is now applied more generally to all of the ...

was removed in 2020 during redevelopment of the Uncasville Mill, which it formerly powered. The name was derived from Algonquian languages of the area, which had terms for the river and lake. Other historical names for the stream and alternative spellings of "Oxoboxo" include Abscubogset, Absubogsuck, Cochikuack Brook, Cokichiwake, Cokikuak, Cuchickuwock, Okeshoksee, Okseboksce, Oxopaugsuck, Oxyboxy, and Sawmill Brook. Many are transliterations of the feature name in the Mohegan and other

Algonquian languages The Algonquian languages ( or ; also Algonkian) are a subfamily of indigenous American languages that include most languages in the Algic language family. The name of the Algonquian language family is distinguished from the orthographically simi ...

of historical Native American tribes in the area.

References

{{authority control Estuaries of Connecticut Rivers of New London County, Connecticut Montville, Connecticut Rivers of Connecticut Tributaries of the Thames River (Connecticut)

See also

References