According to Marilyn Weymouth Sequin in her book Hidden History of Sebago Lakes Region, “Crescent Lake was once called Rattlesnake Pond. In the summer of 1925, summer cottage owners on Rattlesnake Pond changed the name of that body to Crescent Lake because they thought it sounded better. Old maps of the region show the name as Rattlesnake Pond. The last recorded capture of a Rattlesnake was in 1870.

On page 7 of Hawthorne’s First Diary by Samuel T. Pickard, Copyright 1897, the famous author from Raymond, Nathaniel Hawthorne, referred to Crescent Lake as Great Rattlesnake Pond.