North Pond is also known as Lake Maspenock and is located about three-quarters of a mile west of I-495 in Hopkinton. It is bounded by the towns of Hopkinton, Upton, and Milford. The lake is located at the headwaters of the Mill River with its main portion being located in Hopkinton. From its outlet in Milford, Mill River eventually flows into the Blackstone River (called the Nipmuck River by the Indians) and into the Atlantic Ocean.​

The name Maspenock comes from the Nipmuc dialect of Eastern Algonquin and is written as MASSIBENOKIK, which means, ‘The Waters At The Base Of The Great Hill’, a direct reference to the steep rise of Peppercorn Hill on the shoreline in Upton.

In its original and natural state, as shown on an 1831 map of Hopkinton, the lake probably had 30 or 40 acres of surface area, which made it a Great Pond. The fact that the surface area of Lake Maspenock is considerably greater than the natural pond was due to the construction of a dam at its southern tip in 1833 or 1834 and it was raised to its present height in 1901, seven feet higher than the dam that was here in 1833.