Babe Ruth League, 1957

In 1952, Middleborough joined the burgeoning Little League movement that had been founded in 1939 in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and which first expanded beyond that state in 1947.   Because Little League initially provided opportunities only for boys 12 and younger and given the success of Little League, the town soon afterwards began participating in the Babe Ruth League, an organization established in 1951.  The League was originally known as the "Little Bigger League", a clear indication of its program.  Above is an early schedule from the 1957 season for the four town Sachem League in which Middleborough participated with the Bridgewaters, each community fielding two teams.  Middleborough's two teams were sponsored by the Eagles and Thomas Brothers.

Green Point Grove

Located on the western shore of Lake Assawompsett south of Nelson's Grove, Green Point Grove is a less well remembered venue for summer outings, but as these two small advertising cards attest, the site was popular during the summer season for music and dancing in the last quarter of the 19th century.  Dating possibly from 1886, the cards advertise a "social assembly" featuring John M. Carter's quadrille band.  Transportation was provided by "Admiral", a so-called party wagon capable of transporting a large number of passengers.

Pratt's Skating Pond, 1936-41

Pratt Farm Skating Pond, photograph, c. 1940

The view from East Main Street depicts the
skating pond created on the Pratt Farm by the

damming of Stony Brook in 1936.

Over sixty years ago, a small corner of the Pratt Farm on East Main Street in Middleborough developed as a local Depression-era winter sports venue, a circumstance made possible through the generosity of Ernest S. Pratt.

Though owned by Pratt, the site was, for a number of years (1936-41), under the care of the Middleboro Skating Club, an organization formed to foster winter sports locally. While the club was extremely popular at the time, memories of it and cold winter evenings spent skating under a mantle of stars, while recorded music permeated the crisp air, are rapidly fading.

It seems appropriate that this corner of the Pratt Farm became a popular locale for winter sports. Pratt's sister, Louise Pratt, owned the first pair of skis in Middleborough which she used on the relatively tame slopes of nearby Pratt Hill. In 1936, Ernest Pratt, at the instigation of several local skaters including my grandfather Jim Maddigan, acquired a parcel of land adjoining the Pratt Farm on East Main Street for the use of local skaters. The Middleboro Gazette applauded Pratt's civic-mindedness and noted that "sincere appreciation has been voiced by local skaters for Mr. Pratt's generosity in providing this new location for with the exception of the river, which is rarely safe, and the ice ponds there are few opportunities to enjoy the sport."

Despite Pratt's altruism, there was probably a more pragmatic reason behind his offer: keeping bothersome skaters off his ice ponds. Ice was big business for Pratt. "For more than forty years the principal crop [of the farm] was ice," recalled Pratt's wife Rose Standish Pratt years later. Skaters who therefore used Pratt's ice ponds during harvest were frequently an annoyance and, often, a liability for the business. My grandfather, nearly a lifelong resident of the Star Mills section of Middleborough and a one-time employee of Pratt's, explained: "There were areas established by Mr. Pratt that were off limits for skaters prior to and during the harvesting of ice. Some of the youngsters used stones for their hockey goal markers, and stones for hockey pucks. Many times these would be left on the ice and become frozen in. On occasions, rain or melting snow caused water to collect on the ice surface, freezing and completely covering and hiding any stones that were left there following their games. An object of this nature, buried in the ice, was a real hazard and could completely ruin the blade of the motorized saw used to mark the ice during harvesting." Consequently, continued my grandfather, when "one winter, in the mid-1930s, a group of skaters approached Ernest Pratt in hopes that he might consent to the installation of a small dam across the brook near East Main Street ... to create a skating pond, he readily accepted our proposal, probably under the impression that this location would keep most of the skaters off the ice pond." The site selected for the new skating pond was an area three hundred yards long by fifty yards wide located along Stony Brook which drained Pratt's newest ice ponds and flowed underneath East Main Street at the foot of Pratt's Hill.

To foster winter sports at the site and to take formal charge of Pratt's skating pond, the Middleboro Community Skating Club was formed in late 1936, in the South Main Street barbershop of Alfred Hodder and Ela Anderson. Officers of the club elected at this meeting included Hodder as president; Coach Henry Battis of Middleborough Memorial High School as vice-president; Adnah Harlow, secretary; and Dalton Penniman, treasurer. A fourteen person membership committee was also named, and Joseph Miskinis was charged with care of the new rink. (Harold Wood would later have care of the ice). Gazette editor and publisher, Lorenzo Wood, was appointed the club's publicity agent. To formalize the arrangement, "use of the small pond was granted by Ernest Pratt, for a nominal fee - only enough to protect him and make it legal."

Map Showing the Location of Pratt's Skating

Pond, USGS map, Bridgewater, Mass., 1940.

The present boundaries of the Pratt Farm

Conservation Area are overlaid in green.

The stated purpose of the Middleboro Skating Club was to oversee "centralizing Middleboro winter sports," primarily in the interest of the community's children. Some club members "were interested in skiing, some in tobogganing, some in fancy skating, others in hockey. [Nonetheless], all were aware of the benefits both young and old might derive from an organized winter sports center." For five years, the Middleboro Skating Club would avidly pursue the goal of encouraging winter sports, and the club would become, at one point, the most popular in Middleborough, bragging that it had more members than any other in town.

Ironically, creation of the club and the new skating pond failed to keep skaters from Pratt's ice ponds as intended. "I remember," recalled my grandfather, "one incident that took place during the skating season in the late thirties. A group of young people, mostly in their early twenties, arranged for a skating party, the girls bringing the hot dogs and rolls and the male members providing the fire for cooking, also the gathering of the forked sticks to be used for roasting the 'delicacies.' During the course of the evening, and following trips to the fire to warm up and partake in some refreshments, the skaters organized groups to skate together and play 'snap-the-whip.' This consisted of perhaps ten or twelve people, sometimes more, in a row holding hand, and skating down the ice, and on a given signal the so-called leader, usually a good skater, stopped and snapped the long line down the ice in a circular course. The skaters near the end of the line travelled at a good speed. On one occasion four of the group plunged into the open water created by the cutting of the ice during the day. They were in an area where the water was only about three or four feet deep, but very, very cold. They were assisted back onto the ice, loaded into two cars and transported to my house where my wife and I provided dry clothes and a hot drink. Needless to say we were very particular about choosing an area to perform our stunts after this experience."

Following its November, 1936, organization, the Middleboro Skating Club grew rapidly, embarking upon fairly ambitious plans to erect a heated shelter at Pratt's skating pond and light the pond for night skating (all to be financed through expected memberships in the new club), and promoting the growth of ice hockey locally, through the formation of an adult team and sponsorship of a four-team youth league.

Within two weeks of its foundation, the skating club boasted a membership of four hundred, and had commenced upon its construction projects. Nearly completed by Christmas, 1936, the club's furnished skating shelter was opened to members by the end of January, 1937.

Jim Maddigan, a member of the skating club, left a description of the completed shelter: "The clubhouse provided a dry, warm area to change from street shoes to shoe skates, as well as a place to warm up cold hands and feet. Heat was generated by a wood stove near the center of the approximately 16 by 24 foot structure. Seating was provided by wooden benches on three sides of the building. At one end a small area was built to accommodate a portable electric stove where hot dogs and hamburgs were prepared and sold. There, also, was located a candy and soda concession." A loudspeaker broadcast records played in the clubhouse so that skaters might enjoy the music.

Despite this propitious start, there were some early criticisms of the club centering upon the surface area of the proposed skating rink. In response, the Gazette wrote: "To those who are of the opinion that the skating surface is limited on this new pond it is pointed out that there are approximately two acres now covered and that with any larger area it would be impossible to keep the ice in first class condition. Snow must be removed from time to time and the skating surface renewed occasionally by additional flooding." Nevertheless, the club decided to extend the skating surface an additional one hundred feet because of the increasing number of members - five hundred by mid-December, 1936.

The debate over the expanse of the proposed skating surface was immaterial, at least during the first season. The winter of 1936-37 was among the mildest then on record and the skating pond never froze. The skating club's publicity agent, Lorenzo Wood, noted the remarkable progress the club had made since its inception, but wrote at the end of January, 1937, that "there still remains but one item - ice - to put the club into action."

While the lack of ice certainly precluded skating on the pond, so too did construction problems with the dam built to impound the waters of Stony Brook. It washed out three times during the first winter, establishing itself as a chronic headache for the club.

By the second season, however, the problematic issues of 1936-37 had been successfully addressed by the skating club and large numbers of skaters began enjoying the rink in January, 1938. To publicize conditions at the rink, notices detailing prevailing ice conditions were posted at Hodder and Anderson's barbershop on South Main Street, as well as at other prominent locations in town.

One of the most promising developments of the Middleboro Skating Club was its support for the growth in local interest in ice hockey. Among the club's first events was a hockey game between club members and a team at East Bridgewater on December 8, 1936. Early attempts to formally establish a hockey team by the club, however, were frustrated by the mild winter of 1936-37.

Nonetheless, ice hockey proved popular on Pratt's skating pond, so much so that there was some concern it might interfere with the more family-oriented activities at the site. My grandfather recalled "a strict rule that there would be no hockey playing, or wild antics, in the area where the small ones were skating, or learning to skate." The Gazette, too, cautioned skaters "to avoid unnecessary roughness in order that mishaps may be kept at a minimum."

"Grandpa's Skates", photograph by David

DeHoey, January 15, 2010, used under a

Creative Commons license.

With the growing appeal of ice hockey, the Middleboro Skating Club's activities during the winter of 1938-39 not surprisingly focused upon the construction of a hockey rink at East Main Street. Sufficient funds were raised during 1939 to allow for the building of a rink on the upper end of the pond in December 1939, and January, 1940. The cost was $74.59 for lumber and nails. "Boards around the ends at the goals were installed, as well as goal cages. This helped to keep the hockey pucks confined to the playing area and also protected others skating on the pond." The natural amphitheater like surroundings provided seating for spectators.

As part of its support for ice hockey, the skating club formed its own team which played opponents from Plymouth, Taunton, Dartmouth, Fairhaven, New Bedford and elsewhere. My grandfather, himself a member of the team, recalled one particular highlight. "On one occasion, members of the Rhode Island Reds, a farm team of the Bruins, came to Middleborough to play and have a practice session. They were good; rough and very fast. But we made an impression because some of the members did return to get a good workout." A four team youth hockey league was also sponsored, "giving the younger boys a chance to play."

During the first months of 1940, a fortuitously prolonged cold spell further facilitated the local development of ice hockey. "In other seasons when a game was scheduled, it depended entirely on the condition of the ice. A few seasons ago, it was almost impossible to get in a match, because of abnormal weather conditions."

John Sweeney, sports columnist for the Gazette, noted hockey's growing local appeal. "Hockey is forging to the front hereabouts," he wrote, adding somewhat over-optimistically that "hockey might conceivably edge out basketball as 'the' winter sport in this section."

Despite the burgeoning local appeal of both ice skating and hockey fostered during the late 1930s and early 1940s by the Middleboro Skating Club, the club would disband in April, 1941, just four and a half years following its organization.

Ironically, the club's difficulties were not financial. Upon its organization in November, 1936, the club had adopted a "pay as you go policy", paying for the construction of its facilities as they were built or expanded in order to avoid accruing indebtedness. Decidedly, this decision had made funds tight, so much so that in December, 1936, the Gazette was urging residents to join the club as "whatever funds have been taken in have already been used." To further finance its activities and facilities at Pratt's skating pond on East Main Street, as well as to fund the construction of the hockey rink and a proposed toboggan slide on Pratt's Hill, the skating club initiated an annual Tag Day appeal in 1938. The community was urged to generously support each year's appeal in the interests of the youngsters and families for which the club primarily had been founded.

Ultimately, with membership fees, dues and tag day funds, the skating club was able to maintain a sound fiscal footing (as revealed by its treasurer's report for the 1939-40 season), and cover its expenses, the largest of which, annually, were for custodial wages and snow removal.

However, the increase in membership in the skating club -necessary for the sake of financial solvency - brought with it "a decrease in those individuals willing to share in the responsibility of keeping things going." Progress made by the club in repairing the dam, improving the clubhouse, constructing the ice hockey rink, and purchasing snow removal and ice resurfacing equipment in the 1930s "was accompanied by an increasing lack of interest on the part of the leaders until only a few were left to share the responsibilities."

The club leadership struggled on through the winter of 1940-41 in hopes of attracting new leaders to further local winter sports. "It seemed inadvisable under these conditions to continue ..., but with a knowledge of the disappointment this would cause and the hope that the unexpected might turn up these few individuals decided to give it one more try."

In retrospect, it was the wrong decision. "The results were even more disastrous than anticipated. So bad in fact that continuation under the same conditions will be impossible." On April 7, 1941, with no prospective leaders forthcoming and the club's monthly expenses mounting, the Middleboro Skating Club met once more at Hodder and Anderson's barbershop, this time to formally disband. "In disbanding the officers want the public to know that the decision arrived at was anything but instantaneous. For two years, in addition to other duties at the rink, they have been trying to get other individuals or organizations interested but with very little success."

Stony Brook, Pratt Farm, Middleborough,

MA, photograph by Mike Maddigan,

December 27, 2004

Pratt's Skating Pond stood downstream on

Stony Brook, pictured here at Stony Brook

Road on the Pratt Farm.  Since its

abandonment in the mid-20th century, the

skating pond site has returned to forest.

Because the original constitution of the skating club had indicated that in the event of such a dissolution, the club's property would be turned over to another town organization, and as it had been established primarily for the benefit of the youth of Middleborough, the skating club, in one of its final acts, moved to donate the East Main Street clubhouse to the Middleborough Memorial High School. "It is hoped that the clubhouse can be moved to the high school football field where it will be protected by the fence, to a large extent, from vandalism. It also will be in the proper spot to be used once again as a skating clubhouse, if it ever becomes possible for the original plan of a skating rink at the playground to go through." (Not until 1961 would such a rink be constructed).

Despite the disbandment of the Middleboro Skating Club after only five years in existence, interest in skating and ice hockey remained high, and a number of attempts were made during the 1940s to recreate the success of the skating club. In late 1943, the Middleborough Board of Selectmen accepted an offer of Paul Silva to use his Carpenter Street cranberry bog as a public skating rink. The following year, selectman Benjamin J. Bump proposed spraying and flooding either the tennis courts or former football field at the Peirce Playground for use as a skating rink, a technique he had witnessed at Milton Academy. Soon afterwards, in November, 1944, the Kiwanis Club was granted permission to try to flood the old football field. It was a failure.

In January, 1946, the Kiwanis Club, largely through the prodding of the Middleboro Skating Club's former president, Alfred Hodder, revived ice skating at the old East Main Street rink, reinstalling lights for night time skating. Hockey was once more played, this time "with teams comprising in large part returned service men."

Ice skating would continue for a few years at the former Middleboro Skating Club rink before other pursuits attracted skaters elsewhere. The site was abandoned and decayed, returning to forest, and memories of soft winter evenings spent gliding across the ice at the Pratt Farm have faded.

"A Big Thing on Ice", 1880

Wooden Ice Skates, 19th century

These wooden skates were typical of those

used in the mid and late-19th century, and were

secured to the wearer's boots by means of

leather straps and metal buckles.

Featured at Classic Collectibles.

Historically, early winter witnessed the start of the skating season in Middleorough and Lakeville, the Nemasket River and the towns' numerous lakes and ponds providing perfect venues for the sport.  One unique way in which New Year's Day, 1880 was celebrated was with a competition on Lake Assawompsett between two local contestants.

There is to be a novel contest at Middleboro on New Year's day; in fact "a big thing on ice."  Charles Pierce of Bridgewater and J. S. Alden of Middleboro, are to skate on Assawampsett Lake, the best skater to be awarded a purse of twenty-five dollars, which is in the hands of responsible parties.

Sadly, there appears to be no other record of the contest, nor of its outcome and which contestant took home the considerable prize.

Source:Old Colony Memorial, "County and Elsewhere", December 11, 1879

Sleigh Racing

The onset of winter snow brings with it the refrain, “It’s lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you”, a reminder of one of the recreational pastimes of town dwellers a hundred years and more ago.

"The Sleigh Race", Currier & Ives,
lithograph, 1859.

For years, the relatively straight stretch of Main Street (both North and South) had formed a more informal race course and continued to do so into the early twentieth century, particularly in winter when hard-packed snow formed an exceptional surface for racing, sleighs replacing sulkies. Sleighing and sleigh-racing was a popular pastime in Middleborough and one frequently reported in the pages of the local newspapers. “Very fair sleighing here now” was a typical notation from the Middleboro Gazette in 1867. “The sleighing continues good in our village and the prospect is that it will be better, as there is snow in the air.”

For South Main Street races, drivers and horses would begin at the Middleborough-Lakeville line before charging the mile back to Middleborough Four Corners. Grace E. Clark writing as Eve Lynn in the Middleboro Gazette in1960, recalled “a day almost sixty years ago”, with “men folk with their snappy turnouts … racing up and down South Main street trying their best to beat each other. I remember Matt Cushing had one of the fastest little pacers on the road and he was so proud of her.” Possibly Clark was recalling December, 1896, when “the sleighing the first week was very good and on Monday and Tuesday afternoons South Main street was the scene of many hot brushes. J. A. Miller, was as usual at the head of the bunch, and the more interesting races were for second place.” Two years later, between Christmas and New Year’s, “sleighing was fair … and lovers of horse flesh were out on the Main street speedway” including “Thomas & Sisson’s Aland, driven by C. W. Morse; John A. Milller’s wonderful little mare Maude Elenah [sic], Thomas Sisson with Grey Ghost and Jennie Wilkes and Fletcher Barrows with Claynette”.

Following the turn of the century, snow racing moved to North Main Street where, during the winters of 1903-04 and 1904-05 near daily racing occurred.

“There was some speeding on North Main st. yesterday afternoon [December 30, 1903] by local horse owners. Among those out were John McNally, Cecil Clark and H. P. Thompson.”

“Yesterday afternoon [December 31, 1903] there was some lively trotting on North Main st. Among the horse owners who were out were Dr. A. C. Wilbur, Samuel Shaw, Norman Smith, H. A. Baker, Thomas Sisson, Bert Flanders, William Horne, John McNally and F. L. Barrows.”

“Snow speeding on Main street has been a popular diversion with owners of fast nags, this week” [December, 1904]

Sleigh racing on North Main Street remained the rage each winter, when local sportsmen were keen to demonstrate the abilities of their trotters, as well as to show off their sleighs and exhibit their driving abilities. North Main Street was favored not only for its relative straightness and central location, but probably more so because it was the location of the Nemasket House hotel.

The Nemasket House stable was the center of racing activity in Middleborough Center in the years around 1900. Owner Thomas G. Sisson had once been a partner in the livery firm of Thomas & Sisson at Middleborough’s “West End”, a position he relinquished in 1895. Nonetheless, Sisson remained a keen horseman, being described as “one of the few surviving old-time horsemen, whose life was identified with the sale and trading of horses, and whose delight was in holding the ribbons over one of his favorite speeders.”

The location of the Nemasket House and the proclivities of its owner made it a natural base for racing during the off season. The late Lyman Butler recalled that the hotel’s stable “was kind of a clubhouse for the jockeys in some of the sleigh races they used to have…”

"Trotters on the Snow", Thomas Worth,

Harper's Weekly, January 23, 1869

Near daily horse racing on North Main Street remained the fashion through the winter of 1906-07, if not into the following season, when wool-clad pedestrians would stand aside, mouths agape, as the horses came thundering down North Main Street, hooves in the air, clods of snow flying and lightly-built sleighs careening hard behind. During Christmas week, 1906, the roadway was described as “Middleboro’s favorite speedway, and many a hot brush has been pulled off on the snow, this week, the trotting being very good.” Among the contenders were Ben H. (driven by Bart Perkins) which “has kept the bunch guessing, Otis Briggs’ Belle Sheldon (2.24) driven by William F. Murphy, Fletcher L. Barrows’ Gamhurst which “showed a steady even gait”, and Ed Lovell’s Impudence which “traveled in good form, and Thursday led Ben H. down the snow path.” North Main Street trotting was again lively during the last week of January, 1907, “the increasing snowfall from day to day adding to the sport.” Prominent among the week’s winners were Ben H. (Thomas G. Sisson), Mountain Mist (William F. Murphy), and Marcus Daly (Bart Perkins). Other noted horses were Cecil B. (George E. Gove), Baby F. (Frank Fields), Gamhurst (Fletcher L. Barrows), Cleo (C. E. LeMunyon), as well as Dr. A. C. Wilbur’s chestnut roadster and Fields’ two-year-old colt.

Eventually, sleigh racing on North Main Street came to an end. The obvious safety issue notwithstanding, the increasing popularity of the automobile ultimately put an end to horse racing.

Click here for historic photographs of sleigh racing.

Puffs from the Steamboat, 1877

The following poem was written by a man named Fish on the occasion of the construction of John Baylies LeBaron's steam boat Pioneer.

The grand achievements of noble men
Deserve the homage of voice and pen
Their hidden thoughts like diamonds bright
Astonish the world when they come to light.
We need not go to a foreign shore
To find such men at your very door.
They daily pass with a busy brain
Building something and not in vain.
Next to the Creator, man
Fulfills his part of the infinite plan.
Little by little along life's road
Every good deed, is a prayer to God.
Who would have tho't fifty years ago
This town would ever be built up so
Or any old settler, dared to dream
Old Nevertouch Pond would be sailed by steam.
Nemasket crooks, and bridges too,
How a steamboat's funnel poking through,
Or the beautiful Lake a thing so fine
As a male and female steamboat line.
Some folks laughed and gave a sneer
At the mad idea of a steamboat here,
Saying - the rocks she'll never clear
Nor the narrows either, you might as soon
Undertake a voyage to the moon
On a foggy night in a steam spittoon.
But it seems somebody understood
His business well, as others should.
For the town forked 700 over
To make improvement in the river.
All of the Lakeville points of law
Weighed in the balance, less than straw,
Were argued a little just for fun
By votes unanimous, all but one.
And the following day the work began
At Harlow's Mill the stuff was planed
And dried by steam whene'er it rained.
On the gently sloping western side
Of Nevertouch, where the billows glide
The keel was laid, with ease and skill
July 19th this proving still
There's a way, whenever there's a will.
And every day the people go
To the boat, as they would to Barnum's show
And not a few are inclined to say
I guess after all, the thing will pay.
Men of science, and ladies fair
Foreigners with distinguished air,
Lame, halt, and blind, and out of repair
Say! Where is the steamboat, oh! tell us! Where?
Most every body is wide awake
For a greater commerce on the Lake
And very likely within a year
An hundred souls may be running here.
There'll be no need of travelling round
To Saratoga and Vineyard Sound
In quest of high toned rustication
But take the quickest transportation
By river steamer at moderate price
For the pleasure seekers' paradise
Of picnics, clambakes, fancy balls,
Hotels, saloons, and fested halls.
Bazaars, and palaces, and bowers
Wherein to woo the rosy hours.
In the great lake city, sure to grow
For all the Second Advents' know.

Illustration:
"Steamer Pioneer", adapted from "Natchez Steamboat", photograph by David Paul Ohmer, November 12, 2008, used under a Creative Commons license.

Nemasket Steamboats, 1877-95

Won’t it be fun to hear the boat’s whistle blow and see people hurrying with carpet bags, valises, trunks, etc.

Middleboro Gazette, July, 1877

The Upper Factory mill pond, the pond which is formed by the damming of the Nemasket River at Wareham Street, was once the site of Riverside Wharf, the embarkation point of Pioneer and Assawampsett, two small steam-powered side paddle boats which were operated as excursion craft in the last quarter of the century by owner John Baylies LeBaron (1845-1918).

When LeBaron first proposed the construction of a steamer to ply the Nemasket River, he had to address the matter of the three road bridges above Wareham Street. Waterman’s Hill Bridge (Grove Street), Alms House Bridge (Wood Street) and Vaughan’s Bridge (Vaughan Street) were all of low height and unaltered would restrict the passage of any steamboat underneath. At LeBaron’s request, Middleborough established a Bridge Committee comprised of A. C. Wood, J. G. Vaughan and J. H. Shaw to consider the matter. The committee reported favorably, and the town expended just over $900 to raise the bridges. Of this amount, $550 was paid to Samuel Clark, John Carver and Edgar Thomas for the work (exclusive of materials); $55.50 was paid for the services of the committee; $103.19 to Vaughan for lumber for the Waterman’s Hill Bridge and additional work on all three; $29.75 to Wood for additional work on Alms House and Vaughan’s Bridges; and $14.00 to B. P. W. Lovell for extra work on Vaughan’s Bridge. The balance, presumably, was spent on material.

It is likely that the town was motivated to expend the funds for the promotion of a strictly private enterprise by the prospect of Lake Assawompsett’s development as a local resort:

Picnic parties are all the rage now, from the village to the borders of these beautiful lakes, which we hope a recent act of the town meeting in voting to raise the river bridges to permit John Baylies LeBaron’s steamboat to pass under, will be made more accessible.

First built of LeBaron’s two steamboats was Pioneer in 1877 with lumber milled at the Ivory Harlow steam mill on Vine Street in Middleborough. Built as a flat-bottomed steamer, the boat had her forty foot keel laid on the bank of Nevertouch Pond on Middleborough’s West Side, and was equipped with a coal-burning upright steam boiler and a driving mechanism designed entirely by LeBaron. The boat was built to accommodate fifty passengers, though later reports reduced the number to forty as the optimal number. Following a successful test on Nevertouch, Pioneer, weighing some 4,500 pounds was hauled overland down Center Street and launched into the river.

Though Pioneer had been built expressly to be operated under LeBaron’s command, problems soon arose when it was required that LeBaron hold a fireman’s license in order to operate the craft. LeBaron, who did not have such a license, argued that since it was he himself who had built the boat and boiler, he certainly had an understanding of how the boat operated. Confronted with this logic, the license was duly granted.

Pioneer enjoyed a brief first season, being removed from the river in October, 1877, by William Downing who hauled the vessel to LeBaron’s yard where it was laid up for the winter. Pioneer was overhauled the following spring, with larger paddle wheels being added, as well as additional planking on the hull. She was repainted at this time, as well, and launched by Downing into the river from Rock Street in May, 1878, at which time the Gazette wrote that “we expect she will give greater satisfaction this season.”

In the spring of 1879, the boat was once again overhauled, refitted and repainted. The Old Colony Memorial reported in June of that year that Pioneer “has commenced making her regular trips to the lakes, and has had several excursion parties. Captain LeBaron is a first class hand for a ‘time,’ sparing no pains to please his patrons.”

An 1879 advertisement for Pioneer (which was later described as “very safe, though slow”) provides a wonderful prospectus of the typical trip on the river. Pioneer departed Riverside Wharf at one p. m. each Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, to cruise the Nemasket River and Lake Assawompsett. Once on Assawompsett, the boat would touch at Stony Point (Nelson’s) Grove before crossing the lake and passing through the Narrows into Pocksha Pond. The return journey would stop at Sear’s Grove before arriving back at Middleborough at four p. m. The three hour round trip covered seventy miles and cost fifty cents. Moonlight excursions were conducted every month and “societies, families and Private parties [were] accommodated any of the remaining days of the week at reasonable rates.”

Despite the promise of a successful third season on the river, Pioneer was temporarily disabled when soon after these reports she broke her shaft in June, 1879, putting her out of commission until mid-August. LeBaron believed the accident was due to an undetected crack in the shaft which occurred in July, 1878, “when her paddles became locked in the river grass and her gearing broke….”

Two years after her construction, Pioneer was joined – and later replaced – by Assawampsett. Built in 1879, Assawampsett was a sixty-four foot long craft, alleged to be capable of carrying one hundred passengers and an orchestra. E. T. P. Jenks, in 1943, affirmed that indeed the boat had “carried a load of forty or fifty people on the regular excursion to the lakes, three times a week and … on special occasions carried as many as a hundred or more.”

The boat had a flat bottom with a shallow draft which enabled it to pass over obstructions in the river with relative ease. The coal-fired boiler built by Lebaron was vented by an adjustable smokestack which could be lowered to allow clearance beneath the bridges upstream. Some accounts indicate that the smoke stack “was hinged and as the ship neared the bridges, a crewman went on the top deck and laid it flat, until the bridge was passed. Then it was raised again.” Other records indicate a different design for the smoke stack:

To allow for the boat’s getting under [the bridges, LeBaron] rigged a recessed smoke stack, which was lowered into a pocket in the top deck, until they cleared the bridge, then it was raised again.

In either case, passengers located on the top deck were required to go below until the bridge had been cleared.

Two men were required to operate the steamers, LeBaron acting as captain and either one of his sons, Elric H. or Jesse acting as fireman fueling the boiler, lowering the smoke stack and performing other tasks as needed. Among these latter duties was the removal of floating logs which had the potential of doing significant damage to the paddle wheels. On these occasions, the engine was cut and Elric LeBaron, “equipped with a saw, would crawl alongside the wheel and saw the log in two. The boat meanwhile was drifting down stream, but when power was again applied, that was made up, and the upstream trip was resumed.”

A “settin’ pole” was used to maneuver the craft off rocks and shoals, as well as to navigate tight bends along the middle portion of the route. At these spots, the engine was again stopped and the vessel powered and guided by means of the pole. Enabling the steamers to pass up river was a canal which had been cut just north of Vaughan Street in 1816. Initially intended to increase the flow of water to mills located further downstream, the canal “straightened the steamer path. It was a shortcut around a river bend of such small axis that the steamer could not make the curves.”

Occasionally, the steamboat excursions were marred by difficulty. Sometime in the 1880s while on a Fourth of July excursion, “the steamer met with an accident, losing part of her smoke stack, which caused some delay. A bolt was also lost, which delayed the passage, and the passengers were not landed until about half past one o’clock.” A similarly fated excursion arranged by E. T. P. Jenks and Fred Holmes set forth on a moonlit night but ended disastrously when the ship grounded on a rock at the foot of Rock Street. Disembarkation for the worn passengers was delayed until nearly dawn.

The steamers were highly popular with local residents, particularly during summer holidays when river outings were made to social events on the shores of the lakes, including the numerous picnics and regattas once held there. Personal recollections which survive nearly all speak highly of the delights of the river steamers, including at least one happy meeting aboard the boat:

Capt. Ezra Pickens of Foxboro, while on a visit to Middleboro, took a trip up the river in a little steamer, and on the way pointed out to a friend the place where he lived and worked as a boy. On remarking that a girl who lived there used to ride a horse at work, a lady near by interrupted the conversation to say that she was the girl. Upon this the old acquaintance was very happily renewed.

Children in the neighborhood of Wareham Street also were fond of the steamboats as they were frequently given free passage between Wareham and Grove Streets through the generosity of LeBaron.

Mr. LeBaron was a kindly man, and after he had delivered a party of passengers from a trip to the lake at the wharf at Wareham street, he always invited all the “young fry” within sound of his voice to “have a ride” as he took the ship upstream to its regular mooring berth near the so-called Japan bridge [at Grove Street].

There were always plenty of kids to go along on the slow trip up river, against the current, and that slow ride probably repaid them amply as they ambled afoot back to their home across the fields from what is now route 28 to the Wareham street section.

Though LeBaron is credited with “the distinction of being the first, and only, man to navigate a steamboat up the Nemasket River”, such was not the case. In 1857, Dr. Ebenezer W. Drake and Robert S. Capen were owners of a 28 foot boat, Namasket which had a capacity of twenty. The boat made trips down the river to Assawompsett, including a journey for a clambake in August, 1857, which was documented in the Namasket Gazette at the time. It is not clear whether the craft was a steamboat, however. Vigers’ History of the Town of Lakeville also credits William Young as having navigated the Nemasket successfully in a forty foot stern wheel paddle boat built for excursions up the river. Supposedly this boat made two trips up river before being relegated to Long Pond where it remained in use as a pleasure boat.

Young’s boat is likely the same as an unnamed one which was recorded as having been built during the spring of 1882 with a reported capacity of 200 passengers. Though this boat was planned to be in the water by June 20 of that year, it is was not in fact ready until the following spring when the Old Colony Memorial reported that “a new stern wheel steamer is to be put into Assawampsett lake this season, running in the excursion business from Middleboro to the lake…” This steamer was completed about late May, 1883, and had a draft of only eight inches. Its capacity had been downscaled somewhat from the original plans, carrying 150 passengers “comfortably.” In 1885, there is mention of yet another steamer, Nemasket, though this may have been identical with Young’s boat.

The Nemasket passenger steamers were joined by the private steam yacht Lavinia which was owned by Charles S. Stratton (better known as General Tom Thumb) and which was launched on the Nemasket in June, 1883, making “a trial trip which turned out very successful.” Named for Stratton’s wife, Lavinia W. (Bump) Stratton, a Middleborough native, Lavinia had been built three or four years previously in Plymouth and was considered “very fast.”

The popularity of steam boating on the river during the last quarter of the 19th century prompted the Old Colony Memorial to report somewhat tongue-in-cheek:

Middleboro’ is going into navigation quite extensively. Another steamer for the Nemasket River has just been purchased. If she keeps on this way the town will get included in some future river and harbor bill.

Yet despite its growing popularity, steam boating on the Nemasket River was fraught with difficulty. Young’s decision to abandon his boat to Long Pond may have been prompted by navigational difficulties along the river where rocks, small shoals, fluctuating water levels and a prodigious growth of grass often made passage difficult. In the spring of 1883, the Middleboro Gazette was calling “for local action to assist in clearing Nemasket River of rocks and shoals, so as to make steam boating practicable between the town and Assawampsett Lake, a fine sheet of water near by,” arguing that “such an expenditure might prove profitable to the town by attracting excursions to the Lake, the railroad also becoming a sharer in the benefits by increased travel.” The Old Colony Memorial echoed the Gazette’s sentiments, arguing that clearing the river would prove obligatory in the interests of navigation. “With such an interest in navigation, the town will soon have to undertake improvement of [the] Nemasket River.” One who took up this call was Stratton who in early August, 1883, “had intended clearing out the grass and blasting the rocks in the river to make a clear passage to Assawampsett Pond for his steam yacht ‘Lavinia’.” Stratton’s untimely death, however, prevented the plans from being acted upon and no further action seems to have been taken except for in 1885 when a portion of the river was dammed and drained to facilitate the laying of water pipes across the river bed at which time a number of rocks against which the steamer Nemasket had scraped were removed. LeBaron’s boats, with their very shallow draft, remained the only steamers capable of navigating the river with relative ease. Nonetheless, the lush growth of river grass (which was mowed periodically to aid the flow of water to the municipal electric light station) could sometimes hinder the boats’ progress upstream as witnessed by the disabling of Pioneer in 1879.

The romantic days of the Nemasket steamers continued until 1895 when the City of Taunton erected its gatehouse at the head of the river, appreciably lowering the level of water in the Nemasket and denying the steamers sufficient draft, as well as barring access to the scenic pleasures of Lake Assawompsett. At the time, LeBaron lodged a claim against the city for damages “because of the doing away of his steamboat business” and the fact that LeBaron’s claim ran “well into the thousands” is indicative of the popularity of the Nemasket steamboats.

With the end of the riverboat excursions, Assawampsett was pulled onto the bank at East Grove Street and the engine removed by Lebaron for use in hauling ice at his icehouses at Clark’s Springs. At one time, the boat broke loose and was carried by the current downstream where she became wedged against the stone abutments and blocked the river. Following this misadventure, Assawampsett was drawn back upstream into a small cove opposite the East Grove Street pumping station where she was left ignominiously to molder and rot. The smokestack was removed and left in the adjacent meadow where it decayed. By 1909, the decks were gone from the boat, and during World War I the boat’s remaining iron fittings were stripped by two industrious boys who reportedly hauled them away for scrap iron, carrying them on a long pole between them. Eventually, all that remained of Assawampsett was its keel and seven long ribs, though even this wreckage was long recalled as a landmark by those who saw her.

Illustration:
Assawampsett, photograph, late 19th century
John Baylies LeBaron's steam boat, Assawampsett, is seen on the lake for which it was named. Assawampsett was one of a number of steam boats which operated on the Nemasket River in the last quarter of the 19th century. Built in 1879, the vessel remained in service through 1894.

Sources:
Brockton Enterprise, "Nemasket River Once famed for Steamboat Excursions", August 11, 1949, and Steamboat Days on Lake Assawampsett", June 15, 1953.

Middleboro Gazette, "What the Gazette Was Saying Twenty Five Years Ago", April 16, 1920; "What the Gazette Was Saying Fifty Years Ago", July 8, 1927; ibid., July 15, 1927; ibid., May 11, 1928; ibid., May 24, 1929; ibid., June 28, 1929; "Enjoy Stories of Old Times", June 11, 1943, p. 2.

Middleborough Antiquarian

Old Colony Memorial

Romaine, Mertie E. History of the Town of Middleboro, Massachusetts. Volume II. Middleborough, MA: Town of Middleborough, 1969.

Standard-Times [New Bedford], "Steamers on Water Supply Ponds, Resorts Features of Olden Scene", September 26, 1935.

Fishing at North Middleborough, c. 1910

This postcard from the early 20th century speaks for itself. While North Middleborough was never a great destination for tourists for fishing, this humorous card seems to have been too funny to pass up. Generic cards such as these were printed in the hundreds of thousands and stamped with the individual locale at the bottom. Most likely, this card was sold in the North Middleborough store alongside more traditional picture postcards depicting the neighborhood.

Sledding on Indian Hill

Indian Hill in the rear of the former Star Mill was throughout much of the late 19th and early 20th centuries a noted location for sledding and toboganning in winter, attracting both neighborhood children and adults. Among those who enjoyed the recreation there were Rose Standish Pratt and her sister-in-law Louise Pratt seen here on the right pulling their sled back up the hill about 1913 or 1914. In the second photo, the two women (with Louise Pratt in front) speed down the hill, the delight on their faces evident in the view.

Louise Pratt who was noted for her love of winter sports is said to have owned the first pair of skis in Middleborough which she used on the gentler slopes of Pratt Hill on East Main Street. On several occasions, when winter roads were made impassable by snow, Louise Pratt would make her way from her home at the Pratt Farm to her job at the Middleborough Public Library on snow shoes.

Later, following 1928, the Indian Hill property was owned by the Maddigan family and the rocky pasture continued to be used in winter for sledding by members of the family, including the author who recalls the course as particularly fast and bone-jarring.

Illustrations:

Rose Standish Pratt and Louise Pratt (and two unidentified girls), Indian Hill, Middleborough, MA, photograph, c. 1913-14.

Rose Standish Pratt was an avid amateur photographer and it is likely that she brought her camera along on the sledding outing. It is also likely that it is her husband, Ernest S. Pratt, who took the photographs of his wife and sister.

Louise Pratt and Rose Standish Pratt, Indian Hill, Middleborough, MA, photograph, c. 1913-14.

This photograph is unique for capturing the action of the sled down the slope of Indian Hill. A third photograph from the series depicting Louise and Rose Standish Pratt at the crest of the hill was previously posted and may be viewed here).

"A Fresh Hold of Life": Skating on Great Quitticus

On January 15, 1860, Daniel Ricketson of New Bedford wrote his good friend Henry David Thoreau at Concord describing the skating he enjoyed on the day following Christmas, 1859, in the company of his sons Arthur and Walton Ricketson. The trio made a long but pleasurable circuit of the Middleborough ponds.

We've been having a good deal of wintry weather for our section of late, and skating by both sexes is a great fashion. On the 26th of last month, Arthur, Walton, and I skated about fifteen miles. We rode out to the south end of Long pond (Aponoquet), and leaving our horse at a farmer's barn, put on our skates, and went nearly in a straight line to the north end of said pond, up to the old herring weir of King Philip, where we were obliged to take off our skates, as the passage to Assawamset was not frozen. We stopped about an hour at the old [Sampson] tavern and had a good solid anti-slavery, and John Brown talk with some travellers....

After this scene we again assumed our skates from the Assawamset shore, near by, and skated down to the end of the East Quitticus pond, the extreme southern end of the ponds; thence crossing to West Quitticus, we skated around it, which with the return from the south end of the former pond to our crossing place, we estimated at something over 15 miles. Taking off our skates we took a path through the woods, and walking about a mile came out in some old fields near our starting point. We put on our skates at 10.30 o'clock A. M., and at 3 P. M. were eating dinner at the old farm-house of William A. Morton, near the south shore of Long Pond.

I, as well as my boys, enjoyed the excursion very much. We saw our favorite pond under entirely new aspects, and visited many nooks that we had never before seen - sometimes under the boughs of the old cedars, draped in long clusters of moss, like bearded veterans, and anon farther out on the bosom of the lake, with broad and refreshing views of wild nature, taking the imagination back to the times of the Indians and early settlers of these parts - shooting by little islands and rocky islets, among them the one called "Lewis Island." which you thought would do for a residence. I got a fresh hold of life that day, and hope to repeat the pleasure before winter closes his reign. I found myself not only not exhausted, as I had expected, but unusually fresh and cheerful on my arrival home about 5 P. M. The boys stood it equally well. So my friend we shall not allow you all the glory of the skating field, but must place our Aponoquet, Assawamset and Quitticas-et, in the skating account with your own beloved Musketaquid [Concord River] exploits....

I expect to be in Boston at the annual meeting of the Mass. A. S. Society, near at hand, and hope to see you there, and if agreeable should like to have you return home with me, when, D. V., we may try our skates on the Middleborough ponds.

We all spoke of you and wished you were with us on our late excursion there.

Illustrations:

Currier & Ives, "Early Winter", lithograph, mid-19th century

Daniel Ricketson (1813-98), frontispiece from Daniel Ricketson and His Friends: Letters, Poems, Sketches, Etc. (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1902).

Source:
Ricketson, Anna and Walter Ricketson, eds. Daniel Ricketson and His Friends: Letters, Poems, Sketches, Etc. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1902, pp. 101-03