Skiing from the Lookout
railroad tracks from the Lookout now, but nearly eighty years ago it must have been a very different place. Most of the trees on the slope look younger than that, and if you were daring enough you could risk your neck and go down the hill. Willard Taft, the subject of John's story, died in 1999 at the age of 94. There's a plaque near the entrance to the Parklands, a little beyond the bathhouse, that honors his volunteer work there. Willard's twin brother Harold died in 2008 at the age of 103. In the late thirties and early forties, the Seven Sister Gang spent many hours playing on Lookout Hill. About three or four hundred yards to the north side of the stone building (shown at top of this page), there was a gutted two-story house that was falling down. We played in that house for years. The story I referred to in an earlier email has to do with Willard Taft who lived on Dutcher Street. From the stone house to the railroad tracks, there is or was a real steep path between a quarter and a half mile long. About halfway down the hill there was a standing rotted dead tree trunk about eight or ten feet high. It took three kids holding hands to reach around the tree. In the winter when it snowed we would go to the dump, get some cardboard boxes, go up the hill, and use the boxes to slide down this path at great speed. A couple of real good skiers, Willard Taft and another guy whose name I don’t remember, used to ski down this path, and believe me it was no easy task. If you ever walked up from the tracks to the top of the hill, you would think anybody skiing down there was nuts. I’m not sure of the timeframe of this part of the story. I remember going up the hill and seeing a huge hole in two sides of the tree stump and couldn’t figure out what had happened. Well, a couple of days later the mystery was solved when I read the Milford News. Taft, who was around ten years older than me (in his early 20s) was one of the skiers who had skied down the hill earlier that day. He had gone down at a great rate of speed and went right through the tree trunk. It took his leg and a couple of ribs and he got beat up pretty bad. He was alone, and according to the paper he dragged himself down the hill, across the tracks, through the Parklands, across the frozen pond, through the woods, and out onto Dutcher Street where he was found. I believe I saw his name in one of your lists of people from Hopedale who died a couple of years ago.
at the Lookout, 352 feet at the tracks below the Lookout, and 274 feet at Hopedale Pond. The distance from the Lookout to the tracks is about 1200 feet, and from the Lookout to the pond is about 1450 feet. |
picture, but on the other side it drops off sharply, going down to the railroad tracks and then Hopedale Pond. |
Hopedale Pond, was taken from the path to the Lookout. You may not be able to tell from this view, but it's rather steep. |