SKATING AT THE MILL POND 

Molly Faulkner

With thanks to Gary Chase, Bob Dorey, Mike Lindemann, Mike Lowery, Mark Shepard.

This winter, 2018-19, has so far yielded some great pond skating in Wayland after conditions haven’t been good for years.  The days before Thanksgiving, a few days after Christmas and some days in late January, very cold temperatures and no snow enabled young skaters to enjoy the Mill Pond. Old(er) skaters like Mark Shepard, Peter Connelly and Ricky Irving (early 70s Wayland hockey players) played hockey at nearby Shep’s Pond on a cold January night where the ice was black and smooth and, even with lights, they could barely see the puck.  

Pond skating was wildly popular with most everyone in Wayland until organized team sports, commercial recreation, and “second homes” drew people away from the local ponds, according to local historian George Lewis.  

HOW DID MILL POND GET ITS NAME?

Mill Pond—accessed from Plain Road, near Concord Road, and from Millbrook Road– is the site of the mill built for Thomas Cakebread in 1639 Wayland — then called Sudbury. These early Sudbury settlers dammed up the brook creating a pond and built a mill to grind the corn they grew. After just four years, Cakebread died and his son in law, John Grout, and his descendants, operated the mill for generations. John Grout’s grandson, Jonathan, built the original house know for years as the Grout Heard House, home of the Wayland Museum & Historical Society at 12 Cochituate Road. 

After the need for gristmills had long passed, commercial dairy farming  grew thanks to railroads, and ice harvesting, storage and delivery became the new business opportunity at the Mill Pond. What made Mill Pond so perfect for skating made it also perfect for ice cutting.  

Arthur Atwood, operating Arthur Atwood’s Coal, Wood and Ice Company, just across from today’s Public Safety Building, leased the pond from the Adams family and built ice houses for storing blocks of ice until delivery. The Mill Dam icehouse at the Mill Dam was built from what  remained after the 1890 fire at the old Grout mill.  Arthur Atwood also supplied the town’s needs for wood, coal, and oil.

Yet, while ice cutting was big business on Mill Pond, skating was popular there and elsewhere.  Ice skating was one of the few sporting activities including men and women and people of all backgrounds.  We know that special excursion trains carried up to 1,500 skaters daily to Jamaica Pond in 1850s Boston. At a Concord River skating party in December 1842, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Ralph Waldo Emerson met for an afternoon of frolicking on an icy river—Emerson skating “earnestly,” Hawthorne “grandly,” and Thoreau moving wildly in what Sophia Hawthorne described as “dithyrambic dances and Bacchic leaps.” Thoreau skated up to 60 miles in one day on the Sudbury, Concord and Assabet Rivers.

WAYLAND IS GIVEN “AN OPEN PLEASURE GROUND”

In 1936, land around and including Mill Pond was conveyed to the town, thanks to owner Charlotte Adams’s bequest, “to be maintained as an open pleasure ground…(f)or the public use and benefit of the inhabitants of Wayland.”  She hoped  “that this area may be laid out and maintained as a park…..called The Adams Park.” Meanwhile ice harvesting at Mill Pond continued well into the 1940s; there were two ice houses, one at each end of the Mill Pond.

MILL POND in the 60s/THE MAZE/Shep’s Pond/The Heyday of Pond Skating

Mark Shepard (of Shep’s Mobil) grew up just north of Mill Pond and has a long family association with Mill Pond. His grandfather cut ice there in the winter and his dad, Shep, used to deliver ice to households during the spring, summer and fall from the ice houses at Mill Pond.  

When good “natural” skating conditions with black ice were spoiled by the first snow, Shep worked hard to maintain the pond for skating using sweepers, snow blowers, and a little Willy’s jeep.  He would clear the Mill Pond for the figure skaters and the young kids; then he cleared Mill Brook (the Maze) for the older hockey players (10-12 and up – if you were good enough).  The Maze, a flooded area of Mill Brook, was so-called due to all the little islands and tufts; it was a perfect place to learn stick handling – playing tag and follow the leader.  And, it was perfectly safe – only 2-3 feet deep.  The Maze was just outside Mark’s back door; he and friends would put on their skates in Mark’s kitchen and then skate down a 50’  iced (by Mark) hill onto the ice north of Plain Road. When kids were hungry, Mark’s mom, Effie, made mini pizzas with English muffins, Ragu and a little cheese to feed and warm them before they skated  some more. They’d skate from 7 am to 10 Saturday night, 6-7 on Sundays.  Shep dug a pond on his property for even more skating – “Shep’s Pond”.  

Gary Chase, Wayland High’s wrestling coach from 1998-2007, recalls:  “I was always envious of the kids who played ‘at Shep’s’ as that was where all ‘the good kids played’ –my skills weren’t good enough to hang with that group – but I played on the Mill Pond.  Back in the days before water bottles when kids drank from hoses in the summer we used to slide on our stomachs to the edge of the water fall to get a drink when thirsty. I remember the water being ice cold and very refreshing! I never had parental supervision, I would get dropped off and picked up and would often have to walk home on Concord Road with frozen feet.”

Shep was big in the Natick Youth Hockey program (Comets); he and Bill Chase who had the barbershop (near Shep’s Mobil) maintained a skate shop right behind the station – before the rink in Natick was built in spring of 1971.  Gary Chase recalled that Wayland High School had team tryouts on the pond during the first week of December.  Mark recalls that Bill Morris, who used to own the boards at the Cochituate ballfield,  brought them to Mill Pond c. 1968 for a year or two before they became frozen in the ice and then wrecked when going over the dam.

Mill Pond was regularly dredged in the 1960s to 6-10 feet. Some 100 people would skate there every weekend day, and somehow, no one recalls concussions or lost teeth albeit maybe a twisted ankle from catching a crack in the ice. No one wore helmets.

During the 70’s and into the 80’s, the Wayland Park Department closely monitored the ice once it began forming around early December.  As soon as the ice supported a person ice measurements were made , close to shore at first, by chipping a small hole in the ice and using a custom made measuring stick to determine thickness. When the ice measured 4” of “black ice” at every one of the several measured locations the ice would be declared safe. If the ice was cloudy, 6” of measured ice would be needed to be deemed safe. Down near the foot bridge over the dam was a light pole where a green flag would be flown when the ice was safe and a red flag when the ice was deemed unsafe. You could also call a special Park Department recording to get the latest safety update. 

Park Department  4×4 trucks with plows cleared the pond when snow fell.  While there was a risk of having the truck breaking through the ice, there was little danger for the driver as the pond was shallow — perhaps 5 feet deep at its deepest. In 1975 the Park Commission purchased a Ford Bronco, a light weight SUV type utility vehicle, used by Assistant Superintendent Eric Nelson for his daily duties and to plow the pond in the winter.  

When the weather grew very cold the Park crews would also flood the pond at night using a fire hose attached to a specially installed water valve buried below the frost line.  This created a surface as smooth as an ice skating rink. Special attention was given to insure that the ice surface was at its best during the weekends, and at Christmas and winter vacations.  Mike Lindemann, former head of the Park Department, says “ we used to come in at 10pm , sweep and spray the ice until 2am if the temp was below 30 degrees and do this at least once a week.  We’d sweep every day which took about two hours — bundled up and freezing until I made some heated cabs for the sweepers.  We took a lot of pride in the maintenance of the pond and all the enjoyment the people got from it.”

WHO TO CALL?  FIRE?  HIGHWAY!  PARKS!

During the winter of 1978- 79 the Park crew, which included  longtime WHS wrestling coach Gary Chase, was clearing the pond after a snow storm when the driver of the Bronco broke through the ice in front of the middle shed and floated before settling on the bottom with the water just below the roof line.  The driver, Richard Nagle, calmly rolled down the window and climbed out. 

Chase, the foreman on the job, contacted the Fire Department as they needed someone in the water to extricate the truck , but was informed that as it was not a safety issue, it was a Park Department problem. The Highway Department, when contacted, sent their big John Deere loader and State Road Auto Body sent a tow truck.  Chase, a certified SCUBA diver, tunneled under the plow to attach the tow hook and was able to get the truck out of the pond.

Park mechanic Charlie Campbell got the truck running in just three hours and it continued to be used as a supervisory vehicle and a pond plow vehicle for the next 3 years. 

There were amenities on-site. At the dam end of the pond was an ice skate changing shed, built by the Boy Scouts, and another changing shed at the middle of the pond. Attached to the surrounding trees, a  series of lights  would go on every evening from 4 pm to 10 pm. This bucolic New England setting was probably the most active recreation area in the town at the time, with huge crowds coming to the pond every weekend and each evening. 

TOWN BEGINS TO PULL SUPPORT

Due to the ever increasing price of new vehicles the Park Commission made the decision in the 1980s that town vehicles would not be used to plow Mill Pond; however they did allow the Park Department to purchase a used 4×4 vehicle for $500 which Department mechanic Mike Lindemann retrofitted with an old plow. This truck was used for several seasons until it would no longer pass inspection and the Park C omission decided that it was not worth the money and effort to plow the pond any longer. The Park Department continued to sweep and flood the pond when possible but a snow storm could quickly end the skating season.

ONGOING WARMER WEATHER

During the 80’s the winter skating season became shorter and shorter with fewer safe skating days each season.  Mark Shepard said that if there were 45-60 ‘skate-able’ days in the winter, they’d be on the pond for 45 of them.  Now you’re lucky if there are 5 skateable days.”  He and others believe that warmer winters caused by development and climate change have changed the rain/snow line from Rte. 128  out to 495.

The town stopped caring for the winter pond, except in the winter of 2014-15 when the DPW cleared the pond for skating and activated lights using generators for night skating. Then the following summer, the town contracted with a company to remove detritus and debris buildup, but this amounted to only 100 cubic yards.  According to Gary Chase, the Mill Pond doesn’t bear any resemblance to what it was in its prime. With the sediment build up and all the fallen trees, he says it’s hard to imagine how vibrant it was all through the 60s, 70s and 80s.

PRIVATE ATTEMPTS

Around 2004- 2005, a good Samaritan spent $15,000 to recondition a truck and proceeded to plow the pond of snow and, according to Mark Shepard,  “on his last turn coming down the far side he got too close to the shore and dropped both wheels through the ice – 200 ‘ from the dam. It must have cost him a fortune: he had to get tow trucks, guys with chain saws, and they had to saw, not only all the way to the dam, but every 3-4 feet, moving chunks of ice in order to pull it out, pretty much destroying the body of the truck.”   

THE FUTURE?

Our changing climate has limited much of the skating on Mill Pond and many of the private costly back-yard rinks have suffered from warm winters. Yet, as Mark Shepard knows and a large group of Wayland kids know, you can still find places to skate even when the ponds aren’t good.

The DPW still grades the road in and out of Mill Pond, collects the trash during the summer, and removed a fallen tree there last year.  Mike Lowery, chair of the Board of Public Works, says that they have voted to rename the area around Mill Pond as Adams Park — finally honoring Charlotte Adams’s wishes. 

The photographs used in this article were provided by the Wayland Museum & Historical Society, the Shepard family, the Wayland DPW or by the author.