Friday, May 25, 2018

A memorial Field Day at Oakland Gardens on Quaboag 1896

 Image of Oakland Garden @1905 photographer Theodore Clemens Wohlbruck, from the American Antiquarian Society collection
L.J. Richards & Co. Atlas 1898
Brookfield Weekly Times, June 5, 1896
FORESTERS FIELD DAY AT OAKLAND GARDENS, May 30, 1896  (excerpts from a 2 column article at the library)
Every available team from surrounding towns was pressed into service.  (Ware, Spencer and all the Brookfields).  Old Quaboag lake was in a happy mood, her bosom was just ruffled by the passing breeze, while here and there her surface was dotted by boats moving lazily along, the merry laugh of the occupants echoing shoreward over the sparkling waves.
By 12 o’clock it is estimated that there were 1500 people on the grounds and by 2 o’clock this number had been increased to 2500: practically everybody came in coaches and carriages, hence there were teams everywhere; some were hitched in the open, many in the groves, while not a few found their way into the stables.
            About this time a party of nearly 20 lady bicylists arrived from West Brookfield, dressed in their jaunty wheeling costumes, they made a decided stir among the young men, some of whom had apparently been waiting for them.
            The big stack of sandwiches stored away in the restaurant were in great demand, everybody seemed to be hungry and dry.  At the lunch counter under the grandstand it was the same story; temperance drinks were sold the rate of a case a minute until the supply was exhausted.
(Events included: tournament ball games and horse trots.  The Foresters competed by laying 200 feet of dry hose the quickest.)


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