Cooling off ---way back when

Doing research for a blog like this is a journey easily detoured.  Often one finds treasures just a bit removed...or even a lot...from the subject at hand.  Such was my experience when I wandered through old photos of Taunton summers on the net.  To be sure, all Tauntonians, including Villagers, enjoyed these cooling venues.  Come along, then, who knows where we will end up.  I do not have a whole lot of information on these photos, but we will let imagination roam.....and also hope some readers who chip in with stories and photos.

Here is a 1908 photo of what must be Bay St. but is labeled Sabbatia Lake Road and Lake.  The lake is just off Bay St. in the Whittenton.  Only memories of what is was, remain in the soft echoes of the water sounds.

But, back in the early 1900's this was a destination!  The trolley took Tauntonians all the way to "Sabatia Lake Park."  According to this old linen map shared by a fellow Tauntonian, Dave Melanson, there was a Merry-Go-Round there which has its own place on the map.  Incidentally, in a story worthy of The Pickers on T.V. Davefound a whole set of linen maps blowing in the breeze on a table at a flea market.  Apparently, in those days architects often recorded plans and maps on linen.  The moral of that story is always to treat flea markets with respect, one never knows the finds awaiting discovery.  Here is  one of Dave's maps, for which we are grateful,
showing Sabbatia Lake, the Pavillion and Merry Go Round.

Below a postcard photo (source:Cardcow) of

Main St. in Taunton in the early 1900's.  You can see the

web of Trolley tracks crisscrossing the streets.

Here is another postcard, but taken in 1946.  So clearly, when I was a child,

Sabbatia was still a destination where families could cool off.

The Park reportedly included amusements, such as the Merry Go Round we mentioned.  Also, dancing and such as well as places to purchase food.  Knowing my folks, we probably brought our own however.  As cars because more commonplace, fathers drove families further and we were to be found in the early 50's at Swift's Beach and such. The highway system that has become a voracious beast needing constant feeding and a technological age has taken our focus from simpler pleasures and gathering places of generations past.  Yet today, many of us seek out remnants of those places, get excited when we actually get to stroll down a country road or is we can, go for a quiet bike ride. In the days of yesteryear those were the norms....we still seek out those norms today.

                                                                                           

 1940's photo from Pinterest that could 

    have been taken at the old Sabbatia Lake Park...

        Here is a little musical interlude helping us to get in the mood for a different day long ago....