Memories of the "Wrong " side of Piper Pond by Wayne Bennett

The west side of the pond was called by the newspapers when advertising a cottage for sate as being on the "wrong" side of Piper. The camps on this side did not have electricity until the fall of 1971, but the other side had power for years.

My folks had bought a lot from Victor Race in the early 1950's and had planned to build a camp. The cost was $1.00 a foot- a hundred foot of shore frontage cost $100.00. They had just laid the first sill when the camp owners next door decided to sell and the folks bought the property.

It was, and still is, just a camp composed of one room and loft-bare wails- and an outhouse. Somewhere along the way the Old Man (Lloyd Bennett ) tore down a couple of old buildings to get used lumber to build a porch.

One 4, of July weekend we completed construction on the porch that more than doubled the living space of the camp.

As kids we spent a lot of time at camp. We had baseball games in the summer but came out to go to the game but would spend two or three weeks at a time there. The Old Man would go back and forth to work and pick up what we needed for supplies or food on the way home.

We had an old wooden boat that we had to caulk and paint every spring and put in the pond to soak so the wood would expand to stop the boat from leaking. My brother Craig delivered papers to raise money to purchase a 3 1/3 horsepower Evinrude out board motor to move us around in style. He remembers buying the motor from Buster Tripp's Sporting Goods store in Guilford.

My Grandmother, Ruby Stone, had an old wood john boat in her barn that we took up to Piper. We used old odds and ends of paint, left over from other jobs, to paint the craft. The result was a "rainbow" paint job!

seem to remember a lot of company at camp. My mother Opal Bennett sister Ellen Merrill and her husband Donnie and his parents, Alton and Celia Merrill camp up a Cot to fish for white perch. The used hand lines, not poles, which you don't see much anymore.

A cousin of Grandma's, George Race had a camp in the cove that he sold. He gave us a swimming platform, floating on barrels. It had a six foot or so tower with a diving board. The neighborhood kids, the Titcombs and related families, the Bridges and Hails came up to swim and cook hot dogs and marsh mellows on the fireplace that the Old Man had cobbled together.

We had an old battery powered radio that we listened to Fibber McGee and Molly was one that I remember. it seems like the battery was as big as a car battery and had to be replaced every spring. The antenna was a piece of wire strung out to a nearby tree.

I don't remember being bored. We swam slot - you had to wait an hour after a meal before you could swim. The theory apparently was that you could cramp up and drown E if you didn't wait a full 60 minutes.

We had a couple of metal pipes and real horseshoes to play with. Seems like a ringer was worth 25 points and a leaner was worth 15 points.

We fished about every night after supper. The fish did not go to waste. We ate what we caught-fried or in a chowder.

Everyone had a wooden boat. I remember Oshea Buzzell taking a load of firewood down to us camp "Sunrise". The boat was like a small dory and would be loaded right to the water line. One good wave would have sunk the whole thing.

Grandma's sister and brother-in-law, Beulah and Albert Lovejoy had a "speed" boat. It was wooden and had been brought back from Florida-complete with a 25 horse power Evinrude motor. It was good for water skiing or pulling a surfboard. That was just a little platform that was hauled behind the boat, like water skis, on a rope. If the tip of it went under water pointing down, it would go right to the bottom.

Eventually aluminum boats came along and the motors got bigger. About ten or fifteen years ago the inboard motors- boats arrived. They were too big for the pond. if you could go from the head to the foot of the pond in two minutes, what are you going to do for the rest of the day?

The latest thing is party boats- large floating pontoon craft that travel slowly around the pond.

(Jesse and Kazia Russell had a store at the head of the pond. They rented boats and motors for fisherman and had two camps that they rented on the east side of the pond.

Some of the early camps on the Pond were "Sunrise" on the west side. At the foot of the pond was "Moneysunk" owned then by Ivory Bickford The story told was that Ivory was on the pond one night after dark when he was run over by another boat. Neither boat had tights. No one was hurt but supposedly, the motor is still on the bottom of Piper Pond.

Another early camp was owned by Flobert Morse over in "Flobert’s Cove". The area on both sides of his camp was swampy and he often said that if he had known of later development beside his camp that would soon come along he would have bought the area for himself.

Another old camp was the "Crocket" camp. The owner had a bakery in Guilford. can remember hearing the bears "hollering" at night at the food of the pond.

Bullfrogs! There were some big bull frogs at camp. If you stretched them out that would measure 10 or 12 inches long. They put up quite a racket at night. It was quite a job for a little fellow to catch and old on to one of those brutes.

I remember whittling as a kid. Every boy carried a jack knife. I looked a while ago to see if I could find a tree at camp that still had my initials still carved into the bark. No luck.

Craig and I and kid guests slept on the porch on cots. Grandma Stone had a small cot and slept downstairs and the folks slept upstairs.

Water spiders would get into camp some times. They were big black ugly things and were not too pretty to look at.

There was a spring for drinking water on the camp road that is now called the French Road. There was another spring in the woods at the foot of the Pond that people would boat to. It was down by Lower Sucker Brook. There was an old stove in the ruins of a log cabin on the trail to the spring.

There was one big fish down in front of "Sunrise" cottage. The Old Man tried to catch him for years but never did. He would give a good hard bite, but was never caught.

My brother Craig was a good swimmer. He would swim up to the point and we would trail behind in a boat. I could never, and still can't, swim. I had flippers and a mask and could go under water like a streak but would sink like a rock if 1 tried to swim on the surface.

We would walk out to the tarred road to meet the Old Man as he returned from work. There were two apple trees that we snacked on as we waited.

There was an old junked car- a convertible-near the spring. i was chucking rocks at it one day and one bounded back at me and came close to nailing me. Revenge!

The folks would visit back and forth with Victor and Pearl Race who had a camp three doors down. Vic and the Old Man would swap labor as needed. Vic had a big block and tackle the Old Man would borrow to take out the boat and dock.

Camp life came to a halt after Labor Day when school started. We might go to camp one more time to swim before it got too cold, but summer was over by then.

The roof of the porch was relatively flat so along about March vacation Craig would load up a bunch of neighborhood boys and we would go to camp to shovel off the heavy spring snows to keep the roof from collapsing.

Whetstone Pond was the place where the rich people had their camps. The lawyers and doctors had their camps there. Piper was the poor man's pond.

I don't remember who had the camp next door. Baileys from Cambridge owned it in later years. The next camp was owned early on by a Greeley family from Parkman. Later Jay and Patsy Fortier bought the place. Now Ralph and Sarah Williams live there full time.

Followup letter from Dave Moulton 2014

Good Morning Wayne,

Received your note and memories of Piper Pond, wrong side, the other day. I could tell your recollections, like mine are fond. M am sure you Know or are almost sure that I am one of the folks from away that were not at "sandy beach camp" often. I had never heard of it being called that but you can rest assured it will often be referred to as such hence by me. My uncle was a farmer in Kittery and my father worked at the shipyard there. Unfortunately, in the early days work along with distance prevented

as many visits as we all would have liked.

My father and his brother started hunting from Bill Harmons camp, I think that's the one you refer to as Sunrise Camp, in the late nineteen thirty's. My uncle bought the lot where he my father and others from there hunting party built the camp that still stands today. My cousin and I first appeared on the scene in nineteen fourty six. We were nine. We immediately named the huge bolder on the other side of the brook "Pirates Rock". It was the next year that the camp started to be more than a hunting camp. It became a family retreat and my most favorite place in the whole world.

As the years passed the rear focal point for many of us became deer hunting in the fall in piper pond "wrong side" woods. So many story's never live long enough to put them on paper but I'm going to try. The enclosed adventure took place during one of these trips. The setting is along the edge of the Sucker brook head waters and is true. I hope it brings a smile or two.

Thank you and please thank Carolyn for meeting with me after you had dosed down for the season. It was enjoyable and informative and I hope we get to talk again. There is so much I would like to Know about that patch of woods behind "sandy beach camp" on the wrong side of piper pond.

Regards, Dave Moulton