About Us
The picture is from the town beach on Hamblin Pond (formerly called Clear Lake) to the hillside end of 240 Mistic Drive. The Clear Lake Duck Farm in the foreground sold ducks to Chinese restaurants in Boston and NYC.
The lake was then called Clear Lake. The boxes in a curved line near the water are feed cars that were loaded in the house near the top of the picture by local boys. One feed loader was Bob Parker. The feed was loaded into the top floor and emptied into the feed cars from the lower floor. The feed cars were moved via a narrow gauge railroad track to and from each pen area. One car was put into each pen area. The pen areas extended from the cranberry bogs on one side of Mistic Drive to 20 feet into the lake on the lake side of Mistic Drive where there was a fence so the ducks could drink but not swim away to Middle Pond. Getting to the properties near Middle Pond Lake consisted of riding down the ridge between the two sides of Mistic Drive - between the house property lines. You needed to get out of the car and open each gate, ride through and then close each gate of each pens in order to keep the ducks in their own pen. Combination of droppings from the ducks and the Canadian geese, that fed on the pre capped garbage hill at the recycle center, greatly contributed to the green water and subsequent alum treatment of Hamblin Pond.
The turkey farm was in the long buildings at the top of the picture. More research is needed to gather information about the turkey farm.
Complements of Donna DeFlorio