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Sudbury Mass.

Babe Ruth Throws a Piano Into a Pond: The Truth Behind the Legend

Babe Ruth once got drunk while in Sudbury, Mass., and threw a piano into Willis Pond to show off his strength.

Did Babe Ruth really throw a piano into this pond?

That, at least, is one legend. The other is that Babe and his friends pushed the piano down a hill onto the ice for a party. The Babe’s wife played the piano while everyone else danced and drank. When the party ended, the partygoers found the piano too heavy to push up the hill. So Babe Ruth just left it there to sink when the ice melted.

What isn’t a legend is that people spent a great deal of time and money to find the Babe’s legendary piano in the sludge at the bottom of the pond.

It’s also true that Babe Ruth tried his hand at farming in Sudbury, even after he was sold to the Yankees.

Babe Ruth in Sudbury

Babe Ruth was called up to pitch for the Boston Red Sox in 1914. He liked to eat breakfast at Landers’ Coffee Shop in Boston, where he met and wooed Helen Woodford, a 17-year-old waitress. They were married in the fall of 1914.

Babe Ruth pitches against the Yankees on Opening Day, 1917

He got to know Sudbury because some of his Red Sox teammates owned hunting and fishing camps in Sudbury. He rented a camp in 1917 and 1918, the year the piano landed in the lake.

Ruth pitched the Red Sox to a World Series victory that year. Then in 1919, owner Harry Frazee sold him to the New York Yankees. The Red Sox failed to win a championship for decades. Fans came to blame the team’s losing ways on the Curse of the Bambino, a result of Frazee’s treason.

The Ruths, meanwhile, lived in the Ansonia Hotel on Broadway, home of many celebrities. Helen preferred Sudbury.

Bambino gained weight in 1922 and had a terrible season. He bought the Obadiah Perry Farm and renamed it Home Plate. Henry Ford bought the Wayside Inn a mile down the road. Ford complained that Ruth’s dogs were chasing his chickens. He was miffed the Babe drove a Packard rather than one of his company’s Lincolns, and unsuccessfully tried to sell him a tractor.

The Beery Babe

Longfellow’s Wayside Inn

Babe Ruth told the press he spent the winter of 1922-23 at his new farm, where he chopped wood and tried to lose weight. He kept axes around the property in case reporters showed up, but as soon as they left he hired local teenagers to finish the chopping. He just sat, drank beer and talked to them.

After a snowstorm in January 1923, Babe Ruth nearly cleaned out a South Sudbury grocer, reported the Boston Globe. He and Helen drove to a general store in a one-horse sleigh and stocked up for the next storm. While his wife bought steak, potatoes and carrots, Babe Ruth collected cheese, fancy crackers, marmalade, oranges, chipped beef and bacon. Then he signed a check for $25 with his picture on it. So much for his diet.

He did bring orphaned children out to his farm by the busload. Several times a year he hosted a picnic and a ballgame. Then he sent each kid home with a bat, a ball and a glove. According to local history, Babe brought the piano onto the ice for a children’s party and no alcohol was served – he never drank in front of children.

Farmer Babe

Farming didn’t go so well for the Sultan of Swat. He bought hundreds of chickens but many died of disease. His pit bull ran loose and killed a neighbor’s prize cow. In 1926 a warrant was issued for his arrest because he didn’t pay his state taxes.

By the summer of 1925, he said he was through with farming, which was fine for a retired businessman but not an active ballplayer. “The place there cost me a good penny,” he told reporters. “When you are not around to supervise, you lose more money.” He sold the farm to Herbert and Esther Arkinson in 1927.

Home Plate Farm today

Though Babe Ruth left Sudbury, the legend of the piano persisted. Three sets of boys claimed to have seen it in the pond during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.

In December 2001 a local Red Sox fan named Kevin Kennedy persuaded six divers from the Quincy Police Search and Rescue Team to scour the pond for the piano for four hours. They came up empty. Then the next year, John Fish of American Underwater Search and Survey used a magnetometer and sonar equipment to search the pond. Nothing.

Curse Ended?

A teenaged boy who lived on the site of the former Home Plate was struck by a batted ball in August 2004 during a game between the Red Sox and the Los Angeles Angels. Some thought the incident presaged the end of the Curse of the Bambino. The Red Sox won that game and the Yankees lost 22-0 to the Cleveland Indians. The Red Sox then went on to win the World Series.

Jane Leavy, in her 2018 book The Big Fella, solved the mystery of the piano, or at least part of it. The Babe had, indeed, transported an upright piano downhill to the icy surface of Willis Pond one winter day. Helen apparently played it during some revelry al fresco. Then someone pushed it off the ice before the evening ended, but even the Babe couldn’t push it uphill. So there it sat for decades

What Happened to the Piano

In 1964, a first-grader named Charlie Barry and his brother Steve stumbled across the old piano in the woods by the pond. They told their mother, who told a neighbor, who remembered how someone had pushed it off the ice after a party. A few years later the boys built a clubhouse from plywood they borrowed from building sites around the pond. They used it for smoking cigarettes, drinking beer and reading Playboy. And they used the piano’s remains for a toilet.

When the clubhouse began to stink they decided to burn it down. The piano, though, wouldn’t burn, so they threw it into the lake.

In 2010, a local Red Sox fan named Kevin Kennedy persuaded some divers to try again. Charlie Barry, living in Grafton, called the Sudbury Historical Society to say they were looking in the wrong place. Then he drew a map. The divers found a piano leg and a six-foot-square piece of wood they believe belonged to the Bambino’s piano. Two experts — one on wood, one on old pianos — confirmed the wood could belong to a 1920s piano. The divers also believed they’d spotted the harp, but they couldn’t dig it up without an excavation permit and a certified archaeological diver on site.

They placed the wood into the custody of the Sudbury Historical Society, where it sits in storage.

Home Plate Farm sold on Oct. 1, 2013 for $1,225,000.

This story about Babe Ruth was updated in 2022.

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The New England Inns and Taverns Quiz

Who doesn’t love New England’s historic inns and taverns? Nowhere else in the country are there so many old watering holes and rest stops that date to the American Revolution — and before.

Longfellow’s Wayside Inn, for example, opened as an inn in 1716. But there are older inns and taverns, like the White Horse Tavern in Newport, R.I. Or the Old Yarmouth Inn on Cape Cod.

We thought we’d test your knowledge of New England’s inns and taverns with our Inns and Taverns Quiz.

[mlw_quizmaster quiz=6]

The tavern at Longfellow’s Wayside Inn in Sudbury, Mass.

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6 Historic Stagecoach Stops You Can Visit

The history of New England’s post roads and their stagecoach stops mirror the history of the country. The roads date back to the Pequots who used the trails that grew into the post roads for generations. The same trails carried John Winthrop on his journeys from Boston to Springfield.

Traffic on the roads shrank as King Philip’s War turned them into dangerous gauntlets. They expanded again as the war ended and horses made travel more enticing and the mails more efficient.

The heyday of the stagecoaches in the 1800s really drove a blossoming of the post roads. They grew from the first Upper Post Road into a maze of roads that wound their way into every corner of New England.

These stagecoaches created economic booms wherever they went, bringing commerce as well as jobs. Stagecoach stops, needed every 12 to 20 miles or so, were essential, especially in the early days of the stagecoach era. These inns provided income to their owners, and many others: drivers, ticket agents, coach makers, blacksmiths, stable hands and farmers.

Today, the vestiges of the stagecoach era remain with us. Many of the roads New Englanders travel today were once used by the stagecoaches. And along those roads, some of the old stagecoach stops still serve up food, drink and comfort to the weary traveler.

Here are six still open to the public today, one in each New England state:

Old Riverton Inn

The Old Riverton Inn, one of Connecticut’s many, many stagecoach stops back in the day.

Several years before the American Revolution, stagecoaches and stagecoach stops appeared on the Upper Post Road from New York to Boston, and from Hartford to Norwich and Providence. The war interrupted service, but resumed when it wound down. Stagecoach service expanded quickly on the new turnpike roads and postal routes.

Levi Pease began a stage service between New York and Boston on the Upper Post Road. He got the mail contract for all of New England from the U.S. Congress in 1789. Then he expanded his business into Northern New England and to Albany.

By 1827 Connecticut had 26 stage routes. By then it took only 36 hours to travel between New York and Boston vs. the previous six days. Taverns were generally 12 to 18 miles apart. Drivers announced their arrival at stagecoach stops by blowing on a trumpet.

During the early part of the 19^th century, Connecticut developed the most complex network of toll roads in New England. The state had few centers of wealth like Providence or Boston, and market towns competed fiercely for the trade of the back country. Between 1792 and 1839, 1,600 miles of turnpike road were created in Connecticut. The Talcott Mountain Turnpike was a key part of the route from Hartford to Albany.

Jess Ives opened the Ives Tavern or Ives Hotel in 1796 along the Hartford-to-Albany Route in Riverton, Conn. Today it’s known as the Old Riverton Inn and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It overlooks a wild and scenic section of the Farmington River.

The artist who painted murals on the walls of the Hobby Horse Bar also painted murals for the 1936 New York World’s Fair. The inn features bar stools made of saddles on kegs.

For more information about the Old Riverton Inn, click here.

Coach Stop Inn

The Coach Stop Inn, one of the stagecoach stops along the way from Bar Harbor to Maine’s interior.

Stagecoach lines began regular service between Maine towns after the Revolutionary War. The first stages ran between Portland and Portsmouth, N.H., a journey that took three days in 1787. By 1825, a stage could make the journey between Bangor and Portland in 36 hours.

The Coach Stop Inn in Bar Harbor was built in 1804 for newcomers who came to build homes, farms and ships on Mount Desert Island. Known as the Halfway Tavern, it often hosted sailors in the early days. Patrons would arrive by sea and take a stagecoach from the tavern into Maine’s interior towns.

Wealthy patrons charmed by fresh air, beautiful scenery and hiking trails made Bar Harbor a fashionable summer resort during the Gilded Age. In 1947, a fire that burned much of Maine also destroyed some of Bar Harbor’s hotels and mansions. The oldest hotel to survive the fire is now the Coach Stop Inn, a luxurious bed and breakfast.

For more information, click here.

Longfellow’s Wayside Inn

The most famous of the stagecoach stops, The Wayside Inn.

The Wayside Inn in Sudbury, Mass., boasts that it’s the oldest operating inn in the United States. It has accommodated travelers along the Boston Post Road since 1716. Just a few miles down the road from historic Minuteman National Historical Park in Concord, it began life 300 years ago as Howe’s Tavern. David Howe ran it as an extension of his own home.

David handed the property to his son Ezekial – a soldier in Sudbury’s militia during the American Revolution. The Howe family continued to operate and expand the inn until 1861, serving traffic between Worcester and Boston.

The inn stopped operating as a traditional inn in 1861. The owners converted it into something more like a boarding house and dance hall.

But in 1862, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow sealed the inn’s place in history. Longfellow visited the building and published his now-famous Tales of the Wayside Inn in 1863. From that time on, the inn was the destination of tourists and literary pilgrims who wanted to see first-hand the inspiration for Longfellow’s book.

In 1923, the inn took another important step into immortality when automobile magnate Henry Ford bought the property. Ford then began the restoration and expansion that gave shape to the inn’s current configuration.

For more information, click here.

Coach Stop Restaurant & Tavern

The Coach Stop, one of New Hampshire’s many stagecoach stops in the early 19th century.

In 1786 the legislature in New Hampshire expanded the system of post roads to travel to four sections of the state. Though the earlier post roads moved mail and people between Portsmouth and some points west and north, only later did the routes reach deep into the western portion of the state.

One such line ran from Portsmouth across the state’s southern tier over to Amherst and back, creating the need for taverns and inns along the way.

Londonderry’s Coach Stop Restaurant & Tavern began life in 1810 as the home of the town’s doctor. Later in the 1800s it was maintained as Plummer’s Tavern, located at the junction of two post roads. One carried coaches east and west to Nashua and the other carried traffic north and south to Manchester and Concord. For a map of all stagecoach lines operating in New Hampshire in 1833, click here.

Today the restaurant and inn maintains much of its historical charm, with signs of the original elements of its days as a coach stop remaining intact.

For more information, click here.

Stagecoach House Inn

The Stagecoach House Inn, for many years one of the stagecoach stops along the New London Turnpike.

Settlers first came to Wyoming, a historic village in Richmond, Rhode Island, in 1757. Wyoming grew and prospered when the Brand’s Iron Works was founded across the Wood River in Hopkinton in 1787. Sometime around 1800, an inn was built at a strategic crossroads in Wyoming.

Textile mills sprang up in the area, and in 1815 the New London Turnpike opened right past the inn. The new road brought stagecoach riders between Richmond and New London, Connecticut

By 1835, the New London Turnpike – now Route 3 – connected Providence and New London. It proved to be faster and more direct than the Old Post Road, which followed the coastal route. The village thrived, and for many years an inn once known as Dawley Tavern continued as a stagecoach stop.

By the 20^th century, industry began to founder along the Wood River. That, however, allowed Hopkinton and Wyoming to retain much of their historic 19^th century character. The National Register of Historic Places lists almost a square mile of the two villages as the Wyoming Village Historic District. It includes the old ironworks, Greek Revival, Late Victorian, and Federal architecture in both Wyoming and Hopkinton.

Today the Dawley Tavern is called the Stagecoach House Inn at 1136 Main Street.

For more information, click here.

Stagecoach Inn

The Stagecoach Inn, a fitting name for one of Vermont’s old stagecoach stops.

At the start of the 19th century, ancient footpaths connected Burlington and Montpelier in Vermont. In 1805, the 36-mile Winooski Turnpike along the Winooski River was chartered to connect the two major towns.

The old Winooski Turnpike turned into U.S. Route 2, the main highway connecting the White Mountains to the Adirondacks. It cuts through Waterbury, the town where Ben and Jerry’s make their ice cream.

In 1826 either a Mr. Parmalee or a lawyer named Dan Carpenter had a structure built on the corner of the Winooski Turnpike and what is now Route 100. The building served as a tavern and inn for travelers and as a meeting place for locals.

By the mid-1800s, a farming family named the Henrys owned the inn. Their eccentric daughter Nettie married an Ohio rubber baron, Albert Spencer. Nettie smoked cigarettes, chewed tobacco and wore a celluloid eyeshade. She expanded and improved the old family house in Queen Anne Style.

Nettie Spencer died in 1947. The home was later run as a rooming house and fell into disrepair. A young couple from Boston bought the property in 1985 and rebuilt the house. Today it’s the Old Stagecoach Inn, a historic bed-and-breakfast in the center of downtown Waterbury.

For more information about the Stagecoach Inn click here.

This story about New England stagecoach stops was updated in 2021. If you enjoyed this story, you may also want to read about six Revolutionary taverns here.

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John Hancock Snubs George Washington

In the fall of 1789, President George Washington spent 10 days in Massachusetts, greeted by large crowds of people — with the notable exception of Gov. John Hancock.

Washington had been president six months, and he knew well the fragility of the union. He decided to knit the 13 colonies together with his personal popularity, and announced he would visit each of the states during his first year in office.

John Singleton Copley painted this portrait of John Hancock around 1771. Courtesy Massachusetts Historical Society.

His first stop in Massachusetts was in Springfield, where he inspected the federal armory. Then he rode on to Palmer, West Brookfield, Brookfield, Spencer, Leicester and Worcester, where he received a 13-gun salute. He rode through Marlborough, Shrewsbury, Sudbury and Weston.

Everywhere he went, cheering crowds crowds greeted him. People treasured everything he touched: dishes, chairs, beds. Many towns renamed streets “Washington Street” after he rode on them.

Where’s John Hancock?

Washington arrived in Cambridge on October 24, where he had maintained headquartered during the Siege of Boston. He was then escorted to Boston by high-ranking officials led by Lt. Gov. Samuel Adams. John Hancock was not among them.

Hancock believed he outranked Washington, who was only president of a confederation. Hancock was governor of a commonwealth.

George Washington

While Hancock holed up, the rest of Boston went wild celebrating Washington’s arrival. Despite Washington’s request that there be no ceremony, he was met with a grand procession from one end of the Common to the Statehouse. Lining the route were citizens grouped by trade, each flying a white silk flag with its insignia. Washington passed through a temporary arch designed by Charles Bulfinch as a chorus of young men serenaded him with a song, Washington, the hero is come.

Washington stayed in a private home, where official plans called for Hancock to pay him a visit and then host a dinner for him. A few minutes before the scheduled meeting, Hancock sent word that he couldn’t make it because of his health. Washington responded by excusing himself from the dinner.

Jealousy, Maybe?

Hancock’s treatment of Washington may have had deeper causes than his commitment to the sovereignty of Massachusetts. Years earlier, Hancock had wanted the Continental Congress to appoint him rather than Washington commander in chief of the Continental Army.

Three years after that, however, Hancock named his son John George Washington Hancock.

Mercy Otis Warren offers an explanation for John Hancock’s behavior toward Washington: He was vain and fickle.

Mr. Hancock was a young gentleman of fortune, of more external accomplishments than real ability. He was polite in manners, easy in address, affable, civil and liberal. With these accomplishments, he was capricious sanguine and implacable; naturally generous, he was profuse in expense; he scattered largesse without discretion, and purchased favors by the waste of wealth, until he reached the ultimatum of his wishes, which centered in the focus of popular applause.

Mercy Otis Warren by John Singleton Copley. Courtesy Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

Blame the Gout

The people of Boston noticed that John Hancock snubbed George Washington, and they didn’t like it one bit. Hancock finally realized his behavior hurt his popularity. So the next day he sent emissaries to Washington with his humble apologies and a question: What time would it be good for Washington to see him?

Washington replied between 1 pm and 2 pm, and John Hancock showed up almost immediately – his legs swathed in bandages. His gout, he explained, prevented him from welcoming the president.

Washington gracefully accepted Hancock’s explanation.

This story was updated in 2022.

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