Allen - New England skiing, 1870-1940

Dr. F. Lawton leads Fred H. Harris at speed on a slide near Brattleboro, Vermont, about 1905.

John C. Perry remarks on skiing in this diary entry of December 1885. Perry and a couple of New Ipswich, New Hampshire friends made their own skis, bending the tips in his mothers washer. He went off to school and to the dentist on skis, and had a genuine good time with his friends.

This drawing of a New Hampshire school race in 1886 is quite correct in portraying the lone student on skis. Snowshoes were far more usual in New England until the 1920s.

There were no instructional manuals at the turn of the century. Instruction was by experience, and two-on-a pole proved a good way to learn how to ski.

These 1899 skis from Hartland, Connecticut, were hand-crafted by Norwegian immigrant Ole Simonsen for Willis L. Hayes, owner of the village store.

The popular look of a skier was portrayed in 1908 by a girl sporting a Harvard sweater. The college men took to the sport in the years before World War I, and college women did so in the 1920s.

Tumbles a-plenty there were in the early days off the jump, but few broken bones resulted, because the bindings consisted of nothing but a leather strap over the toes. Fred Harris rejoiced in getting distances of 40 and 45 feet.

Skiing down toboggan slides was not unusual in the years before World War I. The slide at St. Johnsbury, Vermont, attracted skiers c. 1890.

Maines rural population was declining. In response, Widgery Thomas, recognizing Swedes as ideal settlers for Maine, brought over twenty-two men, eleven women, and eighteen children, who arrived on July 23, 1870, to create New Sweden.

This schoolhouse and the church were the first public buildings in New Sweden. In winter, children skied 5 miles across the countryside, slipping over the snow on skidor, Swedish snowshoes, and left the skis lining the side of the building, a strange sight in a Yankee school house.