I HAD A DREAM... in 1972 I decided to make it a reality. I asked my neighbor, Gene Fortun, who was just completing the Daniel Webster Inn in Sandwich, Massachusetts to help me put my ideas on paper and design my club on the North River.

I wanted a rustic lodge type cocktail lounge... a dining room overlooking the historic river... a clubhouse crowning a hill of towering pines... a boathouse... a chalet... a pavilion for functions overlooking our waterfalls and skating ponds... a barn... a riding club... the privacy of 60 acres... and a planned program of activity for family, fun, and recreation on the original grounds of the Historic Pantoosic Inn. The original Inn was at the half way point between Plymouth and Boston where the stage coaches refreshed their teams of horses and forged the North River to complete their journey.

In the original deed to my house on River Road in Hanover, it states that I own the Pantoosic Spring and the attached windmill that pumped the water to the Inn and surrounding farms. Hence, I decided to name my private club: Pantooset Farms Country Club.

A horseback riding companion, Marie, suggested I call her dad, Attorney Charles O. Monahan to guide me through the complicated permit and financing process to make my dream a reality. Before a spade was put in the ground, I had a formal construction commitment from a bank to proceed in stages to the completion of my dream.

Every Sunday morning, my daughters, Anna and Lisa would pick blueberries in our yard and my wife would make muffins. We would then invite prospective members to our club for either a buggy ride or a sleigh ride on our trails and explain my proposed project to them. When we returned to the barn there was coffee and muffins and a display of our plans for the club along with applications for membership available to our guests.

With our membership in place, we were granted our club license to precede, our mortgage in place, and we were allowed to begin construction of our large flat-top boat house that would house our 4 pontoon boats, 6 paddle boats, and 26 canoes. It was flat-roofed so as not to obscure the view of the river and blend into the hillside. This also provided the only vantage point anywhere from land to view the two bridges over the North River with the old stone bridge being framed by the modem Route 53 Bridge.

Next the Lodge was built adjacent to the boathouse to accommodate office space on the top floor; a Daniel Webster era dining room with fieldstone fireplace and a modern kitchen on the main floor; and on the lower walk out level: a cozy lounge with bar and select imported barn-board paneled walls similar to the Daniel Webster Inn in Sandwich combined with an exact replica of a historic brick fireplace from a home in Duxbury; plus a unique 110 foot mural by prize winning artist, James McGurl of Quincy, depicting the history of Hanover and ship building on the North River from the past to the present and from day to night. The mural featured a full rendering of the Boston Tea Party Ship, "The Beaver" that was built at a shipyard less than a mile from Pantooset as well as one of the launching of "The Helen M. Foster". . . a rendering of a stage coach crossing the river on the old stone bridge. . . along with renderings of the original Pantoosic Inn and scenes from Center Hanover of Brigg's Stables and the Hanover Town Hall. This masterpiece was featured in an article in Yankee Magazine. Both Greyhound and Trailways Bus Lines featured a stop at Pantooset Farms to see this mural on their Historic Patriotic Tours from Boston to Concord & Lexington to Plymouth to Pantooset and back to Boston.

In spite of a number of setbacks during the construction phase of the club that included the Quincy Cooperative Bank's new president, John A. Vivian, withdrawing their commitment to finance the construction of the club to the unexpected death of my dear friend, Attorney Charles Monahan who had arranged for replacement financing that got side tracked because of his demise, we somehow got the club open on June 8, 1974. Forced to improvise to accommodate the functions we had booked, we added a tent to the roof of the boathouse pavilion and ultimately increased our membership to 1500 members.

Pantooset Farms became the talk of the town and our membership waiting list grew dramatically as our family oriented dinner club flourished in spite of the unreasonable constraints put upon us by jealous conservationists. Then the dream became a nightmare! Suddenly on November 1 st, the night of the Fireman's Ball at Pantooset, somebody set my shopping center on Route 53 on fire. Six weeks later, after servicing two large Christmas parties in our tent, during the night after closing someone set the club on fire. Simultaneously the next day, my wife received phone threats on my daughters' lives. I received similar phone threats along with threats of additional fires on our barn and home.

After expensive round the clock security combined with the anxiety and apprehension to even allow my daughter and/or wife to go to the barn alone to tend to our horses, the joy of having the club became a nightmare. We can never repay the support we received from our close friends and are forever grateful. John Landers, a classmate and photo-editor of the Boston Herald, secretly took me and my family under his wings with his crime fighting friends and afforded me the guidance, courage, and protection to move on during this trying time. While I did my best to insulate my children and family from what was going on, my wife Mary, found comfort in some very expensive psychiatric care.

In Florida, I worked out a financial arrangement with Ralph Tedeschi to reopen Pantooset Farms in concert with Mill Pond Tennis Club and pay off the club mortgage with Berkshire Bank and Trust Company. The bank refused to take the money to payoff their mortgage and opted to take the property. We fought them to no avail and ultimately the club was sold. It was when the smoke finally cleared that I then joined the Jack Conway Company. I never found out who started the fires, etc. I only thank God that that chapter of my life is behind me.

It wasn't until three or four years later that I learned that the Rand Company who at that time owned the property where Building 19 is today, and The Berkshire Bank & Trust Company had obtained a $15,000,000.00 federal PUD grant to build 400 luxury condominiums along the river on the club property and a number of low income units along the North side of their property using our clubhouse and boathouse as amenities for their 100 plus acre project. It seems they never realized that Mrs. Chase had sold me the acreage that went out to Elm Street and divided their property, nor did they expected me to get the club open and operating while they were in the process of getting their grant.

To my friends, neighbors, and those that joined me in my dream at Pantooset Farms Country Club, we had many good times, and I thank you for the memories ... Yours truly,

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