A few years ago a group of local people conceived, planned, and implemented a successful recreational program that resulted in a fully functioning ski tow complete with automated towrope, concession stand, and groomed slopes. It operated atop Fay Scott Hill in Dexter in the late fifties and remained in operation for at least three years.

The theme for this recollection came to me early last winter as I strolled along High Street on a lazy Sunday forenoon. I stopped to look across what once was our old softball field and imagined things as they once were in my younger days. As I reminisced, I took note of a lone crab-apple tree with its tiny scarlet fruit clinging bravely to leafless branches. It might have been playing left field in the old ball diamond if trees do such things.

The tree leaned towards the crest of the hill in the background. That was when it struck me that there might still be evidence of the old ski tow way back up there as I was revisiting old ghosts near that overgrown hayfield listening to the dried up milkweed pods rattle, I walked past the scraggly apple tree leaving it to play perpetual left field in the old softball field and started up the hill.

No doubt back when N. H. Fay students played softball there the field was clear and afforded easier access to the top of one of Dexter’s well known hills.The hill was one of Dexter’s premier sliding and tobogganing areas. Now with all of the overgrowth, I suspect that less sliding is done there. Especially now because to reach the top of the hill one must thread their way through black spined thorn bushes and short, scratchy, green, ground junipers that snatch your clothing like angry farm cats as you wind your way up the hill late last year as I poked my way around the area, the early winter sun, even at its zenith did little more than promise to warm a deep chill in the air. The low-slung sun didn't seem to affect the frost that covered the dry dead leaves. They crunch, crunch, crunched under my feet like corn flakes before the milk is added. Thinking that, I happily trudged up N. H. Fay hill into the woods and at on a knoll overlooking part of my old neighborhood.

The first big impression on me was a growth of towering Eastern Pines that today stand over thirty feet tall. I realized that they came only up to my kneecaps when I was a younger man. The stand of pines gave way quickly to a beech grove as I trekked further east exploring an area that once was as familiar tome as it was to other laughing youngsters that ran with me here long ago. A quick glance over the tops of several beeches of a hardwood grove reminded me that I was near another local landmark, ‘Death Valley.” But that’s a different story.

On that particular chilly day last winter I was looking for evidence of the old ski-tow and found exactly what I was looking for still remaining there on the crest of the hill hidden from view by the pine grove, is the skeleton of the old ski tow. I could almost hear echoes of happier days when idyllic lovers stopped to carve their initials into the gray trunks of the majestic old beech trees.

Many of the old beeches that the locals carved their initials in days gone by, still stand today. Lots of initials and arrow shot valentines are still clearly visible in the smooth gray barked beeches. Although most of the ancient trees are toppled and decaying today, they still sport valentine shaped hearts and the initials of long forgotten love affairs and lovers on the frosty day that I strolled along the hill top, it was no longer the happy laughter of young lovers that I heard in the grove, but the lonely scolding of a red squirrel mixed with the easily identifiable call of some twittering, darting, black - capped chickadees. They broke the day’s solitude as the filtered winter sunlight angled against the ancient beech trees creating long shadows though it was getting very near noon. As I breathed the chilly New England air I tried to imagine what the ski tow was like when it began, I sensed something that day that was almost haunting.

There is almost always something lonely about places where happy people once played together, but have long since abandoned.Yet at the same time there are much happier thoughts hovering there in that quiet place. The ski-tow is a place with lots of proof that someone made something wonderful happen here a long time ago on N. H. Fay hill.

Today the proof is reflected in the ruins of the recreational site. All that is left today is a serpentine line of four, fifteen-foot creosote coated telephone poles that stand proudly between the pines and the beech trees as sentinels of times past. The poles are topped with old car wheels fastened to long rusted hubs.The wheels and hubs once acted as pulleys servicing over 1300 feet of one inch rope from the Narragansett Rope Company that pulled rosy cheeked skiers from the bottom to the crest of the hill.

According to Charlie Bachelor, the telephone poles came from a construction site on the Ripley Road and the first motor that drove the tow-was a 1937 Oldsmobile engine donated by Walter Leo Function of the mechanical portions of the tow were conceived during breaks at Fay Scott Landis Machine Shop and were literally placed in motion using good old Yankee ingenuity.

The rope tow had a dead mans switch that shut the tow off in case of an emergency. The switch was designed using a clothespin capped with copper. It was connected to the ignition side of the engine coil and acted as a safety trip. The safety pin was fastened to a small rope that trailed to the bottom of the hill allowing anyone near it to shut the entire operation off remotely.

Operational safety of the rope tow was further assured by state officials who stopped by to inspect the entire operation from time to time.

A brief interview with a couple of the principals involved in the early stages of developing the ski-tow gleaned some information and a lot of worthwhile memories as I researched this story about Dexter’s earliest ski-tows. I talked to Errol Arnold and Charlie Bachelor both of whom worked at Fay Scott Landis and were largely responsible for a large part of the early planning and formation of the ski tow. They were kind enough to give me the names of people that still deserve some thanks and recognition.

There are lots of familiar names associated with the planning, building, operating, maintenance, as well as administration of the old ski tow. Here is a list of the names of some of the folks that played vital roles in making the ski tow a reality: Ardell ‘Pud” Howard, Don Champion, Audry Champion, Charlie Bachelor, Ralph Batson, Keith Lancaster, Errol Arnold, Bart Sicliano, Helen Brown, Tom Brown, Dave Brown, Walter Leo, and Charlie Wilson.

There are of course others, but that is part of the fun of writing this type of story, it is bound to jog a few memories. It may even remind someone that Paula Chabot has the dubious distinction of being the first person to break her leg on the slopes of N. H. Fay Hill Ski-tow shortly after it opened. (Note Paula told me that she broke her leg on the new ski tow not the NH Fay Hill-Fred)

While it operated, admission to the ski tow was free and the n monies needed to keep it open were partially provided by operation of a concession stand located in a small shack at the top of the hill. Some folks might remember that the shack was later vandalized and burned to the ground. But while it stood, it helped defray some of the cost of up-keep. The stand was often voluntarily operated by Helen Brown or some of the area’s young people. The ski-tow came about to meet the recreational needs of lots of Dexter’s youth of those days including Helen’s sons Dave and Tommy who often helped out in the concession booth or pitched in else where as mentioned earlier, lots of people unselfishly donated their time, material and money to keep the ski tow operating. The project remained a success for at least three years running and was the forerunner of the ski tow that operates on Abbott Hill overlooking Lake Wassookeag today.